Discover why time tracking is essential in consulting. Learn best practices and how Summit helps consultants track time, match expenses, and stay on budget.
Consulting operates at a rapid pace and is fundamentally linked to time. Regardless of whether consultants bill clients hourly or undertake projects with a fixed scope, meticulous time tracking is essential for substantiating their fees, effectively managing project budgets, and safeguarding healthy profit margins. This accurate record-keeping provides the necessary visibility into the effort invested, ensuring fair compensation and informed financial decisions.
The nature of consulting work, characterised by managing multiple clients and frequent project transitions within a single day, demands robust remote tracking capabilities for both billable hours and project-related expenditures.
Traditional, paper-based timesheets and disparate software systems lack the flexibility and interconnectedness required to accurately and efficiently capture this crucial data for consultants working across various engagements. This can lead to inaccuracies in billing, difficulties in project cost management, and increased administrative overhead for both the consultants and the consulting firm. A more integrated and accessible solution is essential to streamline these processes and ensure accurate financial reporting.
Unique Time Tracking Needs of Consultants
Consultants don’t have the luxury of working on one task at a time. They’re expected to switch between client calls, strategy documents, workshops, and reporting - all in a single day. Add travel, research, or ad hoc deliverables to the mix, and it’s easy to lose track of where time is actually going.
This reality makes traditional timesheets or basic timers inadequate. Consultants need time tracking systems that offer:
1. Mobility
Log time while commuting, between meetings, or from different client sites.
2. Multi-project tagging
Assign time entries to the correct client, project, or task without confusion.
3. Flexible billing support
Whether you’re charging hourly, per deliverable, or on retainer, your time tracking tool should adapt to your model.
It’s about connecting time to value. That’s why many firms turn to dedicated consultant time tracking software that fits the pace and complexity of consulting work.
How Poor Time Tracking Affects Projects
When consultants fail to track their time accurately, the consequences go far beyond administrative inefficiency. The impact stretches across revenue, project control, client relationships, and team morale, and these effects compound over time.
1. Underbilling and Lost Revenue
One of the most immediate risks is financial loss. If consultants forget to log time, underestimate hours, or submit timesheets late, your firm can’t bill accurately. These small discrepancies - an unlogged hour here, a forgotten meeting there - might seem insignificant, but across multiple projects or consultants, they quickly add up. In long-term engagements, this can result in thousands of dollars in unbilled time, directly affecting your bottom line.
2. Loss of Visibility and Control
Without timely and detailed time entries, project leads are forced to work with incomplete data. They can’t see which tasks are consuming more effort than planned or whether the team is progressing at the right pace. Are certain deliverables taking longer than expected? Are senior consultants being pulled into tasks that should be delegated? These questions go unanswered, making it difficult to adjust resourcing, timeline, or scope. In short, poor time tracking leads to poor project decisions.
3. Misalignment Between Time and Budget
Time and budget are inherently linked. If time isn’t being tracked properly, budget tracking becomes unreliable. Finance teams may believe a project is within budget when in reality, the team has already exceeded its forecasted effort. This misalignment creates false confidence, and by the time budget overruns become visible, it’s too late to course-correct without impacting margins or the client relationship.
Without integrated tools like a project budget tracker, teams lose the ability to monitor burn rates and make proactive financial decisions.
4. Strained Client Relationships and Disputes
Clients expect clear, transparent reporting - especially when they’re billed hourly or by phase. If invoices are vague, inconsistent, or not backed by timestamped time logs, it opens the door to disputes. Clients may challenge hours, question overages, or delay payment. Worse, they may begin to doubt your team’s professionalism and accuracy, damaging long-term trust.
On the flip side, accurate time tracking builds confidence. It allows you to justify every line on an invoice, explain why a change order is needed, or demonstrate that your team is delivering efficiently.
5. Decreased Team Morale and Accountability
Without a reliable time tracking process, consultants may feel uncertain about how their performance is measured or overwhelmed trying to reconstruct their week every Friday. This lack of structure can lead to stress, frustration, and reduced engagement. On the managerial side, project leads struggle to hold teams accountable or recognise those who go above and beyond.
