Tracking
How do you prove your hours to a client?
Show a log that was written as the work happened and can be checked against things the client already has. Dated sessions with real start and end times and a line of description can be matched against their calendar, their inbox and their repository. A total with no structure behind it cannot be checked at all, which is why it invites the argument rather than ending it.
Why
Credibility comes from being contemporaneous, specific and consistent. A log produced at the moment of work, with times that line up with the client's own record of the week, is very hard to dispute in good faith. A log where every session is a suspiciously round number, or where the times cannot possibly match the emails you sent, undermines itself no matter how accurate it happens to be.
Do this
- Track as you go, so the record is contemporaneous rather than reconstructed.
- Keep real start and end times, which is what lets a client corroborate it.
- Export the exact period in dispute rather than the whole project.
- Answer a query with the log rather than an explanation, and let them check it themselves.
Avoid this
- Producing a timesheet for the first time after the invoice is challenged.
- Rows where every single session is exactly one, two or three hours.
- Editing history to make a total match an invoice you already sent.
- Sending a screenshot of a running timer as evidence of a month's work.
What it looks like in the log
The same advice, as the row a tracked session actually leaves behind.
Meridian — April
- Range
- 1 – 30 Apr
- Sessions
- 42
- Exported
- PDF, one page
- Total
- 68h 45m
All of this is easier when the hours were written down as they happened. Punch O'Clock is a free tracker that does it in one tap, works offline, and exports the range you are billing.
Free. No ads, and no account unless you want sync.
Related questions
Should I send the log with every invoice?
Attaching it as a matter of routine works well on hourly engagements: it answers the question before it is asked and sets the expectation that the number has a document behind it. On fixed-price work it is unnecessary and can invite a discussion about hours that the contract deliberately avoided.
What if the client disputes a specific session?
Show that session with its times and its note, and let them check it against what they have. Most disputes are honest confusion about what a day covered, and a specific row resolves it far faster than an argument about the total.