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Billable Hours Calculator for Small Business

Harvest helps small businesses track billable hours accurately, preventing revenue leakage and ensuring compliance with labor laws.

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What should you charge per hour?

Most freelancers and consultants dramatically undercharge. This calculator accounts for what most people miss: non-billable time, taxes, and overhead.

$
Accounting for vacation, holidays, sick days
60%
Most freelancers can bill 50-70% of their time. The rest goes to admin, marketing, proposals, and learning.
$
Software, insurance, equipment, accounting, taxes beyond income tax, etc.
Your break-even rate $0
Recommended rate (+20% buffer) $0
Billable hours per week 0h
Equivalent daily rate $0

Start tracking your billable hours

Walk through the entire flow below. Start a timer, check your reports, and create a real invoice — all in three clicks.

Go ahead — start tracking!

One click and you're timing. Try it right here: start a timer, add an entry, edit the details. This is exactly how it feels in Harvest.

  • One-click timer from browser, desktop & mobile
  • Works inside Jira, Asana, Trello, GitHub & 50+ tools
  • Duration or start/end — your call
  • Day, week & calendar views to stay on top of it all
  • Friendly reminders so no hour gets left behind
Acme Corp
Website Redesign
Homepage layout revisions
1:24:09
Content Strategy
Blog calendar planning
1:30:00
SEO Audit
Technical audit report
0:45:00
Brand Guidelines
Color system documentation
2:15:00
Logo Concepts
Initial sketches round 1
1:00:00
Today's total 6:54:09

Understanding Billable Hours for Small Businesses

Accurately tracking billable hours is crucial for small businesses to ensure compliance with labor laws and optimize revenue. According to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), employers must consistently and accurately record all hours worked by non-exempt employees, including work performed during breaks or outside regular shifts. Failure to adhere to these regulations can result in significant penalties, impacting a small business's financial health.

Harvest offers a solution by allowing small businesses to track billable hours with precision, using features such as flexible per-project and per-person rates. This helps prevent revenue leakage, ensuring that every minute worked is accounted for and billed appropriately. By using tools like Harvest, small businesses can stay compliant while maximizing their billing potential.

Effective Time Tracking with Harvest

One of the biggest challenges small businesses face is accurately tracking time to differentiate between billable and non-billable hours. This distinction is critical for effective pricing strategies and ensuring profitability. Billable hours are those that a client is charged for, while non-billable hours include activities that are necessary but not directly billable.

Harvest aids small businesses in managing this by categorizing projects into Time & Materials, Fixed Fee, and Non-Billable types. This clear categorization helps business owners understand where their time is going, allowing for more strategic project management and pricing. By using Harvest, businesses can optimize their billing strategies and improve their bottom line.

Optimizing Billing Rates with Harvest

Small businesses often struggle to set competitive yet profitable billing rates. Understanding and maximizing billable hours is key to optimizing these rates effectively. Studies show that businesses can lose 15-20% of billable income due to inefficient time tracking and billing practices.

With Harvest, small businesses can use detailed reports to analyze time, expenses, and budgets. This data-driven approach allows businesses to adjust their rates based on actual performance and project requirements. By leveraging Harvest's reporting capabilities, companies can avoid undercharging and enhance their profitability through informed rate adjustments.

Best Practices for Managing Time and Avoiding Burnout

Managing time effectively is essential for maximizing billable efficiency while preventing employee burnout. Many small businesses report that over 80% of timesheets contain errors, which can lead to increased stress and decreased morale among team members.

Harvest addresses this challenge with one-click timers and manual time entry options that streamline the time-tracking process. By simplifying how employees log their hours, Harvest reduces errors and promotes a healthier work-life balance. These features help small businesses maintain high productivity levels without risking employee well-being.

Billable Hours with Harvest

See how Harvest helps small businesses track billable hours accurately and manage time efficiently.

Harvest interface showing billable hours tracking for small businesses.

Billable Hours Calculator for Small Business FAQs

  • Billable hours are the hours worked on tasks that a client is charged for. These hours are directly related to the services provided and are invoiced to clients. Understanding the difference between billable and non-billable hours is crucial for accurate billing and financial management.

  • Effective tracking of billable hours involves using tools like Harvest, which offers one-click timers and manual entry options. This ensures that every hour worked is logged accurately, reducing errors and improving billing accuracy.

  • Billable hours are those that are directly charged to a client, while non-billable hours include internal tasks that support the business but aren't billable. Harvest helps categorize these hours for better financial management.

  • Optimize your billing rate by using Harvest's detailed reports to analyze time and expenses. Adjust your rates based on project performance to ensure profitability and avoid undercharging clients.

  • Utilize tools like Harvest that offer one-click timers and manual entries to streamline time tracking. This reduces errors and prevents burnout by promoting efficient time management and a healthy work-life balance.

  • Harvest integrates with various tools such as Asana, Trello, Jira, Slack, and more. This seamless integration ensures that your time tracking aligns with your existing workflows, enhancing productivity and efficiency.

  • Yes, Harvest allows you to track expenses with receipt capture features. This helps manage project budgets effectively and ensures that all costs are accounted for in your billing.