Why do we bill clients?
- As a company with a Time & Materials based billing model, time billed to clients is how Clarity generates revenue.
Why does each employee have a billable hours requirement.
- Our goal is to get paid for every hour we spend working on a client's project, and the first domino in that process is each employee meeting their billable hour requirement.
What exactly is billable toward our clients?
- This is a common point of confusion but it's actually very simple; ask yourself this question: Would I be doing this task if this client didn't exist?
- If you ask yourself that question every time you're unsure if something is billable, you'll be in good shape. Having said that, if you even ask yourself if something is billable, chances are that it is.
What tasks are commonly billable?
- Anything a developer is working on, meetings with or pertaining to that client, time log audits, PSR's, change requests, etc.
What are some less obvious billable time situations?
- Q: I'm a PM who just logged on for the day and am going through my email, teams messages, teams channel and basecamp for each project. Should I just group that time together and log it to general admin?
- A: Nope. Thinking back to the question above - would you be receiving emails or teams messages about a project that didn't exist? There would be no teams channel or basecamp to view. You have two options to log this time - one is to track how much time it takes total and divide by the number of projects you end up reviewing, then log each one. The other would be to track how much time for each project throughout the entire day and log all together - this is an option because all that time would be logged to the project management line item.
- Q: As long as I meet my billable requirement for the week, I can log excess time spent on a task/project as unbillable?
- A: Nope. Even if you're meeting your billable, every hour spent on a project needs to be logged, period.
- Q: I'm in stand up or sprint planning and we talked about multiple projects - do I log that to the internal meetings line item?
- A: Nope. Going back to the question above, we wouldn't be discussing projects that don't exist. The easiest thing to do in this situation is divide the time by the projects discussed and bill each one separately.
- Q: I spent 5 minutes reading a client email, 5 minutes thinking about what to say and 5 minutes responding - how should I log this?
- A: 15 minutes billed to that client.
- Q: Are you phase one and local environment setups billed to clients?
- A: No, this is something that Clarity takes on internally. However, it DOES count toward your billable requirement and must be logged to "CVI - Local Setups" or "CEF and Connect OOB Setups" depending on which task you are doing. The Activity will be the project you are executing the task for. Example below:
- A: No, this is something that Clarity takes on internally. However, it DOES count toward your billable requirement and must be logged to "CVI - Local Setups" or "CEF and Connect OOB Setups" depending on which task you are doing. The Activity will be the project you are executing the task for. Example below:
- Q: What should I do if I'm in a meeting and a client project is being discussed that has no relevance to me?
- A: Two options: drop from the meeting or work in the background to log something else until a relevant project is being discussed.
- Q: As a Project Manager what do I do about invoice meetings and shred sessions?
- A: Billable time. If you are in a group meeting the time you spend actively discussing a project you are assigned to is billable time. Yes this includes time for invoice notes and shred session prep. This also includes time spent in heads down sprint planning time on the Fridays if we are not actively engaged in a training session.
Q: Is management or leadership assistance time billable to my client?
- A: Yes. If the leadership team is working on a project or assisting on a project, that time is billable. You will see that in EP as you go through time log audits or Needs Reallocation.
Hopefully these examples were helpful - if you ever have any questions about what or how something should be billed, please reach out to your manager and get clarification.