Timesheets drafted from the calendar into the billing system

The question this file answersWhat happens to our month-end invoices when half the firm has not filled in last week's hours?

Fits: firms where every professional records time weekly and an admin team still chases, corrects and keys it into a time-and-billing system — Toggl, Harvest, BigTime or Maconomy — before invoices can go out. The playbook gives a weekly cycle, not a headcount.

Not for: firms on pure fixed fees with no time capture, or where entries already flow from a practice system with nothing left to chase.

Typical day

What the desk looks like today

Typical, from the professional-services playbook — not a client's day. There is no count of entries to quote: every fee-earner, every week, is the volume. Timesheets come in late and from memory; an administrator chases the stragglers, corrects the obvious errors, maps each line to client and project, keys it into Harvest, BigTime or Maconomy, and builds draft invoices — then fields the queries when a client disputes a line. The pressure lands at month-end, when billing cannot run until the last timesheet is in, and whenever a partner asks why a fixed-fee write-off is bigger than expected.

What changes

What Monday looks like after

The Monday of month-end billing. Instead of a chase list of late timesheets, the administrator opens draft invoices for each client, built from entries the fee-earners confirmed during the week from suggestions their own calendars generated. The morning goes on the review list: three matters over budget, a handful of entries with no billing code, one partner who confirmed nothing. Those are conversations that need a person; the retyping from spreadsheets into Harvest is gone. Partners see, per client, hours confirmed against hours billed and where a write-off is forming — before the invoice goes out, not after the query. Whether an hour is billable remains a partner's call.

Typical, not a measured client result. Every figure here comes from the playbook source named below.

~40–60%

less manual time entry — Toggl/Harvest (2023)

Before: admin chases late timesheets and types them into billing. After: Toggl/Harvest benchmarks (2023) report 40–60% less manual entry — billable or not stays a partner's call.

Where this number comes from

Toggl/Harvest benchmarks (2023) report AI-suggested time entries reducing manual entry by 40–60%; Big 4 internal pilots (Deloitte, PwC) report about 50% less expense-review time. Published benchmarks, not our numbers; playbook range 40–60%. Not a utilisation or revenue claim.

What we install

What we put in front of the systems you already run

Nothing replaces your time-and-billing system — Toggl, Harvest, BigTime, Maconomy or the one you run. Beside it we put a suggestion and checking step:

each professional's calendar and project-tool activity are read through their APIs and turned into suggested entries against client and matter — suggestions the person confirms or edits
missing days and entries pushing a job over budget are flagged to the person
expense receipts are read and categorised for a claim the person approves
confirmed entries are written into billing and a draft invoice assembled per client
anything unusual — a write-down, a non-billable code on a billable matter, a partner's uncharged hour — goes on a short review list for the partner.

We start with one group.

What stays human — and what this will not do

Billable or not. Write-offs. The fee conversation with the client. Partner approval before an invoice leaves.

Not a utilisation or revenue claim.

What can go wrong — and what we do about it

Suggested entries are only as good as the calendar behind them: a professional whose meetings are untitled or whose matters are miscoded gets wrong suggestions and, unread, wrong invoices — so nothing is billed unconfirmed and the audit checks matter codes first. Older practice tools without a usable API take entries by import file, slower. Reading calendars and mail for time capture must be agreed with staff and checked against your data-protection policy before the pilot. The 40–60% range is about manual entry; write-offs and fee negotiations are not in it.

How long it takes, and what we need from you

Audit, about two weeks (€1.5–3K): we follow one billing cycle with the administrator, count late and corrected timesheets, and check what your billing system, calendar and project tool expose through APIs. Pilot, 3–5 weeks and €10–20K — medium complexity, per the professional-services playbook: one practice group, suggestions only, every entry confirmed by its owner, invoices drafted but sent as today. Production: the rest of the firm, expenses, budget alerts. From you: calendar and billing-system access, the matter list, one partner reviewing exceptions weekly.

The path: free 60-second estimate → free 20-minute review → paid audit of this one process (€1.5–3K, typically two weeks) → pilot with your people in the loop (€10–20K, weeks, not quarters). No transformation programme. Prices are public, on the services page →

This is about you if…

Do timesheets still arrive late and get chased by email before billing can run?
Does an administrator map and key each entry into the billing system by hand?
Are your matters, budgets and rate codes already in a time-and-billing system?

What does this mean in euros?

That depends on your volumes and wage costs — this page will not invent the number. The free 60-second estimate runs that calculation from your answers, with every multiplier sourced.

Get your free savings estimate 60 seconds · no sales call Or write first → Map an ops process like this one — free, 60 seconds →

Not a named Aperanda client. Process file · Ops.

Deep-dive process file. Volumes, weeks and sources come from the industry playbook; nothing here is a named client.

All process files