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Time tracking in your agency exists to pace the retainer by department: how much of this month's cap is gone, how many working days are left, and where the burn lands if the team carries on at this rate. It is not a surveillance tool, and running it as one gets you bad data and a resentful team at the same time.
What is time tracking for in an agency?
Most of your revenue is probably retainers, and a retainer is a cap. The client bought a fixed amount of SEO, content, social and PR this month, and your team's job is to deliver inside it or have a conversation before they go over. Knowing where the month stands on day 14 means knowing each department's hours against its share of that cap, not one number for the whole account.
That is the whole job. Entries feed the pacing bar, the bar tells your account manager where things stand, and your account manager gives the client a decision while there is still time to make one. The retainer burn rate entry has the math.
What does a pacing table look like on day 14?
Say you have a $15,000 retainer at a $150 blended rate, so a 100-hour cap split across four departments. It is day 14 of a 22-working-day month, which means 64% of the month is gone. Projected end-of-month is used hours ÷ 14 × 22.
| Department | Cap hours | Used hours | Percent used | Projected end of month | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SEO | 35 | 26 | 74% | 41 h (117%) | Over |
| Content | 30 | 17 | 57% | 27 h (89%) | On track |
| Social | 20 | 12 | 60% | 19 h (94%) | Watch |
| PR | 15 | 5 | 33% | 8 h (52%) | Under |
| Total | 100 | 60 | 60% | 94 h (94%) | Watch |
The total looks perfectly healthy at 60%. The department view tells a different story: SEO will finish six hours over, PR will leave seven hours on the table, and your account manager has eight working days to do something about both. One pacing number for the whole retainer would have hidden all of that until the invoice went out.
What should happen at 80%?
Talk to the client before the work happens. When a department crosses 80% with days still on the clock, your account manager opens the usage statement with them and offers three options: stop at the cap, approve a pre-paid overage, or push the rest to next month. The client picks, and the decision is on record before anyone logs another hour.
In the table above, SEO is at 74% on day 14 and crosses 80% within two days. That is when you make the call, not on day 22 with 41 hours already logged. An overage approved in advance is revenue. The exact same hours absorbed afterwards are your servicing gap, and a gap that shows up two months running is a pricing problem, not a tracking one.
Which tracking rules fit each billing model?
Rules stricter than your billing needs are the main reason people stop logging. Hourly clients read every line. Retainer clients read a department total. Fixed-fee projects bill no hours at all. So set the rules per model, not one blanket policy for the whole agency.
| Setting | Hourly | Retainer | Fixed fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rounding | 6 or 15 minutes, up | Exact minutes | Exact minutes |
| Notes | Required per entry | Optional, department level | Optional |
| Approval | Weekly, by account manager | Weekly, by department lead | Monthly, or none |
| Lock | 30 days after period close | 30 days after period close | At project close |
| What the client sees | Every line | Department usage statement | Nothing, or milestones |
Rounding up is normal on hourly work. On a retainer it inflates the burn for no billing reason at all, so use exact minutes. Notes only matter where a client will read them. Fixed-fee time is tracked for capacity and margin, covered in the utilization and capacity planning guide, and deserves the lightest rules of the three.
Who should see what?
This is the setting that decides whether your team experiences time tracking as pacing or as policing.
| Role | Hours | Budgets and revenue | Cost, salary and margin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Member | Own hours, own utilization, pacing bar | No | No |
| Manager | Team hours, team utilization, pacing bar | No | No |
| Account manager | Client hours by department | Yes, for their clients | No |
| Director | All hours | Yes | No |
| Admin | All hours | Yes | Yes |
Everyone should see the pacing bar, because it answers the only question that makes logging feel worthwhile: why does this matter? Nobody on delivery needs to see the rate the client pays or the margin on their own hours. Show each person their own utilization rate, and roll it up for the director.
Why approve weekly and lock after 30 days?
Weekly approval catches the missing Friday before it becomes a missing month. Make the approver whoever is closest to the work: the department lead for delivery time, the account manager for anything a client will see. A rejected entry should say why in one line, so fixing it takes a minute instead of a meeting.
The 30-day lock is there because your invoices and payroll are built on these numbers. Once it locks, nothing moves, and the usage statement your client got in September still matches what your accountant sees in December. An entry that shifts a week later is how the same hour gets billed twice, or never.
Verbial shows a pacing bar per client and department, built from approved entries, so your account manager and your team are looking at the same number on the same day. Start free and put one retainer through a month of it.
Questions
How do you calculate retainer burn rate?
Divide hours used by the hours in the cap, then compare that against the share of working days gone. On day 14 of 22 working days, 64% of the month has passed, so a department at 74% used is ahead of pace and heading over. Projected end-of-month hours are used hours ÷ days elapsed × working days in the month.
What should an agency do when a retainer hits 80%?
Talk to the client before the work happens. At 80% with days still left, your account manager shows them the usage statement, explains what is left in scope, and offers a pre-paid overage or a push to next month. It is a decision, not an apology. Raise it after the hours are logged and you will absorb the cost.
Should team members see billing rates in the time tracker?
No. Your team should see hours, their own utilization and the pacing bar. Budgets and revenue belong to account managers and directors, and cost, salary and margin belong to admins. A tracker that shows every number to every seat is leaking information for no reason.