Why hours slip away
Most small agencies do not lose money on the big project. They lose it on the small things around it: a quick fix after launch, a call that ran for an hour, a change the client asked for on WhatsApp. Each one feels too small to bill, and by month end nobody remembers how much of it there was.
Tracking hours is not about watching your team. It is about knowing where the time went, so you can price the next project better and bill the work you actually did.
Keep the timesheet simple
If logging time takes more than a minute, people will skip it or fill it in on Friday from memory. Keep the fields short:
- Project and task
- Date and hours
- Billable or non-billable
- One line on what was done
Billable versus non-billable
Decide in advance what counts as billable. Client calls, development, testing and deployment for a client usually are. Internal meetings, training and sales calls usually are not. Write the rule down once and share it, so two developers do not log the same kind of work in different ways.
Non-billable time is still worth logging. If a fixed-price project has eaten twice the hours you planned, you want to know that before you quote the next one.
A weekly routine
Ask everyone to log time daily, even if roughly. Once a week, a lead or the owner reviews the timesheets. Look for tasks with no hours, hours with no task, and projects where logged time is running ahead of the plan. Approve the week once it looks right.
Approved hours are the ones you bill from. This one step stops arguments later, because the hours were checked while the work was fresh.
From timesheet to invoice
For time-based clients, raise the invoice from approved hours for the period. For fixed-price or milestone clients, use the hours to spot change requests: work that was outside the agreed scope and should be quoted and billed separately.
Send the invoice with a short summary of what was done. Clients pay faster when they can see the work behind the number.
Common mistakes
Watch for these habits:
- Filling timesheets from memory at the end of the month
- No clear rule on what is billable
- Doing small change requests without logging them
- Never comparing planned hours with actual hours
How Akshvara helps
In Akshvara, your team logs hours against projects and tasks from the web or phone. You approve timesheets each week, see billable and non-billable time per project and use approved hours when you raise an invoice. Ask us for a free demo to see it on your own projects.
See Akshvara on a free demo
Tell us how your business works and we will show you Akshvara on a call.
Practical guides by email
Short guides for software for it services & software agencies owners and news about Akshvara. Unsubscribe any time.