Billable vs Non-Billable Hours: A Weekly Tracker for Freelancers

A Friday timesheet should answer two questions. Where did the week go, and which hours can go on an hourly invoice? A fixed-fee project and a request awaiting approval can both consume time without adding invoice-ready hours. Keep those hours visible so you can estimate future projects and resolve open scope questions.

Copy the tracker

Paste this tab-separated header into a spreadsheet or use it as a checklist for each time entry. Use decimal hours consistently. For example, 1 hour and 15 minutes is 1.25 hours.

Date	Client / project	Work item	Hours	Category	Review status	Invoice ready?	Approval or evidence reference
YYYY-MM-DD	[client or internal]	[task or ticket]	0.00	[hourly / fixed fee / internal / scope pending]	[approved / pending / included / internal]	[yes / no]	[link or note]

Use hourly for time that can be billed separately under the project agreement. Use fixed fee for client work covered by the existing fee. Use internal for business development, bookkeeping, and other work your business absorbs. Use scope pending when a request needs a billing decision. Set invoice readiness independently. An hourly entry can remain pending until the relevant review is complete.

If you track rounding for invoicing, keep the original duration and add a separate billed-hours column. That lets you explain differences between hours worked and hours billed using the agreed billing rules.

Reconcile a worked week

Nora does hourly data cleanup for Orchid and a fixed-price dashboard for Finch. On Wednesday, Finch requests an extra segment filter. She spends an hour scoping it and keeps the entry pending until the client confirms how to handle that work.

Total work is 15 hours. The category subtotal is 6.50 hourly, 6.00 fixed fee, 1.50 internal, and 1.00 scope pending. Invoice-ready time is 5.75 hours for Orchid. Another 0.75 hourly is pending review. Together, the ready and held hours reconcile to the 6.50 hourly category. At the fictional agreed rate of $100 per hour, the ready subtotal is $575 before any other invoice items. Finch's fixed fee is handled separately.

Invoice-ready hours account for about 38% of all time recorded (5.75 ÷ 15). That's a share of logged time. If you want to measure utilization against capacity, use available working hours as the denominator and label the measure accordingly.

Close the week with three checks

1. Reconcile totals. Sum by category and compare with total worked time. Group ready rows by client, and check whether any were previously invoiced.
2. Resolve held work. Give each pending entry an owner and review date. Keep the original duration if a scope decision moves an entry to hourly or fixed fee.
3. Save a billing reference. Export or copy the approved rows with work item IDs. Record the invoice reference once issued so next week's review can detect repeats.

SelfManager.ai's timer and manual time entries can capture duration on dated tasks. Its weekly breakdown gives you a second total to reconcile against your tracker. Keep the billing category and approval evidence in the tracker if that's where you prepare your invoice. SelfManager.ai time-tracking FAQ