When using an online time and billing tool, it is important that it track your creative agency’s time in a way that aligns with your current workflow. In my experience consulting and conversing with hundreds of creative agencies, I’ve concluded that agencies will typically track and bill time using one of two methods.
In this post…
Web design and development agencies, offering more digitally oriented creative services, often track time according to the type of work being performed. For example, billable time will be tracked by work types such as development/engineering, design, HTML/CSS, client-side scripting, server-side scripting, etc.
Traditional print and graphic design agencies, offering creative services more in the analog realm, will sometimes track time associated with the person doing the billable work. In this example, billable hours are tracked against people’s names or job titles. For example, senior designer, junior designer, copywriter, etc.
Setting up People / Roles as Work Types
Billable hourly rates set up as type of work.
We designed and developed our online time tracking software, Intervals, to dovetail with creative agencies tracking their time as the type of work being performed, such as programming, marketing, or design hours. This is why people are presented with the option to select any type of work when adding their time using Intervals.
However, Intervals will just as easily track billable hours according to the person doing the work, or their role. To do this, simply name the work types after each person or role. The example below shows a work type set up for each person at a creative agency.
Billable hourly rates set up as person or role.
When a member of the creative team goes online to track their time, they will select their own name from the list of work types. Now you have all the data you need to generate granular reports and invoices for your clients, with details showing the billable rate each person was billed out at.
Using Reports to Calculate Billable Time Per Person / Role
Pie chart showing online time tracking data billed by personal hourly rates.
Tracking your agency’s billable rates as people or roles is easy when using flexible online time tracking software. To see if Intervals might be a good fit for your task and time tracking needs, sign up for a free 30 day trial.
Photo credit: Victor1558
