[consulting] How do you bill client hours?

[William Smith]

I use Freshbooks (an online service) which allows me to manage clients, has
a timer and can generate invoices directly from the time logged (saves me a
lot of time on accounting / admin), handles the sending out of invoices
(either email or snail mail), you can set it up for clients to be able to
log in and see their account status, etc..  And if you are on a mac, there
is even a handy dashboard widget for time tracking that integrates directly
into your account.

I've been pretty happy with it, although it is a pay service if you are
managing more than a few clients.

On Sat, Jan 10, 2009 at 12:47 PM, David Jones <david at web-reverb.com> wrote:

> This is a great topic!
>
> I use an online service by Qonsort called QFile that allowed me to track
> clients, projects, time on the clock and more.  It's great for
> independents.
>
> On Sat, Jan 10, 2009 at 10:43 AM, Dave Myburgh <davemyb at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> How about this: we use this list as it does include independents, and if
>> the powers that be object to that, then we can start a separate list?
>>
>> I, for one, would be interested to hear how others manage their time,
>> particularly with respect to keeping track of client billable hours. At the
>> moment I use a small freeware timer program that can keep a list of
>> different timers. So when I start work on a project, I select the timer for
>> the project, click the start button and get to work. When I'm done, I stop
>> the timer. At the end of the month, I check the monthly total and bill the
>> client.
>>
>> Up until now, I haven't done much on the project management side i.e.
>> keeping track of bugs, requests, etc. using an issue tracker system. I
>> started looking at creating a system using OG and Project modules, but a
>> friend suggested Redmine, which I eventually got installed and started
>> using. Now I just need the clients to use it. Does anyone have any ideas for
>> this?
>>
>> Well, I think that's enough to get the ball rolling, so I'll leave it at
>> that for now. Looking forward to hearing from everyone else.
>>
>> Dave
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Jan 10, 2009 at 12:05 PM, Adam Mordecai <mordecai at advomatic.com>wrote:
>>
>>> The majority of people on this list are independent developers, to
>>> splinter it even more would cause a low traffic list to be even more low
>>> traffic.
>>> On Jan 10, 2009, at 7:57 AM, Sam Cohen wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi everyone,
>>>
>>> I'm an independent Drupal consultant and I have purposely decided to not
>>> grow and become a web shop or work for another web shop. I like being a
>>> one-person operation.
>>>
>>> I think being an independent, a one man or woman "shop," comes with many
>>> unique challenges and I was wondering if any other Indies out there would be
>>> interested in starting a separate email list just for Independent Drupal
>>> Consultants, in order to share advice on things like time management,
>>> working with clients, managing work load, etc.
>>>
>>> If so, please email me at sam at samcohen.com and I'll start a list.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Sam
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> consulting mailing list
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>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> -------------------------------------------------------
>>               Dave Myburgh
>>
>>             Mybes Informatik
>> [ creative & professional web design ]
>>
>>   http://www.mybesinformatik.com
>>   email:dave at mybesinformatik.com <email%3Adave at mybesinformatik.com>
>> -------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> consulting mailing list
>> consulting at drupal.org
>> http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/consulting
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> David Jones
> Reverb, LLC / 303-817-7942 / david at web-reverb.com
>
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