{"id":33211,"date":"2023-02-10T10:53:32","date_gmt":"2023-02-10T08:53:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.timecamp.com\/blog\/?p=33211"},"modified":"2026-05-11T08:03:24","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T06:03:24","slug":"the-complete-guide-to-increase-billable-hours-best-practices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.timecamp.com\/blog\/the-complete-guide-to-increase-billable-hours-best-practices\/","title":{"rendered":"The Complete Guide to Billable Hours: Best Practices for 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

While acquiring more clients is important, keeping track of how many hours you spend working on each project is equally important. Thus, tracking billable and non-billable hours<\/a> is critical as it helps measure efficiencies. Doing this also helps in measuring KPIs in your organization.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Get to know where your time goes with TimeCamp!<\/h5>

Track time in projects and tasks, create reports, and bill your clients in just one tool.<\/p><\/div>

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An organization\u2019s growth is dependent on its customer base. Working with existing customers and signing in new ones is the desire of every business. With more projects, there\u2019s a high chance the organization’s top line will increase.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The goal of any operations or activities in an organization\u2019s office is to ensure high-quality deliverables for customers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also worth noting that several other activities run simultaneously and are unrelated to customer deliverables. The company still spends resources when undertaking such activities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Thus knowing how, where, and when an organization is spending its resources is important. Equally important is how much of these resources are utilized in creating deliverables.<\/p>\n

Below is a complete guide on how your company can enhance billable hours. We\u2019ll help you fully understand what billable and non-billable hours are, including best practices to increase billable time.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s get to it right away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Note:<\/strong> This article was last reviewed and updated on May 11th, 2026, by our editorial team.<\/i><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

<\/a>What is billable hour (and non-billable hour)?<\/h2>\n

Billable hours<\/a> are how long you spend doing a project or activities directly related to a specific client. The client is going to be charged based on an agreed hourly rate.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Most businesses use an hourly rate when billing their clients. A few examples include freelancers, law firms & legal professionals, accounting firms, and advertising agencies. Others are PR firms, customer service, and web developers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For a tax-season-specific breakdown of how accounting firms capture billable work in practice, read our billable hours tracking guide for accounting firms \u2192\u00a0 How Accounting Firms Track Billable Hours (Tax Season Guide)<\/a><\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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The organization will track billable hours<\/span>\u00a0used in completing the project and raise an invoice against what was delivered.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Billable time tracking forms <\/span>an important aspect of the functions of every company or organization. This approach is helpful where it\u2019s complicated to use itemized billing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Examples of instances that are difficult to itemize include billing for meeting attendance, communications, and correspondence. In such cases, your organization has invested time as well as resources. However, it\u2019s difficult to have them itemized and billed on an invoice.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Other instances include project-related research, site visits, and modifications or revisions done at the client\u2019s request after the initial deliverable.<\/p>\n

Thus, billable time tracking <\/span>is helpful in such instances.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Non-billable hours, on the other hand, are related to activities that the organization undertakes but cannot be billed. They concern the internal activities of the organization.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Non-billable hours include attending resource allocation internal meetings, submitting progress reports to one\u2019s senior or supervisor, and more.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As much as such activities are vital to how an organization functions, they\u2019re not directly linked to an ongoing project. That\u2019s why they\u2019re called non-billable hours.<\/p>\n

For activities within the category of non-billable hours, they\u2019ll be charged to an organization\u2019s account since there won\u2019t be any compensation expected from a client.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That means it\u2019s good to try and reduce non-billable hours as much as possible while ensuring you increase billable hours.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Why do companies track billable hours?<\/h3>\n

Companies track billable hours to ensure the time spent on a project or task can be justified. Tracking time ensures a team’s working hours are adequately compensated and that the billable time is paid for.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Accurate billable time tracking isn\u2019t just about more success in your future projects. It\u2019s also about giving realistic vision into many business statistics that include:<\/p>\n