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.