Time tracking software for professional services firms
the client sends about it
Engineering, architecture, legal and advisory practices run fixed-price, retainer and hourly work side by side. Hour Cap tracks all three with the audit trail a client review expects, captures the correspondence between milestones, and pushes clean drafts to Xero.
7-day trial with everything unlocked. No credit card to start.
Our builder is asking whether the revised reinforcement spec on sheet S-04 supersedes the earlier detail. Can you confirm before Thursday? He does not want to pour on the wrong drawing.
Confirmed, S-04 revision C supersedes the earlier detail and is the one to build to. I have marked the superseded sheet and reissued the set so there is no ambiguity on site.
What pro services firms need
Most generic time trackers were built for productivity nerds or marketing agencies. Professional services work fits neither mould: projects run for months, several disciplines log against the same job, and what you recorded has to hold up when somebody asks about it a year later.
Mixed engagement types in one practice
Fixed-price project A, monthly retainer client B, hourly advisory client C, all live at the same time and all needing different treatment at invoicing.
Rate variation by discipline and seniority
A principal and a graduate working the same project at very different hourly rates, without somebody editing lines by hand.
Chargeable correspondence between milestones
A clarification on a drawing, a question about an assumption, a request for a revised figure. Real professional time, almost never recorded.
Detailed descriptions for the audit trail
You need to know exactly what was done, when, and by whom, in case scope or pricing comes up later.
Budget visibility before the overrun
Fixed-price work without budget alerts is just unprofitable work waiting to be discovered.
Approvals for junior staff
Not for control, but so principals see what is going out under their name.
One loop, four stages
The query arrives, the hours build against the engagement's budget, a principal reviews them, and the month closes as a draft in Xero.
Forward the address clients already write to, and the thread lands against the client and engagement it belongs to. Everyone on the job sees it, so nothing stalls in one person's mailbox while they are on site.
Timers and manual entries across fixed-price, retainer and hourly work, with descriptions detailed enough to stand up in a review. Time answered from a thread counts against the same engagement.
Graduates and contractors submit weekly; approvers accept or reject with a reason. Only approved entries are invoiceable, so nothing goes out under a principal's name unread.
Push to Xero as a draft with hours, rates, descriptions and tax already in place. Finance stays in Xero rather than competing with it.
Stage one is the Customer Support Inbox add-on at $12 a seat, and only for the people who answer client mail.
The queries between milestones are chargeable too
Between the milestones on any engagement sits a stream of correspondence: a clarification on a drawing, a question about an assumption, a request for a revised figure. Each one is real professional time, and almost none of it reaches a timesheet.
When the engagement is reviewed for profitability afterwards, that correspondence is invisible, which means every future fee is quoted from a number that was never true.
- Forward the address clients already write to and the thread lands against the client
- Everyone on the engagement sees the whole inbox, so nothing stalls in one person's mailbox
- Log time from the conversation, linked to the client and the project it belongs to
- The correspondence becomes part of the engagement's audit trail rather than a gap in it
- The hour reaches the same timesheet, the same approval, and the same Xero invoice
$12 per seat per month, included in your trial.
Now in the engagement's real cost, and in the next fee you quote.
All three engagement types in one place
Pro services practices rarely use a single billing model. Hour Cap supports the three modes together without forcing every project into the same shape.
Rates by discipline, review before it goes out
Rates cascade in order: the project rate first if a client negotiated one, then the member rate so a principal bills at their rate everywhere, then the organisation default. You configure exceptions, not rules, which keeps setup manageable as the team grows.
- A principal and a graduate on the same project, at their own rates
- Approvals per member, so juniors are reviewed and principals are not
- Approved entries lock, keeping the audit trail intact
- Correspondence goes through the same weekly review as project work
Most specific rate wins. Project beats member beats organisation default.
Narrower than a practice management suite
Hour Cap does not do detailed quotes and proposals, deep document workflow, opportunity pipelines, or stage-and-milestone billing tied to a project plan. If you need those, you need a dedicated tool.
What it does well: capture billable time across the team with the audit trail clients expect, keep client correspondence attached to the engagement it belongs to, manage retainers and fixed-price budgets together, and push clean draft invoices to Xero so finance stays where it already is.
Common questions
What is the best time tracking software for professional services firms?
Professional services firms need three things: tracking that supports mixed engagement types (fixed-price, retainer, hourly), rate variation across disciplines and seniority, and clean invoicing that does not require retyping line items in the accounting system. A fourth, usually unmet, is capturing the correspondence between milestones. For firms on Xero, Hour Cap covers all four without a separate practice management suite.
Why do professional services firms need more than a basic timer?
Pro services work tends to be longer-running, multi-disciplinary, and contract-bound, with detailed audit trails expected when scope or pricing comes up later. A basic timer captures the duration; it does not give you the project budgets, descriptions, or audit history that hold up under a client review months later.
How do we capture the queries that arrive between milestones?
With the Customer Support Inbox add-on, client mail is forwarded into Hour Cap and lands against the client and the engagement it belongs to. A clarification on a drawing or a request for a revised figure gets answered from the thread with a timer beside it, so the hour is on the timesheet and in the engagement's profitability rather than invisible.
Can I track fixed-price project budgets?
Yes. Set an hours budget on the project and Hour Cap shows usage in real time. When you cross your alert threshold (often 80% on fixed-price work), the project owner sees it before the budget is gone. The detailed time descriptions sitting under that budget become the audit record when you need to justify variations or change orders.
How do you handle different rates per discipline or seniority?
Rates cascade in order: project rate first if a client has negotiated one, then member rate (so a principal engineer bills at their rate everywhere), then the organisation default. You configure exceptions, not rules, which keeps the setup manageable as the team grows.
What about approvals before time hits an invoice?
Configure approval requirements per member. Senior staff usually do not need it. Graduates, juniors, and contractors typically do. Their entries enter an unsubmitted state, they submit weekly timesheets to their approver, and only approved entries become invoiceable. Time logged from a client conversation goes through the same review.
Does Hour Cap replace our practice management system?
Hour Cap is narrower. It focuses on time tracking, client correspondence, project and retainer budgets, approvals, and Xero invoicing. If your practice management needs include detailed quoting, document storage with version control, deep CRM, or production scheduling, you will still need a dedicated tool. Many smaller pro services firms find Hour Cap plus Xero is enough without a separate suite.
Related reading
Why I built Hour Cap
I'm Jonathan, a freelance web developer in Brisbane, Australia. After 15 years, I wanted my client work to run on one system instead of separate tools that didn't handle retainers or Xero, copy/paste errors, and time that never got invoiced. I needed one tool that handled retainers, fixed-price, and hourly projects, let me write proper multi-line descriptions, showed me what was actually profitable, and pushed straight to Xero as invoices. Nothing did all of it, so I built one. Today it is pivotal to my business: all my time tracking, invoice drafting, and profitability runs through Hour Cap, and it scales the same way for agencies and teams.
Independent and self-funded. When you email support, you reach the person who built it.
More about JonathanBuilt for the way professional services firms work
Every engagement type, and the correspondence around them. Everything unlocked for 7 days.