In consulting, time is not just a resource; it’s the product. And when that product isn’t measured properly, everything else suffers. From forecasting and pricing to delivery and profitability, poor time tracking weakens the very structure of your business.
That’s why it’s essential to connect time tracking with broader financial tools, like expense systems and budgeting platforms. When integrated correctly, time logs don’t just support billing. They fuel smarter decisions, stronger reporting, and more predictable outcomes.
Summit helps firms close this gap by linking consultant time to real-time expense data and project budgets, giving teams the visibility they need to stay aligned and profitable.
Best Practices for Time Tracking in Consulting
To keep projects on track and invoices airtight, consultants need simple, repeatable habits. These best practices make time tracking more accurate and less painful:
- Log time daily – Waiting until Friday to recall Monday’s tasks rarely works. Encourage your team to track time throughout the day or immediately after each task.
- Use clear project and task tags – Don’t just enter “Meeting – 1 hour.” Tag the client, the phase, and the purpose. This supports cleaner reporting and billing later.
- Sync with expense systems – If a consultant travels to a client site or purchases a tool for a deliverable, the time and expense should be linked. This improves visibility and reduces reconciliation time.
- Use mobile-friendly tools – Your time tracking system should be easy to use on phones and tablets, especially for consultants who work outside of the office.
Implementing these practices builds a culture of accountability and transparency.
Time Tracking and Budget Monitoring
Consulting projects often run on tight budgets and predefined scopes. Without proper time tracking, it’s impossible to see how effort maps to expectations.
For example, if you budgeted 80 hours for a project phase but consultants have already logged 70 in two weeks, that’s a red flag. Either the scope has grown, or the team is spending more time than forecasted. In either case, you need to act quickly.
Linking time tracking with budget monitoring enables:
- Real-time burn rate tracking
- More accurate forecasting
- Early detection of scope creep
- Smarter resourcing decisions
- Justified client conversations around timeline or cost adjustments
This is where Summit steps in to help.
How Summit Complements Your Time Tracking System
While Summit is not a time tracking platform itself, it integrates seamlessly with leading time tracking tools, giving finance and project leads a complete picture of both time and money.
Here’s how Summit supports consulting firms:
- Track Time-Linked Expenses
Whether it’s travel, tools, or subcontractors, Summit tags every approved cost to the right project or client, you can also map expenses to specific periods or milestones.
- Monitor Budget Burn in Real Time
See how time-based costs are accumulating against the original budget, and receive alerts when limits are nearing.
- Export Reports for Billing and Review
Combine time-linked expenses with budgets and approvals to support clean, professional client reporting.
- Support Profitability Insights
Identify which clients, projects, or team members are most profitable by comparing costs (including time-based) with billed revenue.
Summit becomes the financial layer that works alongside your consulting time tracking software, bringing context, clarity, and control to every hour and every invoice.
How Summit Supports Time-Linked Budgeting
Summit doesn’t replace your time tracking app, but it makes the data work harder for you. By connecting tracked time to budgets and expenses, Summit gives finance teams and project owners a clear view of project health.
With Summit, you can:
- Tag expenses by time period or milestone – Match costs to when and where time was spent.
- Export time-linked spend reports – Make client billing and internal reviews more transparent and efficient.
- Spot scope creep early – Compare actual consultant hours and expenses against plan to prevent margin loss.
- Track profit margins in real time – View performance by project, client, or consultant and adjust strategies accordingly.
Whether you’re running long-term retainers or short-term engagements, Summit helps you keep time, cost, and value aligned.
Track Time Smarter. Manage Budgets Better
Consulting thrives on trust, clarity, and results. But without proper time tracking, even the best teams risk missed revenue, confused clients, and declining margins.
Summit helps you bridge the gap between tracked time and project budgets, so you can manage your work with greater confidence, accuracy, and efficiency. Ready to get more from your time tracking data? Talk to us today to see how Summit supports smarter expense visibility, tighter project controls, and higher client satisfaction.
