Consulting time.
Ready for the sponsor.

Consultants are often billed by day but should still record hours, so day-rate fees can be checked against effort. Consultants price by day rate, fixed fee per phase or monthly retainer. Value-based fixed fees are common for well-defined outcomes.

• Ask for the client’s purchase order number before you invoice; it’s often required for payment.
• Invoice expenses at cost with receipts attached, separate from fees.
• For day-rate work, list days by date and activity so the sponsor can approve quickly.

Details

• Name: [Your name]
• Period: [Start date — end date]
• Client / project: [If the whole timesheet is for one client]
• Approver: [Name]

Time entries

Totals

• Total hours: [0.0]
• Billable hours: [0.0]
• Non-billable hours: [0.0]
• Utilisation: [Billable ÷ available hours]

Approval

• Submitted by: [Name, date]
• Approved by: [Name, date]

1. Fill in your name, the period and who approves your time.
2. Add an entry for each block of work: date, client and project, task and hours.
3. Mark each entry billable or not, and add a short note where the client might ask.
4. Total the hours, split billable from non-billable, and work out utilisation.
5. Submit it for approval at the end of the period.
6. Use the approved timesheet as the backup for your invoice.

Microsoft Word

1. Download the Word (.docx) file and open it. If Word opens it in Protected View, select Enable Editing.
2. Use Find (Ctrl+F or Cmd+F) and search for “[” to jump between the placeholders you need to replace.
3. Save a clean copy as a Word template (File → Save As → Word Template) so every new document starts from it.

Google Docs

1. Upload the .docx file to Google Drive.
2. Right-click it and choose Open with → Google Docs, then File → Save as Google Docs to keep an editable copy.
3. Use File → Make a copy for each new client so your master stays clean.

Excel and Google Sheets

1. Download the Excel (.xlsx) file. It has a blank sheet and a worked example.
2. Enter quantities, hours and rates: amounts, totals and tax calculate with built-in formulas.
3. To use Google Sheets, upload the file to Drive and choose Open with → Google Sheets; the formulas carry over.

PDF

Use Print or save as PDF in the template section above to print just the template, or fill it in Word or Google Docs first and export it (File → Save As → PDF in Word, File → Download → PDF document in Google Docs).

A filled-in example. The companies are fictional.

Time entries

• Record as you go. Time reconstructed on Friday afternoon is lower and vaguer than time recorded daily.
• Round consistently and say so in your agreements, e.g. to 15 minutes, or 6 minutes for law firms.
• Track non-billable time too. It’s the only way to see real utilisation and price future work properly.
• Use the client’s language. “Stakeholder interviews” is easier to approve than “work”.

Turn approved hours into an invoice with the hourly invoice template.

Angelwood’s time tracking runs timers or manual entries against clients and projects, routes timesheets for approval and reports billable hours and utilisation.

Browse all timesheets templates or the full template library.