Billable hours play a central role in agency profitability.
Understanding how they are defined and managed can transform your efficiency and strengthen your customer relationships.
Here’s why they’re essential, and how to optimize them.
Definition of a billable hour
A billable hour is the amount of time you can legitimately bill a customer for work performed. This includes tasks directly linked to the realization of a project, such as content creation, graphic design or web development.
On the other hand, in-house activities such as team meetings or training courses are generally classified as non-billable. Distinguishing between these two types of hours is essential for drawing up accurate quotations and maintaining optimum profitability.
Why are billable hours essential for your agency?
Managing billable hours has a direct impact on financial performance and customer satisfaction. Here are some key reasons why:
- improved profitability: track and optimize these hours to identify the most profitable projects and adjust your priorities.
- transparency with customers: clear management of invoiced hours builds trust and justifies service costs.
- better planning: regular analysis helps to assess workloads, avoid overload and allocate resources efficiently.
How can you maximize your billable hours?
To make the most of your billable hours, adopt a structured approach:
- Precise planning of project resources: use Teambook to allocate daily planning and ensure that everyone knows exactly what tasks are expected of them.
- prioritize billable tasks: identify the tasks that add real value for your customers.
- precise time tracking: use dedicated tools to track every minute worked on a project.
- team training: make your staff aware of the importance of time management and billable hours.
By optimizing your billable hours, your agency will be able to improve profitability while maintaining strong customer relationships.
