A practical system for recording billable hours, non-billable work and client notes before invoice day.
Choose the unit before starting
Decide whether the agreement uses hours, days, quantities or a fixed fee. Save the client rate and define billable work before the first session.
Record evidence a client can recognise
Use a date, quantity and plain description of the outcome. A specific entry connects time to delivered work.
Separate utilisation from working time
Admin, proposals and bookkeeping are real work but are not always client billable. Track them separately when testing a rate.
Close the loop at invoice time
Review missing dates, duplicate entries and unusual quantities before selecting sessions for the invoice.
Choose the unit before starting in practice
A developer agrees 12 hours for a discovery sprint at £75 per hour. They record three dated sessions, attach an outcome to each entry and separate two hours of proposal writing that the contract does not cover. The final review shows 11.5 billable hours, giving the client a traceable £862.50 charge rather than an unexplained weekly total.
Close the loop at invoice time review
Before closing the invoice, compare the work log with the scope, check time zones and breaks, confirm the agreed rate and investigate round numbers or duplicate dates. Keep the original entries after invoicing so a later client question can be answered from the same evidence used to create the charge.
Review billable utilisation separately from accuracy. A full calendar can still produce a weak invoice if entries lack outcomes, while a shorter set of precise records may be easy for a client to approve. Agree how meetings, travel, research and revisions are treated before they occur. When correcting a session, preserve enough context to explain the change. Monthly reporting can then compare hours worked, hours billed and value invoiced without turning every productive activity into a client charge.
Put the process into practice
Open the matching Billoz workflow, then use the calculator or planning tool to check the relevant figures.
Sources
Written and reviewed by the Billoz editorial team at WILLIATION TECHNOLOGIES LTD. Published 1 May 2026; reviewed 19 September 2026.