Guide

How to count billable hours in Google Calendar

Your calendar already records when you worked for each client. Counting billable hours is a matter of filtering the right events, measuring them correctly, and applying your rounding and rate.

Why adding it up by hand goes wrong

• Repeating meetings have exceptions: one week moved, another cancelled. They are easy to double count or miss.
• Daylight saving changes make some evenings an hour shorter or longer than the clock suggests.
• Events that run past midnight or across the end of the month need to be split or checked.
• Rounding each entry, then multiplying by a rate, invites small arithmetic slips that clients notice.

Set up your calendar for billing

Pick one of these and stick to it:

• A keyword in the title. Start each billable event with the client name, such as Globex: data model.
• A calendar per client. Create a separate Google calendar for each client and export only that calendar.

Keep non-billable events, such as internal admin or travel you do not charge for, without the client keyword. They will not be matched.

Count the hours

1. Export your calendar from Google Calendar (Settings, then Import & export, then Export).
2. Open the timesheet tool and upload the file.
3. Choose the billing period and enter the client keyword and your hourly rate.
4. Read the total hours and total amount at the top of the review list.

Rounding increments

Many contracts set a billing increment. The tool rounds each event to the nearest increment, with a minimum of one increment:

• 6 minutes (a tenth of an hour). A 47 minute call becomes 48 minutes, or 0.8 hours.
• 15 minutes. A 47 minute call becomes 45 minutes, or 0.75 hours.
• 30 minutes. A 47 minute call becomes 60 minutes, or 1 hour.

If your agreement says to always round up, choose the increment and then edit the few events that rounded down. Check your contract for the rule that applies to you.

How the amount is calculated

Each event's amount is its hours multiplied by your hourly rate, rounded to the cent (or the smallest unit of your currency). The total is the sum of the event amounts, so the lines on the timesheet always add up to the total your client sees.

Checks that save awkward emails

• Look for events flagged as overlapping. Billing two clients, or the same client twice, for the same hour is rarely right.
• Untick tentative or declined meetings that were exported.
• Confirm the period matches your invoice, especially at the start and end of the month.
• Keep the CSV with your records so you can answer questions about any line later.