Tracking of Billable and Non-Billable Work Hours in Jira with ActivityTimeline

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As a business owner, you know that time is money. Every hour you spend working on a project is valuable, regardless of whether it is billable or not. That's why it's important to track both total billable hours and non-billable hours accurately. In Jira you can use the ActivityTimeline add-on to track your billable and non-billable hours in Jira, so you can get paid for all the time you spend on your projects.

What is the difference between billable and non-billable hours?

Billable hours refer to the time spent working on tasks in future projects that can be charged to the client and which generate revenue for the business. This could include any type of work related to the project, such as project planning, research, development, coding, testing, documentation, etc. It is important to track billable hours tracking employee time in order to accurately invoice a client for the work done.

Non-billable hours refer to the time spent on activities that do not directly generate revenue, such as administrative tasks, training, research, etc. These tasks are necessary for the business to run smoothly and are essential for the growth business success and development of the company. Non-billable hours are also important to track, as they can help to identify areas of improvement and areas where resources can be better allocated.

Why You Should Track Billable and Non-Billable Hours

Tracking billable and non-billable hours is important as it allows businesses to accurately measure the amount of time and resources they are devoting to different tasks. This in turn helps businesses to determine which activities are most profitable and which are not and can help them to identify areas of improvement and areas where resources can be better allocated. Additionally, by tracking billable and non-billable hours for different clients, businesses can identify areas of inefficiency and make necessary adjustments to reduce costs and boost productivity.

How to track billable vs non-billable working hours in Jira

The best way to track both billable and non-billable work is to use a plugin or try a different workaround in Jira. Let's start with several workarounds:

Set up a custom field in Jira to track billable and non-billable hours.

To set up a custom field in Jira to track billable and non-billable hours, log in to your Jira account and select the project you wish to set up the custom field for. Then, go to the "Project Settings" tab and select "Issues" and then "Custom Fields": click "Create Custom Field" and select "Single-select List" from the list of field types. Enter "Billable/Non-billable" in the "Field Name" field and enter "Billable" and "Non-billable" as the two options in the "List of Options" field and click "Create" to save the field. The new custom field should now appear in the list of custom fields for your project.

Logging billable and non-billable time on Jira Issues

Another method is logging time spent on Jira issues. To log billable or non-billable time on Jira Issues, log in to your Jira account and open two issues, and name them "Billable hours" and "Non-Billable hours". Under the “Time Tracking” section enter the amount of time you spent working on the issue in the “Time Spent” field and enter information about the ticket you worked on in the ‘Description’ field. Finally, click “Log” to save the entry. Repeat these steps for each issue you wish to log time for.

However, this method can be disorganized and challenging to manage effectively.

Log work in non-billable hours Jira Issue

The more easy method is to combine two previous methods in one. Create Jira issues to log time for non-billable hours only and mark them with a "Non-billable" issue type field. The rest issues could be counted as more billable hours by default.

Track billable and non-billable hours with ActivityTimeline

Jira's ActivityTimeline plugin can help you to track billable and non-billable hours at work in the easiest way. ActivityTimeline is a comprehensive Jira tool, a project management and time tracking software. With its tracking module, you can easily log hours and create reports to gain insights into how resources are being used and how many hours are spent on exact tasks. Plus, you can also differentiate between billable vs non-billable hours.

Users can easily log billable and non-billable hours from the Main Dashboard or from the Personal Workspace. To log time from the Main Dashboard, users need to find the needed task, click on it, choose "Log Work", fill in all the required data, and select either "Billable" or "Non-Billable" in the "Category" field.

To log time from the Personal Workspace, users can use the Time Tracker feature that can calculate time spent on a task. And when work is done and the Time Tracker has been stopped the "Log Work" dialogue with the filled data will automatically open. All logged work can be later approved or disapproved by the Manager. And time spent can be logged as "Billable" or "Non-Billable" as well.

 

ActivityTimeline also provides advanced Timesheets with the possibility to differentiate billable and non-billable hours. With its tracking module, users can create different timesheet reports with multiple teams and projects for efficient resource utilization rate and planning. To access the Timesheets, users can click on the "Timesheets" tab and see the list of available reports with additional information, such as comments, time spent, logging date, etc.

Using Jira's ActivityTimeline plugin is an effective way to get clients and track billable and non-billable hours at work.

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