In this guide 6 sections
Give every piece of work a client and a job code. Staff log time against that code each day, and you compare logged hours with the agreed fee every week. That comparison, more than the timesheet itself, shows which engagements earn their keep and which quietly drain the firm.
Start with the job, not the timesheet
Time tracking fails when an entry has no home. It is that simple. Before anyone logs an hour, split each client into jobs such as the monthly bookkeeping retainer, the annual return, a one-off audit, a website rebuild or a tender response.
Each job gets a code and a fee. Keep the list short. Staff will not scroll through sixty codes, and around eight per person is workable.
Add an internal client for meetings, training, proposals and admin. Non-billable hours then have a place and stop hiding inside client jobs.
- Client name and job code
- Agreed fee and billing cycle
- Budgeted hours, set by the partner
- Job owner
- Start and end date
Make logging take under two minutes a day
A timesheet filled on Friday for the whole week is fiction, since people remember the big jobs and forget the phone calls, the rework and the interruptions. Ask for entries at the close of each day. Fifteen minute blocks work well.
Use a plain screen with three fields: job, hours, note. The note matters. More than it looks. A line such as “chased bank statements, second reminder” explains a bad week better than any report.
Let people copy yesterday’s entries. Most days repeat.
Compare fee against effort every week
Once a week the practice manager opens one view. Monday morning suits. It lists each job with hours logged, hours budgeted, the fee and the fee earned per hour. The worst ratio sits at the top.
Read the top five jobs. Is the client sending documents late, has the scope crept, or is a junior doing work a senior would finish faster? Each cause needs a different fix, and only the notes reveal which one you face.
Do this weekly, not at year end. A retainer running over for three months is still a conversation. After a year it is a loss.
- Fee earned per hour, by job
- Hours against budget, with the trend
- Work done outside the agreed scope
- Staff time per client, by seniority
Handle the timesheet fights before they start
Staff resist tracking when it feels like surveillance, so say plainly what the data is for: pricing the next proposal and spotting clients who need a conversation. It is not a league table of hours.
Show the same view to the team. Nothing is hidden. When people see their own notes explain a fee review, they write better notes and log sooner.
Agree rules for the awkward cases on one page. Cover travel time, waiting on a client’s reply, rework caused by your own mistake, and time spent training a new joiner.
Use the numbers when you quote and when you renew
After one quarter you hold real hours per type of job. A small-company tax filing takes this long, a monthly campaign report takes that long, and a statutory audit needs more review time than anyone guessed.
Quote from those figures, not memory. Memory flatters. At renewal, put the job view in front of the client. Someone who sees the extra work done under a flat fee will usually accept a change in scope or fee.
Pick one client this week. Set up its jobs, then begin logging.
Fee against effort tracker
Every job takes a single line on one printed sheet. Columns hold client, job code, owner, agreed fee and budgeted hours, followed by hours logged this month, hours to date and fee earned per hour. The last column records the reason for any overrun, such as late documents, extra review rounds or scope creep.
Open a blank worksheet to printQuestions owners ask
Do we need to track hours for fixed-fee work?
Yes, and more than for hourly work. A fixed fee hides overruns, and the only way to see them is to log the time each job consumes.
How detailed should a time entry be?
A job code, the hours and one line of note. Anything longer will be skipped by busy staff, and then the whole habit collapses within a month.
What if partners refuse to log time?
Start with the team below them and share the results. Partners usually join once they see their own advice time given away unbilled.
Should unbilled time be logged too?
Always. Pitches, training and rework show the real cost of running the firm, and they show where fees are set too low.