Billable hours are the hours worked on a task or a project that can be charged to a customer. The concept is simple: The more billable time tracked, the more you can charge clients. This is why a complete understanding of billable time and keeping track of total billable hours is crucial for your business.

In this article, you will learn:

• How to track work hours and improve your billing process,
• How to set up and meet billable hours targets,
• What is the perfect ratio of billable time and non-billable time,
• How to approach tracking billable hours and choose the best billable time tracking software.

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What are billable hours?

Billable hours are the hours worked on a task or a project that can be charged to a customer. They are usually billed to the client at an agreed-upon hourly rate and are crucial in calculating the total cost of the service.

Learn how to calculate billable hours.

Billable hours vs. non-billable hours

Do you need help to differentiate between billable and non-billable tasks? Sometimes, we all do, but let’s try to simplify it.

While billable hours are spent working directly on a client’s project, non-billable hours are spent on administrative work or overhead tasks unrelated to client service.
That’s why working on a client’s strategy should be categorized as billable hours and invoiced accordingly. On the other hand, participating in time management training, unrelated to any specific project, should be classified as non-billable time.
Below, you will find some common examples of billable and non-billable activities.

Billable hours examples

Here are a few examples of billable time to make things clear:

• Legal professionals: In legal services, a billable hour may be time spent on tasks such as legal research for a client, drafting legal documents, attending meetings with clients or other lawyers, appearing in court, etc. Read how law firms track billable hours.
• Consultant: If you’re a consultant, you may bill your clients for time spent on tasks such as conducting specific research, preparing reports, analyzing data, developing strategies, and providing advice on business operations or management, for example;
• Freelancer: You may bill clients for time spent on tasks such as researching and writing articles or blog posts if you’re a copywriter, for example, editing and proofreading, and communicating with clients;
• Web developer: Web developers who may work for marketing or development agencies may bill their clients for time spent on tasks such as designing and building websites, testing and debugging code, and providing overall technical support.

Examples of non-billable hours

Now, let’s see some examples of the most common non-billable work:

• Internal meetings: meetings that are held internally with your team members to discuss business operations, strategy, or internal processes of the company you work for;
• Administrative tasks: such as answering phone calls, replying to emails, filing overall paperwork, and other administrative work;
• Professional development: training, attending conferences, or other professional development activities that can be considered an investment in your professional skills and expertise;
• Marketing and business development: efforts made by a professional or business to promote their services and attract new clients, such as attending networking events or developing marketing materials to generate leads and establish new business relationships.

Hours spent on activities like those we just mentioned are not billed to the client as they’re not directly related to the work you do for them.
See the difference between billable vs. non-billable hours now?

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Benefits of tracking billable and non-billable work

By tracking the billable and non-billable hours, you can:

• Analyze your profitability, as you can better identify where costs should be reduced and make smarter decisions when it comes to pricing and resource allocation;
• Identify if you need to adjust the price to ensure profitability;
• Get much more accurate invoicing, as your clients are paying you for your services fairly;
• Effective time management, as it allows you to prioritize your work and allocate time more efficiently;
• Create a more robust client relationship, as being 100% honest and transparent helps build trust and establish a long and strong working relationship with clients. 

How to keep track of billable hours

Keeping track of each billable moment should be a standard practice in all businesses that provide services invoiced hourly (agencies, law firms, consulting companies, and freelancers). You can track billable hours in many ways, using timesheets, calendars, email, pen and paper, or… a time tracking app.

Tracking billable hours is much simpler than you think. Although it seems mundane, it’s pretty straightforward when you use Timeular. This time tracking tool automatically collects all billable hours spent on specific projects.

Timeular is the most effortless time tracking app for teams and professionals who care about their productivity and want to track billable hours correctly. Timeular allows you to start and stop a timer for each task, generating insights and reports showing the time spent on each task and the money you can bill. You can filter, customize, and export the reports with a few clicks. How easy and convenient is that?

Simple steps to start tracking billable hours:

1. Create a free trial account.
2. Add work tasks and assign a relevant client name.
3. Label each activity as billable or non-billable time.
4. Add billing rate to each activity.
5. Track time and automatically collect insights about billable time (presented in a clear billable hours chart).

When you track time with Timeular, you get immediate answers to questions like:

• Are we spending time only on profitable projects and clients?
• How much time do we spend on billable tasks?
• Do we have enough billable hours to keep our business running?
• What should be our hourly rates for specific tasks?

