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Choosing a Project Billable Type

Hourly, Flat Fee, or Contingency — and what each one does to your invoice

Every project has a Project Billable Type, set on the Billing tab. It decides how tracked time turns into money.

Project Billable Types

The Project Billable Type dropdown offers Hourly, Flat Fee, and Contingency.

The three types

Type
How it bills
Good for
Hourly
Hours multiplied by the applicable rate
Most client work, where the client pays for time spent
Flat Fee
A fixed price, no matter how many hours go in
Defined-scope work quoted up front
Contingency
Billing depends on the outcome of the matter
Work where you are paid on result rather than effort

Hourly

The default, and the one most firms use. Log your hours, and the rate that applies is worked out from the project, client, activity, or user — see the billing rates article for the order.

Flat Fee

Keep tracking time even on a flat-fee project. The client is not billed for the hours, but you still want to know how many went in — that is the only way to find out whether the fee you quoted was the right one. The profitability report is built for exactly this comparison.

Contingency

Time is recorded throughout, and what you bill depends on how the matter resolves. As with flat fee, the tracked hours are your record of effort even though they do not directly set the invoice amount.

Important: Set the billable type when you create the project. Changing it after time has been logged affects how existing entries price on future invoices.

Billable versus non-billable

Billable type is a separate question from whether an individual entry is billable. The Bill checkbox on each timesheet row controls that, and the project's Time Entry Billable Status Default sets which way that checkbox starts out.