We all know that we should keep track of the hours we’re making for our company. We feel this need, but why? Why is it important to keep track of what we do? In this blog post I’ll set out the most important arguments for registering your hours.

1. Become better at drafting quotations

First of all, when a new client asks you for an offer, it is very useful to know how much time you’ve spent on a similar project before. Neatly organising the hours you make on projects, and on which tasks specifically, helps you to become more realistic when setting budgets and goals for new projects. Especially if you compare the realised hours with the hours that you budgeted at the beginning of the project. In the end this will help you to become more profitable. With T-Rex you can easily create your own reports with custom filters, making this job particularly easy.

2. Accurately bill your client.

Secondly, if you want to draw up your invoice at the end of a project or at certain intervals, determining the billing amount can be either an exhausting job or a matter of a few clicks. If you need to study your calendar app to find out when you worked for a certain client and on what tasks, you are destined to make mistakes. Also, your client might ask you for a detailed timetable when he smells that insecurity. If you register your hours consistently, you feel more confident when sending your invoice to your client and you can be more transparent to your client as well!

3. Comply with regulations

Finally, depending on your country there might be rules and regulations to keep in mind. So maybe you are obliged to register your hours. For example, in The Netherlands, you need to make at least 1225 hours per year (Belastingdienst, 2017) for your company, if you want to qualify for certain tax benefits. This is called the hour criterion.