How to calculate billable hours

Calculating billable hours is easy. You need to take how much you’ve worked and multiply it by your hourly rate. 

Billable hours = hourly rate x billable working hours

How to calculate billable hours – example

• Hourly rate: 40$
• Billable working hours: 20

Billable hours = 40$ (hourly rate) x 20 (billable working hours)
Billable hours = 800$

Tip: When using Timeular, add your hourly rate to each activity, and it will automatically calculate the total number of billable hours for you.

What’s the most effective billable hours model?

Many professionals are wondering what are the perfect billable hours targets. Each case would be different, and the general rule is that the more, the better.

However, it’s already a great result if your total billable hours make up 60% or more of your work hours. To make it perfect, dedicate 80% of your time to billable activities and 20% to non-billable tasks.

If you are currently spotting more non-billable hours than 20-40%, try to identify each non-billable task, group them, and handle them in a specific time slot, leaving the rest of the week for billable activities.

How to increase billable hours

There are many ways for you to increase your billable hours smartly. Here are a few strategies.

• Improve time management with a time tracker: Use a billable hours software, such as Timeular, to accurately analyze how you spend your time and find ways to be more productive;
• Review your work process and optimize your habits: Review your current work habits and try simplifying your workflow to be more efficient and reduce the amount of non-billable hours;
• Take on additional tasks: It may sound super obvious, but logically, if you can take on more work, it’ll be much easier to reach your billable hour goals. Check with your client if there are additional tasks that can be incorporated into your day. Just make sure you do it rationally and don’t take more than you can handle;
• Raise your rates: This is another thing that sounds obvious, and it is! Increasing your rates can lead to higher billable hours. Just bear in mind that if your goal is to raise rates, you should do so fairly not to affect your relationship with clients;
• Automate predictable tasks: There are tasks that we do every day that can easily be automated. Automating repetitive tasks frees up time to work on billable projects.

Just keep this in mind: it’s not all about increasing billable hours. It’s also about providing high-quality service to your clients and building long-term relationships so you can keep working with them in the long run.

How can time tracking help you with billable hours?

As we just mentioned, there are many strategies you can start implementing to increase your billable hours; however, tracking your time is one of the most powerful tools to do it efficiently.

By tracking your time and looking at the insights, you better understand how you spend your time, identify your daily inefficiencies, and optimize your workflows.

Here are a few ways in which time tracking is key to increasing billable hours:

• You catch every billable hour: A survey found that missing or inaccurate billable hours cost businesses $63807 per employee per year, which means $7.49 billion daily for US professional services sector providers. With time tracking, you won’t lose any precious billable minutes.
• Identify billable hours clearly: Time tracking helps you count billable and non-billable hours more clearly. You might realize that your non-billable hours are more than the billable ones. With this awareness, you will prioritize billable work instead of non-billable and allocate your time more successfully.
• Assess project profitability: By comparing the amount of time spent on a project to the actual money you get from it, you can assess its profitability and make more appropriate decisions regarding similar projects in the future.
• Set achievable deadlines: By tracking the time and knowing how much time you spend on similar tasks, you can set more realistic deadlines for future projects and avoid overcommitting and exhaustion.
• Enhance workflow: When you check the reports you get from tracking time, you quickly identify areas of inefficiency in your workflow, allowing you to make changes to increase productivity. For example, suppose you realize you spend a lot of time on administrative tasks that cannot be billed. In that case, you can delegate or automate them.
• Bill your clients accurately: The detailed info generated when you track your time can assist you in billing clients correctly and avoiding undercharging.

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Ever wondered how much time you and your team really spend on client work? Start tracking your time and capture 100% of your billable time

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Conclusion

In conclusion, understanding billable and non-billable hours is crucial for businesses to track all hours worked and create accurate invoices precisely.

These concepts are applicable across various industries, including law, consulting, freelancers, marketing agencies, IT companies, etc.

By accurately tracking your billable hours, you can ensure that you’re billing your clients ideally, managing your resources effectively to maximize revenue and increase business profitability.

Additionally, time tracking is critical to track billable hours and one of the best ways to increase their number.

FAQ

You might be interested in the following:

• How consultants are compensated
• How to increase revenue from existing customers
• The best ways to increase revenue and build your business for success
• How do lawyers keep track of billable hours
• The best client billing software

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