How to Track Billable Hours (and Stop Losing Unbilled Time)

If you bill by the hour, the time you forget to write down is work you did for free. Most of it disappears in small pieces: a 20-minute call, a quick fix, an email thread that took longer than expected. This guide shows how to track billable hours with a method you will actually keep, what to record, how to round, and how to turn a week of entries into a clean invoice.

You do not need a complicated tool. You need a clear rule for what is billable, one capture method, and a short weekly review.

Billable vs non-billable hours

Start by deciding what you charge for. Write it down once, ideally in your proposal or contract, so you do not re-decide every week.

Usually billable	Usually non-billable	Depends on your agreement
Work on the client's deliverables (design, code, copy, analysis)	Prospecting, sales calls and proposals	Travel time to a client site
Meetings and calls with the client	Your own admin: invoicing, bookkeeping, email triage	Revisions beyond the rounds included in the quote
Research done for that client's project	Learning a tool you will use for everyone	Fixing bugs in work you already delivered
Revisions within the agreed scope	Internal tooling and templates	Project management and status reports
Client-requested reports, audits and handovers	Time lost to your own mistakes	Quick "can you just..." requests by email

Two habits help:

• Track non-billable time too. Mark it as non-billable instead of skipping it. It shows how much of your week actually earns money, and whether a client is quietly costing you more than they pay.
• Settle the grey column in writing. If travel is billed at half rate, or bug fixes are free for 30 days after delivery, say so in the quote. Arguments about billable hours are usually arguments about an unwritten rule.

Three ways to capture time

There are three common methods. The best one is the one you will use every day.

Method	How it works	Accuracy	Effort	Best for	Main risk
Start/stop timer	Start a timer when you begin a task, stop it when you switch	High	Low per task, but you must remember	Long blocks of focused work on one project	Forgetting to stop it, or to restart it after an interruption
Manual entries during the day	Log each block right after you finish it ("45 min, client call")	Good	Low	Short tasks, calls, switching between clients	Entries pile up and get logged from memory
End-of-day log	Rebuild the day from your calendar, sent emails and commit history	Fair	10 to 15 minutes a day	People who dislike timers	Small tasks vanish; the log drifts if you skip a day

A practical mix: use a timer for deep work, log calls and small tasks manually as they end, and do a two-minute end-of-day check of your calendar and sent folder to catch anything you missed. If you skip the end-of-day check, at least do the weekly review below.

What to record for each time entry

Every entry should be complete enough that someone else could turn it into an invoice line. Capture:

• Date of the work.
• Client and project. Never log time to "misc".
• Task description in words the client understands: "Checkout form: validation and error states", not "dev stuff".
• Duration, or start and end times.
• Billable or non-billable.
• Rate, if it differs from the project's normal rate (rush work, travel, a senior rate).
• Notes for anything unusual: "Client asked for this on the call, outside original scope."

The description matters more than people think. A line that says "Research, 3 h" invites questions. A line that says "Competitor pricing research for the March launch page, 3 h" usually does not.

Rounding: 6-minute and 15-minute increments

Rounding is a convention, not a rule. Nothing requires you to round, and clients can reasonably ask what you do. The common conventions are:

• 6-minute increments (0.1 hour). Common in law and consulting. A 52-minute call becomes 54 minutes, or 0.9 hours.
• 15-minute increments (0.25 hour). Common for freelancers and agencies. A 52-minute call becomes 1 hour.
• Exact minutes. Simple and transparent, and easy if your tool does the math.

Rounding choices add up. Here is the same week of billable work (552 minutes, or 9.2 hours) at $110 an hour, with each entry rounded up:

Method	Billed hours	Amount
Exact minutes	9.2 h	$1,012.00
Round up each entry to 6 minutes	9.4 h	$1,034.00
Round up each entry to 15 minutes	9.75 h	$1,072.50

None of these is wrong, as long as you choose one, state it in your agreement, and apply it the same way every time. Rounding every entry up to 15 minutes on a job full of five-minute tasks will look padded, so match the increment to how your work is actually split.

