I’ve been remiss. I’ve not offered any advice to my clients who bill for their time in a very long time. Lawyers, Accountants, Management Specialists, Technical Services. So, this post is overdue. And, it applies to a lot of other specialties, as well.
Imagine you are a client- not as the business service. How would you like it if you were billed at random times for random efforts? OK. That was way too easy. How would you like it if you were billed for services that occurred on the 8th of the month for 5 hours and the 10th of the month for 2 hours- even though you know it was the reverse circumstance? Well, that happens a lot. Way too often. Because way too many professionals who bill by the hour don’t record their time in a timely fashion. (That has such a fashionable ring to it, you would think that would be a good thing, right?
That happens because so many timekeepers don’t keep contemporaneous records. That means tracking your time as you spend it. No, it does not quite require that if you are working on a project from 10:11 AM to 12:17 PM, take a lunch break, and return to finish a task at 1:01 PM and work to 4:00 PM, that this time is recorded to the second. But, it certainly DOES mean that you can enter 5.5 hours as effort expended today, no later than tomorrow. Or even, 5 hours for today’s date, tomorrow. And, that’s nowhere near as problematic as those who enter all their time for the month on the 29th or 30th day of that month.
There are lots of ways to do this right. You can use what we do- PCLaw (which works on your computer, tablet, or smartphone), which lets us time each call, each project, each hour. We also have clients who employ Clio (which works from the cloud), which does a lot of the same things. Or, you can set your Outlook to journal your efforts during the day (eMail, Word, Excel, Access, and/or phone calls if you have the phone system connected to Outlook)- which, of course, does not do the billing part, for which you need another program.
It’s a real issue for law firms and accounting firms. The falsification or fabrication of records could lead to disbarment or removal of accreditation. Because it’s fraud. I’m not sure that other professions don’t have the same requirements. (Ours certainly does.)
Let’s get things done right. You deserve it, your firm deserves it, and your clients demand it.
hospitals are terrible about it too. There needs to be a time limit for how far back you can bill for a service.
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I don’t think that hospitals bill by the hour, Shawn…
And, it may just be that the hospital is sending you the bill AFTER it sent that same bill for processing to the insurance companies.
That’s why I prefer to bill by the project, not by the hour. Most of the time I am multitasking. And I am often helping more than one client at a time. Trying to track time would be sort of like the Zombie Apocalypse.
We do a lot of both. But, we still demand that everyone account for their time contemporaneously, David…
But, you are absolutely correct- if you bill by the project (or by results), there is no real need for time acounting.
Time, time, time http://t.co/bxz2xun2Sy via @Adjuvancy << I really hating doing this.
Time, time, time http://t.co/PnoW6uI6ZX via @Adjuvancy
I like http://t.co/0RpE94lDO1 Do you bill your hours worked? Tips for accurate & timely accounting
The place I worked that dealt with disabled folks ran on a quarter hour charging system. We did reports which documented the billing down to that level…and each item was documented with a description and report of the progress. One of the jobs I had in the company was to decipher the cryptic (at times) hand written reports, separate it out, and then write it in a professional manner so the state counselors could read it as the report it was supposed to be, and they could see not only the total hours billed for a particular consumer but what happened in painstaking detail. So, the concept you talk about here is not a new one to me. One of the things that I impressed on folks was that accuracy was important because if you can’t be accurate in this, then it calls into question the accuracy in which you served the consumer. In other words, if I can’t trust you do this correctly how do I trust you to do everything you say you are doing. So I’m just saying to everyone who comes here…Listen to Roy, it is so very important!
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Great example, Lisa. And, a great explanation! Thanks for that share…
Billable time. Reminds me of an 18 month long custody battle where I was initially shocked at the monthly lawyer’s bill. Teeny, tiny incremental notations of each email and phone call. I can not tell you how much unbillable time we spend in my business as a courtesy doing initial diagnosis and hunting down obsolete parts…. Was food for thought and I tightened up for a bit and got more aggressive on billing. Am remembering that and will start thinking about addressing it again.
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Ah, that is a slightly different issue, Alessa. Many of our clients (we do, too) have their telephones hooked into their billing system. So, every phone call (in or out) are booked. However, we- and many of our clients- coalesce the time daily, so that those multiple calls don’t get rounded to the nearest 1/10 of an hour. (Some lawyers round UP to the next 0.1 or 0.25 hours- that sounds like your choice of firms…)
We also provide a discount for our clients- after the bill is computed- so that the bite is less onerous.
I do hope you GOT the custody you sought…
Thanks for elaborating…. I got my son, thankfully. And my daughter got what she wanted at the time… but has come back home of her own accord now. Kids… Exes… LAWYERS!
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