Hours you don't bill
Mark an hour as worked but not billed. It stays off the invoice while still counting as cost, utilization, and your true realized rate.
Sometimes you work an hour you won't put on the client's invoice: fixing your own mistake, a bit of goodwill, work that ran past scope. ProjectPacer lets you log that time honestly instead of hiding it. It stays off the bill, but it doesn't vanish. It still cost you something, you were still busy, and it still shapes what your time actually earned.
Mark an entry non-billable
Every entry is billable by default. To change one:
Click an entry to open the editor. A running timer counts too: editing it opens the same editor, so you can mark it before it's even stopped.
At the top of the editor is a Billable pill with a dollar sign. Click it to switch to Non-billable. On a phone it's a Billable checkbox instead, so just uncheck it.
That's it. The entry is logged, with its hours kept off the bill.
To settle a whole chunk after the fact, open a report, select the entries, and use Bulk edit → Billable status → Won't bill. It's the fast way to write off a stretch of time you've decided not to invoice.
What changes, and what doesn't
The point of a non-billable hour is that it's kept, not deleted. Deleting the hour would hide the fact that you did the work; discounting the rate would pretend it was free. Logging it as non-billable is the honest middle. Here's exactly what it touches:
- Off the invoice. Non-billable time never becomes an invoice line, and it doesn't draw down a retainer or a budget.
- Still a cost. The hour still costs what that person's time costs, so your profit and margin stay accurate.
- Still worked time. It counts toward hours worked and utilization. You were busy, even if the client isn't paying for it.
- Pulls your realized rate toward the truth. Your effective $/hr is revenue divided by every hour you worked, not just the hours you billed. Writing off time lowers it, which is the number you want, because it's what your time really earned.
See what you gave away
Once an engagement has non-billable time on it, its header says so directly: a Not billed figure (for example 6h ≈ $900) sits next to your Effective /hr, which now reads lower than your rack rate by exactly what you wrote off. It turns invisible generosity into a number you can see and manage, whether that's a client you're quietly over-serving or pro-bono work you want credit for.
The ≈ $900 value appears only when ProjectPacer can resolve a bill rate for that work. It's showing what the hour would have billed. Without a rate, the hours are still logged as non-billable, just without a dollar amount. And the money figures here (realized rate, written-off value, margin) are visible only to people whose role can see billing and costs.
Non-billable vs. no rate
Two different things can both put a zero on the invoice, and it's worth keeping them straight:
- Non-billable is a choice. You worked a real, billable client's hour and decided to keep it off this invoice. ProjectPacer treats it as a deliberate write-off and shows it as one.
- No rate means no bill rate is set for that work at all (see Rate coverage). That's usually a setup gap to fix. The exception is genuinely unpaid work, like internal overhead or pro-bono, which you set up as a client or project with no rate on purpose.
Rule of thumb: use non-billable for the odd hour on a client you otherwise bill. Use a no-rate client or project for whole engagements that are never meant to be billed. Either way the hours and their cost are still tracked, so the work always shows up in profitability.