Everhour captures legal time for billing workflows, while fee totals still need clear rates, entries, and tax inputs.
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A legal billing calculation answers how much client-facing value was produced from approved billable work before payment is collected. The core output is the fee amount: billable hours multiplied by the applicable hourly rate, after any billing increment rounding and before or after write-downs, depending on the number you need.
For U.S. legal work, the result is normally stated in U.S. dollars. The calculation should also separate professional fees from tax, expenses, discounts, and collections. The United States has no federal VAT/GST or national sales-tax rate for billed professional time, so taxable service treatment needs a state and local input when it applies.
Start with the time entries that are approved for billing. Exclude internal administration, duplicate entries, and tasks marked non-billable under the engagement terms. If the matter has more than one rate, group the entries by person, role, or task rate before multiplying. This prevents one blended number from hiding the actual billing basis.
For example, a litigation matter has 18 approved partner hours at $325 per hour and 27 approved associate hours at $210 per hour. The partner amount is $5,850, and the associate amount is $5,670, for a standard billable value of $11,520. If the billing attorney writes down $960, the client-facing fee becomes $10,560 before taxes, reimbursable expenses, or collections.
Legal billing often uses increments such as 0.1 hour, but the calculator result is only as clean as the entries behind it. Round each time entry according to the engagement policy before totaling the invoice. Rounding only the final monthly total produces a different result when many small entries are involved.
For U.S. lawyers, ABA Model Rule 1.5 requires the scope of representation and the basis or rate of fees and expenses to be communicated in writing for new client-lawyer relationships, subject to the rule's limited low-cost exception. A calculator cannot replace that written fee basis. It helps test whether the hours, rates, and adjustments match the terms already communicated to the client.
A one-off calculation is enough when you need to check a draft bill, estimate fees for a small matter, or compare standard billable value against the amount the client will actually see. For federal-agency vendor invoices, Prompt Payment rules generally use a 30-calendar-day due date after a proper invoice unless another listed term applies.
A managed workflow is better when multiple people record time, partners approve write-downs, billing staff prepare invoices, and finance needs a record later. Everhour Time Tracking captures task and project hours through timers or manual entries, supports approvals and locked periods, and feeds timesheets, reporting, budgeting, invoicing, and payroll review from the same time records.
This content is for general information only, may not be fully up to date, and is provided without any warranty or liability.
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A legal billing total starts with approved billable hours and the rate attached to each lawyer, paralegal, task, or matter. Then apply the billing increment, remove non-billable work, record write-downs, and add reimbursable expenses or taxes only when they belong on the invoice under the engagement terms and jurisdiction rules.
Non-billable time is excluded before the billable value is calculated. A write-down happens after billable value is calculated, when the firm reduces the amount charged to the client. Keeping those separate preserves realization analysis: the firm can see both time that was never billable and billable value that was reduced before invoicing.
No. The United States has no federal VAT/GST or single national sales-tax rate for billed professional time. Sales tax treatment is state and local. Some services are not taxed, while certain jurisdictions tax services or gross receipts, so a U.S. legal billing calculation needs the correct jurisdiction-specific tax input when the service is taxable.
Expenses should stay outside the hourly fee calculation when the client agreement treats them as separate reimbursable charges. Filing fees, travel, expert costs, and other pass-through items do not change the hourly billable value unless the agreement folds them into a fixed fee, blended rate, or capped arrangement.
The common mistake is applying one hourly rate to the entire matter when different people or tasks have different rates. That shortcut distorts the fee total and hides the billing basis. Group time by rate first, apply rounding at the entry level, then subtract write-downs so the estimate matches the invoice logic.
Everhour Time Tracking lets users start timers or add manual time against tasks and projects, then route entries into timesheets, approvals, reports, budgets, invoices, and payroll review. Admins can lock completed periods, send reminders, configure timer behavior, and approve timesheets before billing work moves forward.
Everhour supports billable and non-billable time through project billing status, task-level non-billable controls, custom task rates, and member-rate exceptions. Reports can show billable time, non-billable time, billable amount, and cost by member or task, while money-related fields stay limited by role.
Track approved legal hours, lock billing periods, and move clean time records into invoice preparation. Everhour gives billing teams a clearer path from recorded work to billable totals.
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