Client has not budgeted enough time for my project/timesheets issue

[timesheets]

I started in my new job around 2 months ago, and it's my first job where I have had to fill in timesheets and where clients are billed per hour that I work on their project.

We have one client who is very tight with their budget. The allowance of time I can spend on a project is way too low. The project has several steps, each with an allowance of time I can spend on it. For example, I had two hours to conduct research and produce an in-depth report of my findings, it was impossible so I spent extra time in the evenings working on this and probably spent 6 hours on it in the end.

The current stage we are at I have 25 hours to do it, I have already used the majority of that time just developing the first draft and taking in my manager's very meticulous, detailed and complicated comments. I still have several weeks of reviews to go through. I need to put it on my timesheet but I'm worried about the fact most of the budget will be gone.

I'm new in this job and new to this kind of work, but I am going to speak to my manager about it this week to hear his thoughts. But does anyone have any advice?

I am new so I understand I'm a little slower than someone more experienced, but I am still being as efficient as I can be. I know other colleagues have struggled with this particular client and have gone over-budget.

I'm finding it stressful and don't really know what the protocol/procedure is for this kind of thing.

Ordinarily you should be raising it with the manager as soon as you realise the budget isn't adequate or that you are going to overrun.

So several steps ago.

You don't do extra unbooked time because then the next person gets given the same impossible budget and told they're the problem for taking 8 hours because you demonstrated it can be achieved it in 2 hours last time.

You have the conversation at the earliest point - not after using up the whole budget without completing the work - because then there are options:

• go back to client and agree a different budget
• agree a reduced scope of work
• accept training time
• accept an element of write off is necessary because they're a key client etc

Etc etc.

By waiting until afterwards to tell them it's too late to do anything except make a loss on the work.

@ftw163532

Ordinarily you should be raising it with the manager as soon as you realise the budget isn't adequate or that you are going to overrun.

So several steps ago.

You don't do extra unbooked time because then the next person gets given the same impossible budget and told they're the problem for taking 8 hours because you demonstrated it can be achieved it in 2 hours last time.

I did raise it with my manger at the time and he said to put it down as non-billable, so it didn't really fix the underlying issue.

From my understanding, this is a consistent issue with all projects for this client.

Do you have billable targets for your overall time that booking client work as non-billable messes up?

That's not great management on the face of it tbh.

If it's just with this client it might be that they're taking a hit because the client is considered more valuable in other ways. Hard to say.

@ftw163532

You have the conversation at the earliest point - not after using up the whole budget without completing the work - because then there are options:

• go back to client and agree a different budget
• agree a reduced scope of work
• accept training time
• accept an element of write off is necessary because they're a key client etc

Etc etc.

By waiting until afterwards to tell them it's too late to do anything except make a loss on the work.

Ok, thank you. It is difficult also because it's my first job of this nature so I don't really know how long things will take until I have done them. It's my first time doing a project of this nature. For example, at the moment I have around 8 hours left to finalise the drafts after feedback which might be fine if the feedback is straight-forward.

On the next project I do, I will have that insight to know what to expect and know how long each stage roughly takes.

@ftw163532

Do you have billable targets for your overall time that booking client work as non-billable messes up?

That's not great management on the face of it tbh.

If it's just with this client it might be that they're taking a hit because the client is considered more valuable in other ways. Hard to say.

I have no idea to be honest. I think there are targets we should meet, but some weeks I am nearly 100% billable and other times I am lower due to things like training courses.

The other clients I work with are completely different. It is just with this particular client that there is a really strict allowance. I know that a colleague working with the same client has recently gone over the budget at an early stage in the project.

You need to understand from your manager what tasks are billable and which are non chargeable. You also need to understand how the budget/time allocation was originally calculated, what the scope was and whether your business had an expectation it wouldn't be sufficient and how far it's acceptable to exceed these hours. Either they go back and ask the client for more money or suck it up. It's the responsibility of whoever owns that budget to manage it appropriately, not you.

Who scoped the project? On what basis was the budget set and are you taking longer than anticipated or was it not realistic?

If it were me, I'd be concerned that this is going to come back to bite you if your performance review is going to be linked to your billable hours. If your manager is indeed sweeping things under the carpet by having you record the hours as non-billable instead of dealing with the issue head on, then I would be pushing back on this if your KPIs are linked to billable hours.

Have you agreed with your manager yet how your performance will be evaluated? If not, that's something to tackle ASAP.