Billable time

Billable time is the portion of work hours that the agency can invoice to the client under the contract.

What is billable time?

Billable time usually includes direct project work such as development, testing, design, project management, and client-facing delivery activities. It does not include internal meetings, training, or sales support unless the contract says otherwise.

What usually counts as billable

Writing and reviewing production code.
QA work tied to the agreed scope.
Delivery meetings and demos.
Client communication that directly supports project delivery.

Why billable time matters

It drives revenue in time-based models.
It affects utilization and profitability.
It helps compare estimated effort with actual effort.
It reduces invoice disputes when tracked clearly.

Example

A developer logs 40 hours in a sprint. If 32 hours were spent building a dashboard and 8 hours were spent on internal training, only the 32 project hours are billable.

Common mistakes

Treating all tracked time as billable.
Failing to separate delivery work from internal work.
Ignoring QA or PM time in the estimate.
Using weak time tracking and then arguing over invoices.

How Apropo supports billable-time analysis

Apropo supports the surrounding workflow for billable-time analysis by comparing planned work with tracked execution data.

Budget tracking compares estimated, spent, and variance values across hours, cost, and rate dimensions.
Jira sync helps import tracked issue work back into the estimate structure.
Work-type views make it easier to see where different roles consume time against the original plan.
This gives teams a clearer picture of how quoted work behaves during delivery.

How Apropo helps refine billable-time assumptions

Time assumptions improve when they can be reviewed against real execution instead of staying frozen in the original quote.

Versioned estimates help teams compare the original time model with later revisions.
Rate settings help connect time data to commercial impact.
Jira export and sync keep delivery tracking closer to the structure used in estimating.
Budget tracking summaries help teams identify repeat patterns in over- and under-estimation.

Hourly rate
Time and materials (T&M)
QA