Accountants Billable Hours (Daily) Calculator
Estimate your daily billable-hour target and potential fee income after allowing for administration and other non-billable work.
Overview
This Accountants Billable Hours (Daily) Calculator helps you estimate a practical daily time-recording target. Enter your normal workday, unavoidable non-billable time, utilization target, and average charge-out rate to see the billable hours and potential fees for a typical day.
How it works
The calculator first subtracts fixed non-billable hours from your working day. It then applies your selected utilization percentage to the remaining available time to calculate a billable-hours target. Potential fees are calculated by multiplying target or actual billable hours by the average hourly rate.
How to use this calculator
- 1Enter the total hours you usually work in a day.
- 2Add the fixed time normally spent on administration and other non-billable work.
- 3Choose a realistic billable utilization target for the remaining time.
- 4Enter your average hourly billing rate.
- 5Add actual billable hours to compare them with your daily target.
Example Calculation
Working hours per day
8
Fixed non-billable hours per day
1.5
Target billable utilization
80%
Average hourly billing rate
$150
Actual billable hours today
5
Daily billable-hour target
5.20 hours
With an 8-hour day, 1.5 fixed non-billable hours, and an 80% utilization target, the daily target is 5.2 billable hours. At an average rate of 150 per hour, that represents estimated potential fees of 780.
Frequently asked questions
What are billable hours for an accountant?
Billable hours are time recorded for work that can be charged to a client under the relevant engagement terms, such as accounting, tax, audit, advisory, or bookkeeping work.
What is a reasonable daily billable-hours target?
A reasonable target depends on your role, client mix, systems, internal responsibilities, and working pattern. This calculator lets you set a target based on your own available time and utilization goal.
What should count as non-billable time?
Common examples include internal meetings, practice administration, business development, training, compliance tasks, and time not chargeable under a client agreement.
How is billable utilization calculated here?
The calculator divides the selected utilization percentage across the time left after fixed non-billable hours. For example, 80% of 6.5 available hours equals 5.2 target billable hours.
Why might actual billable hours be lower than the target?
Client demand, urgent internal work, meetings, time write-downs, interruptions, and incomplete time recording can all affect the total on a particular day.
Do potential fees equal collected revenue?
No. Potential fees are based on recorded time and the average hourly rate. They do not account for discounts, write-offs, invoicing timing, taxes, or whether invoices are collected.
Explore Related Calculators
Assumptions and warnings
Assumptions
- The working day and fixed non-billable time are representative of a typical day.
- The utilization percentage is applied only to time remaining after fixed non-billable commitments.
- The hourly rate is an average rate for the work billed that day.
- Fee estimates exclude taxes, discounts, write-offs, bad debts, and unrecorded time.
- Results are planning estimates and actual billable time can vary by client work and workflow.
Warnings
- This calculator provides a business-planning estimate only and is not financial or professional advice.
- Recorded time, client agreements, billing policies, and applicable professional standards should determine what is billed.