Billable Hours: Understanding How Law Firms Bill

what are billable hours

Ranging from law to advertising, several sectors of work use this form of charging a client. Before a business, agency, or freelancer starts working with a client, they must first what are billable hours come to an agreement on the rate charged per hour. Work of higher quality or precision, and done by prestigious or well-established businesses, tend to be more expensive.

Expert advice and resources for today’s accounting professionals. Attending any meetings with people who aren’t yet contracted clients. Spend an hour creating an email campaign you plan to use to market your services. For workers like consultants, freelancers, and contractors, a full day’s work, hopefully, looks a little different. Some guess and some do it manually whereas others may use the many different types of software available.

How to Increase Billable Hours

Tracking all of your time can also help you understand which clients tend to require more non-billable hours from your team. When you only get paid for your billable time, you might wonder why you should even track non-billable hours at all. Profitability is the basis of business, and if you want your enterprise to work, then you need to ensure the math behind it is correct. By tracking time, you’ll be in a better position to quote your clients accurately ensuring profitability to your business.

what are billable hours

There has to be a common agreement between you and client on the rates as you set up a contract. We saw in one Yale Law School report that there is a vast divide between actual hours and billable hours.

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Tracking both billable and non-billable time helps you understand the true costs of running your business, assign realistic workloads to employees, and provide more value to your clients. Eboni Moss, is a CPA and the owner of The Master Resource, LLC, a firm that helps businesses identify resources and opportunities to scale their businesses. ClickTime’s timesheet solution can speed up your timekeeping process.