Time Tracking for Consulting Firms
TrackingTime gives consultants a structured, auditable record of time by client, engagement, and seniority. Your team records time with the required billing context already attached. Approval workflows, structured reporting, and invoice-ready data are ready before month-end, without chasing entries.
THE PROBLEM
12 billable hours on a client engagement can become eight on the invoice. The work was done. The time data lacked the structure, context, and approvals that billing requires.
Consulting firms bill by the hour. Every entry needs to be attributed to the right client, matter, and person. Time logged from memory at the end of the week is incomplete. Hours that were worked don't reach the invoice.
An entry without client name, engagement phase, or service type can't be invoiced as-is. Clients dispute hours that can't be explained. Invoicing stalls waiting for corrections that should have been made at the source.
Approvals handled over email leave no audit trail. Two days before month-end, someone is still matching incomplete entries to engagements before the billing cycle can close. The invoice goes out late.
what consulting firms need to track
Consulting firms need more than hours worked. They need time data that’s structured, attributable, and ready for billing without reconciliation.
In consulting, time belongs to a client, an engagement, and a phase. Structuring time the same way eliminates attribution work at the end of every billing cycle.
Different people bill at different rates within the same engagement. TrackingTime applies the right rate automatically by seniority, engagement, or service type. No manual calculations at invoice time.
Entries missing client, engagement, or description can’t be invoiced without follow-up. Required fields enforce the right context at the moment of entry, before the data reaches billing.
Rates change over time. Work tracked in previous periods stays tied to the rate that was active then. Past invoices remain accurate as the team grows and rates are updated.
Time entries can be reviewed, approved, rejected, and locked before billing closes. Approved entries can’t be edited retroactively. The review cycle has a complete record of every action.
Every approval, rejection, and edit is recorded automatically. The firm has a complete, timestamped record of billing activity for compliance, internal review, and client accountability.
APPROVAL WORKFLOWS
See all submitted time entries by consultant and period. Approve individually or in bulk before the billing cycle closes.
Send entries back to the consultant with a note explaining what needs correction. Every rejection is recorded in the audit trail.
Once approved, entries are locked. No retroactive edits, no discrepancies between what was reviewed and what gets invoiced.
TrackingTime structures your time data from the moment it’s recorded. Billing, utilization, approvals, and client reporting all work from the same dataset. Each part of your firm accesses the level of detail relevant to their work.
Filter your time entries by client, engagement, billing status, consultant, or reporting period. Billable hours are grouped by engagement and service type, so invoice preparation starts from structured, sorted data. You close the billing cycle faster because reconciliation is already done at the source.
Give clients a shared report showing their hours by engagement phase, consultant, or deliverable category. No login required, no workspace access needed. Billing disputes decrease when clients can see their data before the invoice arrives. You control how much detail each client can see.
See billable utilization, internal work, business development time, and delivery capacity across your team by seniority level. Spot capacity gaps and workload distribution issues before they affect delivery or profitability.
Review, approve, and export reporting data before billing closes. Every exported report reflects approved, audit-ready time entries. The review cycle runs inside TrackingTime, so you don’t need a separate process for sign-off or manual assembly before reports go out.
Give everyone who needs time data access to the same source. Billing, utilization, and client-facing reports all reflect the same approved dataset.
BEFORE AND AFTER
See how consulting firms move from retroactive time tracking and email approvals to structured billing workflows with clean, reportable data before billing closes.
who is it for
The fastest-growing agencies and consultancies know their unit economics cold. Time tracking is how they validate that growth is actually profitable — not just busy.
Social proof
High rates from our users confirm that we’re built for teams.
![G2 High Performer Fall 2026 [Task Management, Time & Attendance, Time Tracking, Project Management, Project, Portfolio & Program Management]](https://trackingtime.co/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/ProjectPortfolioProgramManagement_HighPerformer_HighPerformer-1-3.png)
![G2 Regional Leader EMEA Fall 2026 [Time Tracking]](https://trackingtime.co/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/TimeTracking_Leader_EMEA_Leader-1-1.png){kind=tracking}
![G2 High Performer EMEA Fall 2026 [Time & Attendance]](https://trackingtime.co/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/TimeAttendance_HighPerformer_EMEA_HighPerformer-1-1.png)
![G2 High Performer Mid-Market Fall 2026 [Time & Attendance]](https://trackingtime.co/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/TimeAttendance_HighPerformer_Mid-Market_HighPerformer-1-1.png)
![G2 High Performer Small-Business Fall 2026 [Time & Attendance, Time Tracking]](https://trackingtime.co/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/TimeAttendance_HighPerformer_Small-Business_HighPerformer-1-1.png)
OPENSTAX
MOMA
PLAYPASS
SSL
SMARTSHEET
MCI
FAQS
Adoption, billing rates, approvals, and reporting.
The biggest failure in time tracking implementations is adding friction to a workflow that’s already busy. TrackingTime gives consultants multiple entry points — a timer in the browser, a mobile app, calendar integration for logging time blocks, and AutoTrack to suggest entries based on what was open on screen. The team doesn’t need to adopt a new daily habit. They can log time the way that fits how they already work, and TrackingTime’s required fields ensure billing context gets captured at the source without a separate follow-up step.
No. TrackingTime does not record screenshots, keystrokes, GPS location, or continuous screen activity. Consultants track their own time voluntarily, while managers get visibility into hours logged by project and engagement — not surveillance of how people work during the day. This distinction matters for professional services cultures where autonomy is part of the work environment.
Yes. TrackingTime sets billing rates at three levels: by user, by project, and by task. The most specific level takes priority. A senior consultant working on a general engagement uses their user rate. When they work on a task with a specific rate defined, that rate applies automatically. Different people on the same engagement can have completely independent billing structures without manual calculation.
TrackingTime locks historical rates to the period they were active. If a rate changes in July, all hours tracked before that date still reflect the previous rate. Past billing periods stay accurate as the team grows and rates are updated over time.
Yes. In TrackingTime, each engagement has its own billing type. Fixed-fee engagements track hours against the estimated budget and show utilization in real time. Hourly engagements accumulate billable time for invoicing. Both can run simultaneously across different clients without any conflict.
Yes. TrackingTime’s approval workflow lets designated reviewers see all entries by consultant and period, approve or reject in bulk, and add comments to specific entries. Approved entries are locked immediately — no retroactive edits are possible after approval. The entire cycle has a timestamped record of every action.
Rejected entries go back to the consultant with a comment explaining what needs to be corrected. Once the consultant updates the entry, it goes back into the review queue in TrackingTime. The rejection and correction are both recorded in the audit trail.
Yes, within the policy window your firm configures in TrackingTime. Consultants can log time for any date within that window. Once a period is approved and locked, no retroactive changes are possible — the record is final.
Yes. TrackingTime’s Shared Reports give clients a link to a live view of their engagement hours by phase, consultant, or deliverable category. No login required. Your firm controls exactly what each client can see — they don’t access internal rates, other engagements, or anything beyond what’s been shared.
Yes. Tasks in TrackingTime can represent phases — Discovery, Analysis, Implementation, Review — rather than individual deliverables. Consultants track time against the phase and TrackingTime aggregates hours by phase automatically in reporting.
Yes. Once a period is approved and locked in TrackingTime, the structured dataset can be exported filtered by client, engagement, billing status, and period. Entries are already grouped by engagement and service type with billing rates applied — ready for import into your invoicing system or direct use in invoice preparation.
Time tracking for consulting firms
No manual reconciliation. No billing gaps.
No hours lost before the invoice.
