Thursday, July 5th, 2018
Billing For Administrative Time
“The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.” – Leo Tolstoy
One practice management question that has been asked many times over the years is whether administrative team members should charge their time to a client.
If your firm is still billing by the hour, all employees whether admin team or accounting team should record any time expended on behalf of a client. Whether it is billed or not is up to the discretion of the biller, usually a partner. I have observed that in many firms, most, if not all, of this time is billed.
The accounting firm administrative team spends a great deal of their time on client work. They are providing service on behalf of a client. Serving the client is a valuable and important activity.
Some clients are more “needy” than others and often much of that neediness for service falls to the admin team.
I have also observed that administrative team members focused on client work are usually only about 30-40% chargeable.
- "Time has more value than money. You can get more money but you cannot get more time."