4h 10m went unrecorded. 1h 20m of it is worth billing.
Every capture product quotes the first number. It is real, and most of it is time you would have written off or should never charge for. The gap between those two figures is the whole difference between a business case and a brochure.
One associate's Tuesday
Solid blocks made it onto the timesheet written on Thursday. Hatched blocks did not.
- 08:10
Reading the counterparty's mark-up before the call
MAT-2214 · 35m · not on the timesheet
- 08:45
Call with the client and follow-up note
MAT-2214 · 60m
- 09:45
Internal catch-up on resourcing
no matter · 25m · not on the timesheet
- 10:10
Drafting the transition services schedule
MAT-2214 · 95m
- 11:45
Re-reading a clause reviewed last week
MAT-2214 · 30m · not on the timesheet
- 12:15
Break
no matter · 45m · not on the timesheet
- 13:00
Research on the standstill provision
MAT-2188 · 80m
- 14:20
Three emails on a different matter
MAT-2190 · 20m · not on the timesheet
- 14:40
Reviewing the exit-fee calculation
MAT-2214 · 50m
- 15:30
Chasing the counterparty, no reply
MAT-2214 · 25m · not on the timesheet
- 15:55
Second pass on the same schedule after comments
MAT-2214 · 40m · not on the timesheet
- 16:35
Partner review and amendments
MAT-2214 · 55m
- 17:30
Filing and matter housekeeping
no matter · 30m · not on the timesheet
Where the missing 4h 10m actually goes
Three destinations, and only the first one reaches an invoice. A business case built on the total is overstating itself by 903,833 a year on one fee earner.
The middle band is the interesting one. Re-reading a clause you reviewed last week is real work, honestly captured, and a partner will strike it from the bill — correctly. Capturing it still matters, because a firm that cannot see its write-offs cannot price.
- 1h 20m
Recovered and billable
- 1h 10m
Billable, but you would write it off
- 1h 40m
Never chargeable
1,933
a day, per fee earner
425,333
over 220 working days
1,329,167
what the overstated version claims
At 1,450 an hour. The third figure is on the page because it is the one you will be quoted elsewhere.
How the capture works
The second of these is a product decision that costs us demos and is not negotiable.
- It watches the work, not the person
- Documents opened, matters touched, calls placed, drafts saved. It does not log keystrokes or take screenshots, and a firm that wants that should buy something else.
- Nothing bills without a human
- Every block above is a suggestion until somebody accepts it. Automatic time entries going straight onto an invoice is the fastest way to lose a client over eleven minutes.
- The narrative is the hard part
- Clients reject entries for their description far more often than their duration. A block that knows which document you had open can propose a narrative that survives the bill review.
- It is worst on the days that matter
- A day of deep drafting captures cleanly. A day of nine short interruptions is where the leakage is and where the boundaries between blocks are least certain.
Before you count the money
The second one catches firms out more than any technical problem.
- Recovered is not billed
- Of 4h 10m missed on this day, 1h 20m is genuinely recoverable. The rest is work you would write off or should not charge for, and counting it would inflate the case by 903,833 a year.
- The client still has to accept it
- More accurate time means more time on the bill, and a client who was comfortable with the old number will notice. Firms that deploy this without warning their clients have a difficult first quarter.
- It measures effort, not value
- An associate who takes ninety minutes over something a partner does in twenty has recorded more time and produced less. Capture makes that visible, which some firms will find they did not want.
- Fixed-fee work gets nothing from this
- Where the fee is agreed up front, better capture improves your margin analysis and changes no invoice. That is worth having and it is not the number on this page.
The rest of the platform
Assistant
Ask the file a question. Every answer cites its source.
Research
Nizam, regulations and ministerial decisions.
Drafting
From your own precedents, not a generic bank.
Arabic and English
Two versions that say the same thing.
Contract review
Marked against your playbook, not somebody else's.
Document sets
Thousands of pages, ranked by what matters.
Matters
Every document, deadline and hour against the file.
Deadlines
Counted from the trigger, not from memory.