A weekly 15-minute "unbilled time" review

Time tracking fails quietly. The fix is a short, fixed review, for example every Friday afternoon. Set a recurring reminder and follow the same steps:

1. Minutes 0 to 3: fill the gaps. Open your calendar, sent email and messages for the week. Add any call, meeting or task that has no entry.
2. Minutes 3 to 6: clean descriptions. Rewrite vague entries so a client could read them. Merge tiny fragments of the same task.
3. Minutes 6 to 9: check flags and rates. Is every entry on the right client and project? Is anything marked billable that should not be, or the other way around?
4. Minutes 9 to 12: compare against budgets. For each project, compare hours to date with the estimate or with the hours included in a retainer. Flag anything near the limit before the client is surprised.
5. Minutes 12 to 15: decide what to invoice. List every client with unbilled time and decide: invoice now, or hold until the agreed billing date.

The question to answer each week is simple: "What have I done that I have not billed yet?" If the answer is a long list, invoice more often.

Turning hours into invoice lines

Clients pay faster when an invoice is easy to check. Group entries by task or deliverable, show hours and rate, and keep the detailed log ready in case they ask for it.

Worked example

A freelance developer bills $110 an hour and rounds each entry up to 6 minutes. Here is the week:

Date	Task	Logged	Rounded
Mon	Kickoff call	52 min	0.9 h
Mon	Requirements document	100 min	1.7 h
Tue	Build checkout form	145 min	2.5 h
Wed	Build checkout form	190 min	3.2 h
Thu	Fixes after client review	65 min	1.1 h
Thu	Internal tooling setup (non-billable)	40 min	Not billed

Grouped into invoice lines (hours × rate):

Description	Hours	Rate	Amount
Discovery: kickoff call and requirements document	2.6	$110.00	$286.00
Checkout form: build, validation and error states	5.7	$110.00	$627.00
Fixes from client review, round 1	1.1	$110.00	$121.00
Total	9.4		$1,034.00

Add sales tax only if it applies to your service. Many states do not tax most professional services, but the rules vary by state, so check with your accountant. For the rest of the invoice (numbering, due date, payment details), see our guide on how to make an invoice as a freelancer.

Hourly work inside a retainer

If a client pays a monthly retainer with a set number of hours, you still track every entry. The invoice changes, though: the retainer fee is one line, and only the hours above the included amount become extra lines at the overage rate. See how to bill retainer clients for worked examples.

Common mistakes

• Tracking only at the end of the month. Memory is a poor timesheet. Short tasks are the first to go.
• Vague descriptions. "Work on site, 6 h" invites disputes. Name the deliverable.
• Mixing clients in one entry. Split the time, even if it means two entries of 15 minutes.
• Not tracking non-billable time. You cannot fix a bad-fit client or an underpriced project you cannot see.
• Letting unbilled time age. The longer the gap between work and invoice, the more questions you get, and the later you are paid.
• Changing rounding rules mid-project. Pick one convention per client and keep it.

Quick checklist

• Billable and non-billable rules written in the quote or contract
• One capture method chosen (timer, manual entries, or both)
• Every entry has date, client, project, description, duration and billable flag
• Rounding convention stated and applied the same way
• 15-minute unbilled-time review in the calendar every week
• Invoice lines grouped by task, with hours × rate shown
• Detailed time log ready to share if the client asks

Hourly billing looks a little different depending on the work. Our pages for consultants and freelance developers show how time, projects and invoices fit together for each.

How Clodou helps

Clodou keeps your time next to your projects and invoices. Each project can carry a client and an hourly rate. You can start and stop a timer, or log time in plain words in the chat, such as "log 90 minutes on the checkout form, billable", and each entry uses the project's hourly rate. The Time page lists what you have not invoiced yet and turns it into a draft invoice in one step (or ask in the chat: "Invoice Brightside for this month's unbilled hours"), so your weekly review becomes a quick check instead of copying numbers by hand. You review the invoice, which comes out as a branded PDF with your logo, before anything goes to the client. Every new workspace starts with a 14-day trial of Team, no card required; after that, the Free plan includes 20 requests and 3 quotes or invoices a month.