For a firm that bills by the hour, recorded time determines what can be invoiced. Manual timekeeping affects revenue when professionals spend billable time creating entries and when completed work does not reach the timesheet.
The cost of a time tracking system therefore includes more than its subscription price. Firms also need to count the time spent maintaining the record and the value of work omitted from it.
Partner rates for clerical work
Every manual entry asks a professional to stop working, select a client and project, estimate the duration, and write a description. Some people do this throughout the day; others reconstruct several days at the end of the week.
A partner who spends thirty minutes a week rebuilding a timesheet spends about twenty-six hours a year on time entry. At a billing rate of four hundred dollars an hour, that time represents more than ten thousand dollars of potential billable capacity.
The figure will vary by person and firm. A partner's billing rate does not fall because the task is administrative, so time spent creating timesheets remains paid professional time that cannot be used for client work.
Missing time can cost more than entry time
Manual records also miss work. Short tasks, project changes, and work outside normal hours are easy to omit when someone completes a timesheet from memory.
Consider a professional who bills three hundred dollars an hour and leaves twenty minutes of billable work out of the record each day. Across a five-day week and forty-eight working weeks, that is eighty hours a year, worth twenty-four thousand dollars before any write-downs or collection losses.
This is an example, not a benchmark for every firm. A firm should calculate its own result using billing rates, the time staff spend on entry, and a measured comparison between captured work and submitted timesheets.
Seat price still matters, but it should be compared with the full cost of creating an incomplete record. A cheaper tool can cost more overall if it requires more staff time or misses more billable work.
Under-recording also affects staff records
Workers who round down uncertain time or omit short tasks may appear less utilised than they were. Their timesheets show less client support, internal assistance, and after-hours work than they performed.
This affects more than invoicing. Firms may use time records when reviewing staffing, workload, performance, and project profitability. Missing work can distort those decisions.
A reviewed record drafted from work on screen gives the worker a chance to include and approve that activity before the firm uses the data.
Time capture affects realisation
Realisation measures how much recorded work becomes collected revenue. Firms often focus on write-downs, billing decisions, and collections when they review this number.
Capture comes earlier in the process. Work omitted from a timesheet cannot appear on an invoice, so the firm loses the option to bill it, explain it, or decide explicitly to write it down.
Timeglass drafts entries while the work is visible on screen, then asks the professional to review them before release.
The return depends on consistent use
A time tracking system cannot improve the record if people stop using it. Tools that depend on repeated manual actions tend to lose entries when staff are busiest.
Automatic capture reduces that dependency by preparing entries in the background. The worker still reviews the result, but does not have to maintain a timer for every task.
Try Timeglass free for fourteen days and compare the drafted entries with your existing timesheets.
Common questions
FAQ
How much billable time do professionals typically lose?
The amount varies by firm and should be measured. For example, twenty omitted minutes per working day across forty-eight weeks equals eighty hours a year. At three hundred dollars an hour, that would represent twenty-four thousand dollars of unrecorded time.
Is time tracking software worth the cost for a small firm?
A firm should compare the subscription with staff time spent creating timesheets and the value of work missing from the record. The result depends on billing rates, current timekeeping effort, adoption, and capture accuracy.
What is realisation rate and how does time tracking affect it?
Realisation rate is the share of recorded work that becomes collected revenue. Missing time affects the process before invoicing because work that does not reach the timesheet cannot be billed or considered for a write-down.
Why do accurate timesheets matter more in legal and accounting firms?
These firms often bill directly from time records, so missing or inaccurate entries affect revenue, client explanations, workload reporting, and project profitability.
