Recently I enjoyed a lively conversation regarding reporting time summaries to clients. Some were for sending weekly reports and others not. Of course, much depends on the type of services offered and how the package was quoted. Sending time summaries for a small project seems silly where reporting with check-ins on the progress of a large website overhaul seems quite normal and expected.
Many of my clients work on monthly retainers and I find for me that sending weekly time summaries does two things: 1) gives them a quick summary of what’s been completed and what’s left in the hopper and 2) shifts the responsibility of filling the remaining time to the client’s shoulders. I’m not overly concerned about showing someone that a specific task took 3 minutes or 3 hours to complete.
Some in the conversation felt that accounting for time usage was something to be left behind in the brick ‘n mortar work and not applicable to virtual work. For me, to comes down to the services, the project at hand, and how you work with an individual client. It’s really not a big deal in the end. One plus with fully disclosing the time usage is that a client can better estimate time needed for projects equalling better time management and budgeting for services.
Curious what your thoughts are about this hot topic? Please feel free to share.