How to find unpriced billable time on consulting projects

To learn how to find unpriced billable time on consulting projects, start with billable entries that have no recoverable value. The hours and delivery cost exist, yet the project has no sound price for that work.

This is not the same as non-billable time, nor does it prove that you can invoice the client. First, trace the entry to the quote or an approved scope change.

Reconcile the records. Trace each affected time entry to priced work, changed work, or work your consultancy chose to absorb. Then correct the record and your commercial process.

What makes billable time unpriced?#

A time entry is unpriced when its billable status says "client work", but its recoverable value is zero or missing. Recoverable value means the amount that the entry can support under the project's agreed pricing structure.

Several faults can cause that result:

• the consultant has no sell rate for the project;
• the entry has no quoted line item;
• the selected line item has no applicable sell rate;
• the work belongs to a scope change that nobody priced;
• the entry uses the wrong project, role, or billable status;
• the work was included in a fixed fee, but the project record does not show that connection.

Do not treat all six faults as lost revenue. Check for data errors, failed change control, overservicing, training time, and underquoting.

In this review, recovery means the share of billable work that you finally charge to the client. Compare your billing records with time entries by project and person. GAO's cost estimating guide includes collecting data and updating estimates with actual costs. Those steps help you keep the cost record separate from the billing decision.

This measure tells you what you recovered, while the unpriced-time review identifies entries that need a decision.

How to find unpriced billable time on consulting projects#

Choose one review date and include all open consulting projects. Use a weekly review during delivery and a final review before project closure.

Start with a narrow exception list, not total billed revenue.

Export or filter time entries with these conditions:

1. The entry is marked billable.
2. The entry belongs to the review period.
3. Its recoverable value is zero, blank, or cannot be calculated.
4. The entry is not an approved write-off already recorded elsewhere.

Keep each entry: a project total cannot show whether one workshop, analysis task, or revision caused the problem. This detail also makes your consultant timesheet review cycle more useful.

For each exception, collect the consultant, date, hours, description, project, role, and selected line item. Add the billable flag, cost rate, sell rate, and recoverable value. Keep a link or reference to the signed quote.

Next, group exact duplicates only. Do not combine entries because their descriptions look similar. Two entries called "client call" can concern different deliverables and need different decisions.

Set an owner for every exception. Give each exception a due date. The project lead decides whether the work matches the scope. Finance or operations can correct rates and coding, but should not decide what the client agreed to buy.

How should you reconcile each entry against the quote?#

Read the time description and supporting project record. Then ask one question: which priced promise required this work?

Search the quote in this order:

1. Quoted line item. Find the deliverable or activity that directly covers the work.
2. Included assumption. Check whether the quote priced the work through a stated assumption or allowance.
3. Approved change. Find a written addition, its price, and the client's approval.
4. Unapproved request. Find evidence of a client request that changed the agreed scope.
5. No commercial basis. Record that the work was internal, avoidable, or absorbed.

Use the narrowest valid match. "Advisory support" is not a useful match if the quote priced each workshop, analysis task, and report separately. A broad match hides which part of the estimate failed.

If the quote itself has unclear limits, do not invent precise limits after delivery. Record what is unclear. For future proposals, define deliverables with counts and acceptance tests.

Fixed-fee work still needs this match because the hours consume the fee, even if they do not appear as separate invoice units. Match them to the priced line item before you assess recovery.

Use an unpriced-time reconciliation table#

Build one table for the review. Use one row for each entry or exact group of entries. The values below are an invented worked example, not a benchmark.

Entry	Hours	Billable evidence	Quote or change match	Cause	Decision	Record correction
Discovery interview	2.0	Included workshop plan	Discovery, line 2	Missing line-item code	Keep in fee	Assign line 2 and its sell rate
Board paper rewrite	5.5	Client email after sign-off	No quoted line; change CR-04 is draft	Unpriced scope change	Pause and price	Approve or reject CR-04 before more work
Junior analyst review	3.0	Internal quality check	Analysis, line 4	Training time	Absorb	Mark non-billable and retain delivery cost
Partner call	1.0	Contract includes steering calls	Governance, line 6	Missing project sell rate	Keep in fee	Add the valid partner rate and recalculate
Extra data cleansing	7.0	Client supplied a new data set	No approved change	Scope assumption failed	Seek change approval	Create a priced change linked to the request
Proposal preparation	2.5	No delivery evidence	No match	Wrong project and status	Remove from project billing	Move to business development and mark non-billable

The table separates evidence from judgement. The time entry states that the work is "billable", while "Quote or change match" tests that statement against the commercial record.

Keep the cause and correction separate. A missing rate can cause zero value, but a rate must not turn an unapproved change into authorised revenue. Only add a rate when the work already belongs to agreed scope.

Decide what to correct#

Put each exception in one of four decision classes. Give each class a different action.

Correct the project data#

Choose this class when the work has a valid quoted line item or approved change. Fix the project, line item, role, or rate. Then recalculate the recoverable value.

Keep an audit record of the old and new values. Do not alter hours or descriptions merely to make the report balance.

Price and approve a change#

Choose this class if the client requested work outside the quote. Write the added output, labour, price, and effect on timing. Then seek approval before more work starts.

Follow a defined change request process for fixed-price projects. If the client rejects the change, stop the added work or make an explicit decision to absorb it.

Reclassify the time#

Reclassify an entry that is not client-delivery work. Training, sales work, internal rework, and administration can still be real costs, but selecting a client project does not make them billable.

Change the status. Keep the cost in the record: hiding it understates the project's actual cost.

Record a commercial write-off#

Record a write-off when real work cannot be recovered because of overservicing, an unclear quote, or work started before approval.

Name the reason. Check whether the quote omitted work, delivery used extra time, training added cost, or time records contain errors. Each cause needs a different correction, not a general demand for more billing.

Check the result at project and portfolio level#

After the entry review, total the corrected hours, delivery cost, and recoverable value by project. Compare the result with the project's planned cost and current actual cost.

For this review, cost variance means actual delivery cost minus planned cost for the same work. OpenStax explains how labour rate and time differences contribute to total labour variance. Use cumulative records from project start to the review date. The cost tracking guides explain how to keep those records useful during delivery.

That view answers a different question from unpriced time. Cost variance shows whether delivery cost has moved away from plan. Unpriced time shows whether billable entries have a valid route to recoverable value. Review both. A project can have unpriced time before its total cost exceeds plan.

For fixed-fee work, also calculate the effective hourly rate for the project after corrections. More matched hours do not create more fixed-fee revenue; they reduce the effective rate unless an approved change adds value.

Look across projects for repeated causes. Check missing rates for setup, conversion, or ownership faults. Check repeated unapproved revisions for weak scope boundaries or late change control.

Make the review operational#

Run the exception list before your billing review, not after invoices go out. Give project leads enough time to find the quote, check evidence, and contact the client where necessary.

Add unpriced billable time to the normal project review agenda.

Use this short control cycle:

1. Operations produces the exception list.
2. Each project lead matches entries to scope.
3. Finance corrects valid coding and rate faults.
4. The commercial owner approves write-offs or change action.
5. Operations checks that no exception remains without a decision.
6. The estimator records repeated causes for the next quote.

Do not measure success by forcing the exception count to zero. Measure whether every exception has evidence, a decision, and a completed correction. A visible write-off is better than a false rate attached to unsupported work.

Korrel tracks time against the work and sell rates carried over from an estimate, and its analytics can show unpriced billable time for review. Start your free trial. Then reconcile the next exception with the quote.