Name: Timesheet specifics
Uploaded: 2024-05-01

Let’s talk to you about timesheet codes, the function codes you use to track and define how time is being spent when you do your timesheets. Many agencies have these big black holes, particularly around your non-billable time. It’s uper important that you track both billable time and non-billable time. Why? Timesheets aren’t really about billing.

They’re about understanding what your team is doing. How long it takes. It’s about looking for efficiencies and effectiveness. Who needs more training?Are our estimates accurate? It answers a ton of questions that actually have nothing to do with billing. But it starts with A) doing your timesheets every day and B) having the right function codes so you know how people spend their time.

Hey, everybody.

Drew McLellan here from Agency Management Institute this week coming to you from Ithaca, New York, where we are celebrating our daughter's 23rd birthday. You know, last week, earlier, before we came out here, we were teaching the Running Your Agency for Growth and Profit. And as always, we got into a conversation around timesheets and how critical they are to do every day. So not even going to talk to you about that. But what I am going to talk to you about is the codes, the function codes you use for timesheets. So for many of you, you have these sort of big black holes, particularly around your non-bailable time. Super important that you track both billable time and non-billable time. Why?

Timesheets aren’t really about billing. They're about understanding what your team is doing. How long it takes. It's about looking for efficiencies, effectiveness. Who needs more training. Are our estimates accurate? It answers a ton of questions that actually have nothing to do with billing. But it starts with A) doing your timesheets every day and B) having the right function codes so you know how people are actually spending their time.

So you want to get very granular on both the billable and non-billable time. You don't want big buckets like admin or internal meetings or email, things like that. You want to get down to the nitty gritty. But there's a balance. You don't need 50 billable function codes, and you don't need 50 non-billable function codes. But probably 15 or 20 function codes that are billable and non-billable is perfect. So getting granular enough that you know exactly what your team is doing; that they can’t mask how they're spending their time by tucking it into big-bucket categories. And make sure that you have a note section so that they can describe in detail what they're doing when they choose the function code.

The truth of the matter is, for most of your employees on the billable side, they're probably going to do, depending on their job function, 4 or 5 of the function codes. And on the non-billable side probably 3 or 4 of them.

That's it.

All right? I'll see you next week.

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Timesheet specifics

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