{"id":10796,"date":"2024-12-17T14:29:32","date_gmt":"2024-12-17T14:29:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.clio.com\/uk\/?p=10796"},"modified":"2024-12-18T14:29:17","modified_gmt":"2024-12-18T14:29:17","slug":"billable-hours-chart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marketing.dev.clio.systems\/uk\/blog\/billable-hours-chart\/","title":{"rendered":"Mastering Time Tracking Using a Billable Hours Chart"},"content":{"rendered":"

Time is money\u2014especially when it comes to how many billable hours in a year a solicitor can accumulate. Thankfully, using a billable hours chart can help.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Lawyers work hard, and they<\/span> work a lot<\/span>. However, according to the 2021 Legal Trends Report<\/a><\/em><\/span>, lawyers spend just 2.5 hours each workday on billable work. <\/span><\/p>\n

Based on PwC’s Annual Law Firms’ Survey<\/a>, the average number of recording hours worked by solicitors in the top 10 firms is currently 1,373 a year. This figure decreases to 1,272 recorded hours a year for firms ranked 11 to 25, and further drops to 1,167 hours for firms ranked 26 to 50.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Lawyers must find ways to track their hours as effectively and accurately as possible to reach their targets\u2014without losing valuable time on <\/span>the act <\/span><\/i>of tracking.<\/span><\/p>\n

With this in mind, there are tools that lawyers can use to make it faster and easier to calculate and log their hours\u2014like a billable hours chart. By billing in standard time increments and using a solicitor billable hours chart, you can spend less time trying to calculate your billable hours manually.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This blog post will explore how a billable hours chart can help solicitors better track time for invoicing. Also, we\u2019ll cover how other tools can make tracking solicitor hours even easier and more accurate.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Book a Demo<\/h3>\n

If you’d like to skip ahead to a solution that helps keep your billable hours logged and on track with minimal effort, see how it works in Clio Manage.<\/p>\n

Boost your firm\u2019s profitability with Clio\u2019s easy-to-use time recording software<\/a>. Book a demo today.<\/p>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\tSee Clio in Action<\/a>\n\t\n

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What are billable hours?<\/span><\/h2>\n

Billable hours represent the total amount of time spent working on a specific project, which are charged to a client based on a pre-determined hourly rate. Essentially, these are the hours a company can invoice its clients for work performed on their behalf.<\/span><\/p>\n

What is a billable hours chart?<\/span><\/h2>\n

A billable hours chart is a solicitor billable hours template. It is a simple table to help you quickly calculate how many increments of an hour to charge, based on how long you worked. When tracking billable hours manually with a billable hours chart, most lawyers adhere to 1\/10th of an hour (aka six-minute) increments.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tWhy do lawyers bill in six-minute increments?\n\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t<\/h3>\n\t\t
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Billing six minutes at a time is standard practice for practical reasons: Manually billing by the minute or in smaller increments is difficult and time-consuming to track and calculate by hand. Conversely, billing in larger increments could lead to excessive padding, leading to unhappy clients overpaying for legal services. Six-minute periods are easy to calculate with the help of a billable hours chart, and they allow for reasonable increments without rounding up by too much.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

A sample billable hours chart<\/span><\/h2>\n

To quickly calculate what to charge for portions of an hour worked, use the chart below as a reference. The chart uses increments of <\/span>1\/10th of an hour<\/b>. For example, if you worked for 15 minutes at a rate of \u00a3<\/span>100 per hour<\/b>, you could use the chart to see that the time increment is 0.3. So, 0.3 x \u00a3100 = \u00a330 to bill.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Time Increment<\/span><\/td>\nMinutes<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
0.1<\/span><\/td>\n1-6 minutes<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
0.2<\/span><\/td>\n7-12 minutes<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
0.3<\/span><\/td>\n13-18 minutes<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
0.4<\/span><\/td>\n19-24 minutes<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
0.5<\/span><\/td>\n25-30 minutes<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
0.6<\/span><\/td>\n31-36 minutes<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
0.7<\/span><\/td>\n37-42 minutes<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
0.8<\/span><\/td>\n43-48 minutes<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
0.9<\/span><\/td>\n49-54 minutes<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1.0<\/span><\/td>\n55-60 minutes<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

You can also use <\/span>a billable hours calculator<\/span><\/a> to help expedite the process. <\/span><\/p>\n

Best practices for billable hours<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\n\n\t\n\t\t\t\t\t