{"id":1544,"date":"2023-03-13T16:00:12","date_gmt":"2023-03-13T15:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timingapp.com\/blog\/?p=1544"},"modified":"2024-05-15T08:57:57","modified_gmt":"2024-05-15T06:57:57","slug":"bill-time-accurately","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timingapp.com\/blog\/bill-time-accurately\/","title":{"rendered":"9 Tips to Bill Time Accurately and Boost Your Bottom Line"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Image: <\/em>Wes Hicks<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Does your business bill time for each project? If so, you\u2019ll know how important it is to track your time accurately. You need to know exactly how much time a particular project takes so that you can quote and invoice correctly, and you need to have a clear sense of whether you\u2019re working productively\u00a0or if there are more hours you could be billing.<\/p>\n

There are countless businesses that operate this way. Those in the legal profession<\/a> will be all too familiar with this approach, as will accountants, consultants and creatives, including copywriters, designers and developers. Freelancers across industries, who account for 36% of the workforce in the US<\/a>, as well as agencies, regularly break their work down into hours and bill their time accordingly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But even if you\u2019re familiar with logging your time, are you sure you\u2019re maximizing your billable hours<\/a>? Are you working smartly and efficiently? Could you be billing more for your projects and boosting your bottom line? We\u2019re here to offer some handy tips on making your time work for you,\u00a0and to answer your questions, too.<\/p>\n

Take a look at our comprehensive list of tips to help you bill for time \u2014 and develop a more successful business while you\u2019re at it.<\/p>\n

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9 Tips on Billing More Time<\/h2>\n

These nine time management tips will help you manage your time, slay your tasks, and ultimately, bill more hours. Our goal here isn\u2019t to flesh out hours you haven\u2019t worked for the sake of billing more. That isn\u2019t an ethical way to work. Your clients are likely to cotton on if you inflate your hours at all, and it could put your working relationship at risk. Instead, this approach is all about increasing the efficiency of your work, so that you can get more done in a day.<\/p>\n

1. Track Your Time Automatically<\/h3>\n

Many businesses miss a lot of billable hours because they\u2019re not tracking their time automatically. If you keep track of your time manually, you\u2019ll almost always underestimate the time you can bill for. Automatic time tracking, however, can help you keep tabs on every working minute.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, automatic time tracking can help you generate accurate invoices without wasting time by retroactively checking your work. The end result? Billing more time and saving time on labor and administration.<\/p>\n

Timing<\/a> is an automatic time-tracking platform that automatically tracks all your working hours and minutes. There\u2019s no need to log in or to set a manual timer (although the option exists if you want it). Timing also not only tracks your time, but allows you to accurately categorize it into projects and tasks.<\/p>\n

At the end of every work day, you can take a look at your Stats tab (shown below) to see, a) how many hours and minutes you\u2019ve spent on various tasks, projects, and clients, and b) how well you remained on task throughout the day (and when you completed your tasks).<\/p>\n

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Timing automatically generates reports based on time tracking results, creating a convenient, reliable billing system you can use to report your time and, most importantly, get paid. (We\u2019ll look into this in greater detail in tip 8.)<\/p>\n

At Timing, we\u2019re all about excellent time management. We believe that managing your time well starts with implementing the right tools to give you a foundation for success.<\/p>\n

2. Learn to Do Deep Work<\/h3>\n

Author and professor Cal Newport is the man behind the concept of \u201cdeep work<\/a>\u201d, which he describes as \u201cthe ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task\u201d. Newport\u2019s idea is all about embracing a distraction-free period of your time so that you have the capacity to push your cognitive abilities to their limit. The result is increased focus, greater productivity, and improved new skills.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read more:<\/strong> How Deep Work Can Help Increase Your Productivity<\/a><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re going to get deep work right, you have to be intentional about it.. Here are some tips to help you get in the zone:<\/p>\n