Solo consultants need billable hours tied to clients and budgets. Everhour keeps that work organized beyond a weekly total.
Enter your time in and out for each day. Overtime and gross pay are calculated automatically.
| Day | Time In | Break Start | Break End | Break | Time Out | Total |
|---|
The calculator gives you the number — Everhour takes it from there.
One click and you're timing. Start a timer, add an entry, edit the details. This is exactly how it feels in Everhour.
Set a budget, assign rates, and get alerted before you're over.
Measurement
Track your budget through time or costs
Every report you need — configured your way, always up to date.
Tracked hours flow straight into a polished invoice — no copy-paste, no manual math.
This page is for a solo consultant who needs to capture consulting time by client, project, task, and billing status. The practical goal is a record you can use at the end of the week without reconstructing work from memory. Each entry should answer four questions: who the work was for, which project it belonged to, which task or deliverable it supported, and whether the time is billable.
A one-person consulting business often has more categories than people expect. Client delivery, sales calls, proposals, bookkeeping, learning, and internal admin all compete for the same week. Tracking only billable work hides the real cost of running the business. Tracking everything, then marking billable and non-billable time clearly, gives you a better view of capacity, pricing, and which clients consume the most unsupported time.
Manual entry works when you record time the same day with enough detail to trust the result. A timer works better when your day moves between calls, research, writing, and client messages. The main risk with manual-only tracking is end-of-week recall. Rebuilt entries often round too neatly, miss small task switches, or push admin time into client work because the week feels too full.
A useful weekly record does not need dozens of labels. Start with client, project, task, date, start and stop time or duration, billable status, and notes. Use U.S. dollars for rates and invoice amounts when your consulting business bills U.S. clients. A clean entry can be as simple as: Acme Co., onboarding audit, data review, 2.25 hours, billable, notes on missing exports.
Time tracking for a one-person consulting business should separate invoicing from budgeting. Invoicing asks which hours you can charge. Budgeting asks whether the project still makes sense at the current pace. A fixed-fee project with 18 tracked hours against a 20-hour estimate gives a different warning than an hourly project with 18 billable hours ready to invoice.
The common mistake is treating every tracked hour as invoiceable by default. Discovery calls, proposal revisions, internal planning, and client-requested changes can follow different billing rules under your agreement. Mark the category at the time of entry, not after the invoice is drafted. That keeps the invoice defensible and gives you a clean basis for adjusting scopes, retainers, or hourly rates later.
A free weekly tracker is enough when you need a one-off total, a quick invoice backup, or a short project record for one client. It also works when you bill from a simple summary and do not need recurring budgets, approval history, or a full archive. The limit appears when the same clients return every month and project budgets start affecting pricing.
A managed workflow makes sense when tracked time needs to feed budgets, reports, and invoices without retyping. Everhour Project Budgeting supports hour-based and money-based budgets, recurring budget periods, budget alerts, budget protection, expense inclusion controls, multiple billing methods, and client-level budgets. For a solo consultant, that turns weekly entries into a working record of scope, spend, and client profitability.
This content is for general information only, may not be fully up to date, and is provided without any warranty or liability.
High Performer
G2
Summer 2026
Best Ease Of Use
Capterra
Summer 2026
Rated in the top time trackers across G2, Capterra, and TrustRadius — with consistent praise for ease of use, integrations, and support.
A solo consultant should track billable client work, non-billable client support, proposals, sales calls, admin, bookkeeping, learning, and internal planning. Billable totals matter for invoices, but non-billable time explains capacity and pricing. A week with 24 billable hours and 16 non-billable hours is a full business week, not a light consulting week.
A timer is better when you switch between clients, tasks, and messages during the day. Manual entry is fine when you record time promptly with clear notes. The weaker method is delayed reconstruction at the end of the week because small task switches, short calls, and admin work are easy to miss or misclassify.
Invoice-ready consulting records include client, project, task or deliverable, date, duration, billable status, rate, and a short work note. Rates and invoice amounts for U.S. consulting work normally use U.S. dollars. Separate fixed-fee tracking from hourly billing so internal budget review does not accidentally create invoice lines the client did not agree to pay.
Yes. Non-billable time shows the real operating cost of the business. Sales, admin, research, client support, and project setup reduce available delivery time even when they do not appear on an invoice. Tracking them helps you price retainers, set weekly capacity, and decide which clients or project types create too much unpaid work.
The biggest mistake is adding vague time blocks after the work is finished. Entries such as "client work, 6 hours" do not explain the deliverable, task, or billing basis. Better records show the date, task, project, duration, and short note. That level of detail supports the invoice without turning every entry into a long narrative.
Everhour Project Budgeting lets a solo consultant set hour-based or money-based budgets for projects, recurring work, or client-level limits. Budget alerts at 75%, 90%, and 100% show when tracked work is approaching the agreed scope before the invoice becomes a surprise.
Everhour Reporting turns logged time, budgets, costs, and project data into customizable reports. A solo consultant can group time by client, project, billable status, or date range, then export reports in CSV, Excel/XLSX, or PDF format for review and records.
Track client work against project budgets before the invoice is due. Everhour turns solo consulting time into budget visibility, cleaner billing, and better scope control.
14-day free trial · No credit card · Cancel anytime
