Remembering a week of work on Friday afternoon is a demanding job for any memory. A few short notes as you go make invoicing much less like solving a mystery.
Time tracking is a trail of useful breadcrumbs. It helps you explain the work and bill consistently, without needing a minute-by-minute account of your whole day.
Decide what is billable before tracking it
Agree whether you are charging hourly, by a fixed fee, through a retainer or against milestones. Confirm the rate, currency, any cap and how meetings, travel, revisions or minimum increments are treated. Tracking time does not make every hour billable.
For a fixed-fee project, time records can help you understand the effort involved while the invoice still follows the agreed deliverables. Avoid turning an internal time total into an unexpected client charge.
Capture the detail you will actually need
A useful entry has a client, date, short task description and duration. Add the project or approval reference if it helps distinguish similar jobs. Keep internal notes separate from descriptions you intend to share with the client.
- Client and project: Willow Studio, website launch.
- Date: 2 November 2026.
- Work: mobile navigation revisions, agreed review round.
- Duration: 1 hour 30 minutes, recorded as 1.5 hours.
- Rate and currency: AUD A$120 per hour, as agreed.
Review the entries before adding them up
Check for overlapping timers, duplicates and non-billable work. Compare the entries with any budget cap or approval. When a cap is close, discuss the next step before doing more chargeable work, rather than waiting for the invoice to reveal it.
Convert minutes carefully: 30 minutes is 0.5 hours, not 0.30. At A$120 per hour, 1.5 hours is A$180 before any applicable GST. Use one agreed rounding approach consistently and make it clear to the client.
Group the work into readable rows
You can combine related entries into a clear period and deliverable, while retaining the detailed log behind them. ‘Website launch support, 2–6 November, 4.5 hours at A$120’ tells the client more than ‘Time: 4.5’.
For this example, 4.5 hours at A$120 is A$540 before any applicable GST. If there are different rates or projects, keep them on separate rows. If a client requires a timesheet, include the agreed supporting detail without sharing confidential internal notes.
Keep the log and invoice in step
Check whether any of the work has already been invoiced. Once you issue the invoice, keep a reference between it and the supporting entries. If you later correct an entry, review its effect on the invoice instead of changing one side of the record and forgetting the other.
Lufu’s work logging lets you capture billable work alongside your clients and invoices. A small routine of recording, reviewing and billing gives you more confidence in the amount, and less admin to reconstruct later.