Updated 17th January 2024
If you only track billable time, you’re only tracking part your work. While timesheets are important for recording immediate revenue, tracking non-billable hours helps teams become more efficient, effective and profitable.
What are non-billable hours?
Non-billable hours represent everything you do at work that can’t be billed to a client. They can be costs absorbed by your business that enable it to function and continue, as well as project-specific expenses. Common examples of non-billable time include:
Bids, proposals and pitches for new business
All-hands company meetings
Staff development and training
Networking and conference appearances
Entertaining clients
Business development, strategy and research
Operational admin (time tracking, invoicing, expensing, bookkeeping, managing company finances).
The advantages of tracking non-billable time:
Remove expensive inefficiencies such as admin and redundant meetings.
Improve profitability
Find more billable hours
Protect development time
Get more quality from time.
How to track non-billable hours?
In your contract or contract template, click the Add line button to create a Fixed contract line and name it for example, Non-billable and set the Amount and Budget fields to 0:
By setting the Amount field to 0, you are indicating that the Used hours value will not be invoiced. The example above, shows that € 400,00 worth of hours has been logged but will not be invoiced.
This method of tracking non-billable hours, can be applied to any activity in your project including tasks.