Where unbilled work hides
📧 Email Time
30 minutes answering client emails feels like "just communication," but it's billable work. Most people never track it.
📞 Quick Calls
"Just a quick 5-minute call" that takes 20 minutes. Clients request them constantly, and they rarely get billed.
🔄 Revision Rounds
"One more small change" turns into 3 hours of work. Without tracking revisions separately, you can't see scope creep happening.
🧠 Research & Prep
Time spent learning a client's industry, preparing for meetings, or researching solutions is legitimate billable work.
🚗 Travel Time
Site visits, client meetings, travel to locations—time spent getting there counts (at least partially in most contracts).
The Math
If you bill $150/hour and lose just 3 unbilled hours per week, that's $23,400/year walking out the door. For a 5-person team? $117,000/year.
5 systems to capture every hour
1. Real-Time Timers (Not End-of-Day Entry)
Studies show people forget 50% of task details after 24 hours. End-of-week timesheets are educated guesses at best.
→ BBos's always-visible timer makes real-time tracking effortless.
2. Task-Based Tracking
Don't just track time—track it against specific tasks. This shows exactly where time goes and identifies underestimated work.
→ Start timers directly from task boards with one click.
3. Billable vs. Non-Billable Categories
Every hour should be categorized. Non-billable still needs tracking—it's where efficiency improvements hide.
→ BBos time entries include billable flags, rates, and project categories.
4. Automatic Invoice Generation
If approved time doesn't flow automatically into invoices, some will get missed. Period.
→ Generate invoices from time entries with one click.
5. Unbilled Time Reports
Run weekly reports showing approved time that hasn't been invoiced yet. Make this a standing process.
→ Time reports filter by billing status instantly.
Setting up scope creep alerts
The best defense against unbilled work is knowing when projects exceed estimates before it's too late to address:
Project Budget Monitoring in BBos
- Set hour budgets on projects and tasks
- Visual progress bars show % consumed
- Email alerts at 75%, 90%, 100% thresholds
- Dashboard widgets for at-risk projects