Four steps between somebody doing an hour of work and a client paying for it. Each one is covered in its own page; this is how they join up.
The path
| Step | What happens | Where |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Log | Hours against a project and a task, with a description. | Record time |
| 2. Approve | Somebody checks it before a client sees it. Optional. | Approve time |
| 3. Invoice | Unbilled billable time becomes a draft invoice. | Invoice time |
| 4. Send | The draft is checked and sent like any other invoice. | Sales documents |
Why time cannot be billed twice
Every entry carries an invoiced flag and the invoice it went onto. Once it has been billed it is never picked up again.
That is the thing to check when a system like this is new to you, because double-billing a client is the mistake that costs the relationship rather than the money. Here it is not possible to do by accident.
And why time is worth recording on fixed-price work too
On a fixed-price job nobody bills the hours, so recording them feels pointless. It is the opposite — it is the only way to find out whether the price was right.
| Job | Quoted | Hours | Effective rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brand refresh | ₹8,50,000 | 340 | ₹2,500 |
| Website | ₹4,00,000 | 410 | ₹976 |
Both were delivered. Both were paid. One of them is a business and the other is a hobby, and without the hours recorded they look identical in the accounts.
Mark the time non-billable on a fixed job rather than not logging it. Non-billable time still counts towards what the job cost you, which is the number that tells you whether to quote that work again.
A month, end to end
- Everybody logs time as they work, against tasks.
- On the 1st, the project owner approves the month’s entries.
- Invoice up to the last day of the month, grouped by task, approved only.
- Read the draft the way the client will.
- Send it, and it behaves like any other invoice from there.
What can go wrong, and what stops it
| Risk | What prevents it |
|---|---|
| Billing the same hours twice | Every entry carries an invoiced flag and the invoice it went on. |
| Billing unchecked time | Approved only when you raise it. |
| Billing work you meant to absorb | The billable tick, set when the time is logged. |
| An invoice the client cannot read | Descriptions, checked at approval. |
| An invoice to nobody | It refuses without a customer on the project. |
Unbilled time at the end of a job
The commonest way money is lost on projects is not underquoting. It is finishing a job, marking it complete, and leaving forty billable hours behind that nobody raised.
Before any project is marked completed, check two things: unbilled billable time, and any milestone with an amount that was never invoiced. Both are money already earned, and both become awkward to raise once the client has closed their books.
Where to go next
Something missing or wrong here? Tell us. A question that needed asking usually means a page that needed writing.