Timdebitering

Timdebitering is a term used primarily in Dutch-speaking contexts to describe the practice of recording, validating, and invoicing the time that professionals spend on tasks for clients. It is a form of time-based billing common in sectors such as management consulting, legal services, IT, engineering, and marketing. The core idea is to translate hours worked into monetary charges according to a predefined rate or rate card.

Typically, timdebitering begins with time tracking, using timesheets, software, or automated monitoring. Employees log start and end times or durations for specific activities, which are categorized by project, client, task type, and rate. Supervisors approve the time entries, after which the data is used to generate invoices, applying hourly rates, overheads, and any minimums or block billing rules. In many organizations, an internal job or project ledger links times to budgets and enables variance reporting.

Care is taken to align time charges with the contract terms, such as hourly rates, retainer arrangements, or milestone-based billing. Time entries may be billed as actual hours, rounded to increments, or subject to caps. Some firms use blended or tiered rates for different personnel classes. Billing may occur monthly or at project milestones, sometimes including expenses or disbursements.

Benefits include improved transparency for clients, more accurate revenue recognition, and better project control. Challenges include the administrative overhead of time capture, potential incentives to inflate hours, privacy concerns with monitoring, and the need for reliable data quality and controls to prevent fraud or errors. Alternatives to timdebitering include fixed-price contracts, retainer arrangements, or milestone-based billing.

The term is most common in Dutch-speaking environments but the practice is global under time-based billing.