What Counts as Billable
Billable time is any work your agreement lets you charge the client for. Usually that includes:
- The work itself: writing, design, development, repairs, research.
- Meetings and calls with the client or about their project.
- Revisions the client asks for.
- Travel, if your agreement says so (often at a lower rate).
Non-billable time keeps your business running: admin, invoicing, sales calls, learning, and fixing your own mistakes. Track it anyway. It shows where your week goes and whether your rate covers it.
Choose How You Capture Time
A Timer
Start it when you begin a task and stop it when you switch. It's the most accurate, as long as you remember to switch it with you.
Start and End Times
Log “9:15 to 11:45” right after a block of work. Good for work away from a screen, like site visits or calls on the road.
A Weekly Timesheet
Hours per project per day, filled in at the end of each day. Common on teams and with clients that approve hours by the week. Filling it in on Friday from memory is where hours go missing.
Habits That Keep It Accurate
- Track as you go. Time reconstructed at the end of the week usually comes in low.
- One entry per task, on the right project, so each line on the invoice explains itself.
- Write the description when you log it, in words the client will recognize: “Checkout page, fixed tax rounding.”
- Log small tasks too. Six short calls a week add up to an hour or more.
- Round the same way every time, to the increment in your agreement. See Billing in Tenths of an Hour.
Review Before You Bill
Once a week, or before every invoice, spend ten minutes on the period you're about to bill:
- Look for workdays with no time logged.
- Check entries without a description, and add one.
- Move entries that landed on the wrong project.
- Compare the hours with the project's budget or estimate, and tell the client early if it's running over.
Know Your Billable Share
Your billable share (or utilization) is billable hours divided by all the hours you worked. If you worked 40 hours and 31.5 were billable, that's 79%. Most freelancers bill well under all of their working hours, so price with that in mind: the Hourly Rate Calculator builds it in.