When you say client, do you mean they are not a client yet but may become one?  Or are they already a client?

Are you thinking about recovering your costs for what would be essentially a sales visit, or for visits when you will be doing work for them?

In the past I have had ISO certification providers present a list of "charges" applicable to certification visits.

Typically these would include a mileage rate (unsurprisngly matching HMRC Advisory Fuel Rate) a meal rate (again usurprsingly matching HMRC 480 tax guide values) and for protracted multi-day visits the option to either arrange Bed & Breakfast or be charged their listed standard accomodation rate.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/advisory-fuel-rates

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/expenses-and-benefits-for-directors-and-employees-a-tax-guide-480

265 miles and 5 hours I presume you are driving but if not then it is not unreasonable to recharge the public transport fares (bus, coach, train, tram, taxi).

With the typical working day being 8 hours you may also want to consider a charge for excess travelling time - you aren't earning while you are driving and if this is your first time on a significant journey your current hourly rate may not take in to consideration lost travelling hours. For example first 2 - 4 hours free each subsequent hour £x although do keep it realistic (in line with typical estimated mapping times not charging for exceptions).

The thing is to be up front there are costs associated with you making the trip and your client will know this.

If you dont recharge you will end up feeling resentfull over time. Similarly if you charge too low invoice scrutiny could become a future issue when you need to raise charges to match costs.

Remember no one should pay to be employed - if it is clearly documented and open to scrutiny there can be no dispute of resaonable reimbursement.

Beware though if you state mileage is at "HMRC rates" these change every three months.

Also, if you are unfortunate enough to drive an EV then HMRC AER fails to cover charging costs.

Hi Andy, this is going to sound grumpy but it's intended to be pragmatic.

This is the sort of issue that your business SHOULD have foreseen and closed out when you negotiated the contract, UNLESS the contract gives you enough wriggle room to say that a long journey was NOT foreseeable, e.g. if the contract was limited to desk top work.

So, now you are faced with a need to either take a hit or renegotiate terms to cater for travel time/costs, accommodation etc.

Which negotiation might even mean accepting that you take a hit for part or all of the costs for THIS trip, whilst agreeing the terms for future visits.

Not clear who the client is nor how many locations they might have.

But suppose that all their sites are in the North of England and you are based in Essex. They are unlikely to simply agree to pay all the travel time and associated costs if they could relatively easily get the services from a more local supplier.

Conversely, if they have a very wide geographic presence, then perhaps they expect that some of the visits will mean significant travel time, overnights and so on.

Or you might have some particular expoertise which is difficult to procure. In that case, distance becomes less of an issue.

These and other variables will influence how willing the Client is to accept all these additional costs.

Thanks all for the really useful advice, its greatly appreciated. Regarding the contracted work, we work for them in ESSEX, and they have a more local company up North however they had become unreliable and as such approached us. 

We never anticipated working on their other site at any point, however i will take on board the advice given for future refrerences.

From a H&S perspective you should have two nights in a hotel due to the distance being travelled.

From a business perspective you need to decide if:

* It is an opportunity to make a good return because your client is making a distress purchase
* You will gain more in the long term by doing it at a low cost as a one off to help them out.
* Make a reasonable charge in line with your existing contract.