Time Tracking for Consultants
Most consulting leakage comes from work that felt too small to log in the moment: prep, follow-up, review time, travel, and quick client interventions. Sandtime.io helps consultants capture that invisible work, monitor retainer burn in real time, and invoice from a clear record instead of Friday guesswork.
Consultants: why they choose Sandtime.io
Keep client time invoice-ready
Attach every advisory hour to the right client, retainer, and engagement before billing reviews become an archaeological dig through calendars and email threads.
Capture forgotten advisory work
Log calls, workshops, reviews, prep, travel, and follow-ups while they are still visible. The small pieces of consulting work are usually the first ones to disappear.
Spot retainer leakage early
See how much of each retainer is already consumed before the client goes over. That makes scope conversations earlier, cleaner, and easier to defend.
Keep the whole engagement team aligned
Track partner, associate, and subcontractor hours in one place. Everyone works from the same source of truth instead of reconciling separate spreadsheets at invoice time.
How a consulting firm tracks engagements and retainers
A consultant or consulting firm sets up Sandtime.io with a project per client engagement or retainer, each with its own rate and currency. Partners, associates and subcontractors log calls, workshops and prep against the engagement, so retainer burn and invoice totals are visible at any point in the month.
- Model engagements, not just clientsCreate a project per engagement or retainer, for example a strategy review and a monthly advisory retainer for the same client. Set the revenue rate in the currency the client pays in, and keep business development on a non-billable project.
- Scope access for subcontractorsInvite partners as Administrators, engagement leads as Project Administrators, and associates and subcontractors as Users. A User sees only the engagements they are assigned to, so an outside specialist never sees your other clients.
- Capture advisory time wherever it happensUse the desktop app or Chrome extension at your desk, the phone app between meetings, and Slack slash commands to start and stop a timer without leaving a client channel. Prep and follow-up go in afterwards with start and end times.
- Report burn and bill at month endA report grouped by project and year-month shows how much of each retainer is used. At month end, approve timesheets and run the Invoices template, which lists time, rate, net revenue, tax and total revenue per engagement.
Step by step in the help center: invite the team with the right role, approve a week from the email, and turn on auto-locking.
Common use cases
- Capture advisory work as it happens across calls, workshops, reviews, travel, and follow-up
- Monitor retainer burn before clients go over budget and before margin quietly slips away
- Pull a defensible billing summary at the end of each engagement without rebuilding the week
- Track partner, associate, and subcontractor hours in one shared account
- Separate client delivery from internal business development and admin work
- Export time logs by project and date range for invoice generation
Key features
Fast capture during client work
Start tracking when a client call, review, or working session begins. One click keeps time tied to the right engagement.
Retroactive time entry
Add retroactive entries with enough context to explain what happened. Useful when work happened away from the desk or between meetings.
Multiple engagements without friction
Switch between active clients, retainers, and internal work without losing the in-between time that usually gets forgotten.
Client-ready reporting
Pull reports by project, team member, or date range. Export a clean audit trail for invoicing, status updates, and internal review.
Where Sandtime.io stops
Better to know before you invite the team. These are the gaps people in this line of work ask about most.
- No invoicingSandtime.io does not send invoices. The Invoices report template lists time, rate, net revenue, tax, and total per project, and you export it to Excel or CSV for your billing software.
- No project budgetsThere is no budget field or budget alert. A report grouped by project shows hours, cost, and revenue so far, and you compare them with the estimate yourself.
- Reminders are a weekly emailThe fill-timesheet reminder is one email, sent on Friday at 6 PM while auto-locking is on. It is off by default, so each member switches it on in their notification settings.
Common questions
Is Sandtime.io free for consultants?
Yes. Sandtime.io is free for unlimited users, so a solo consultant or a firm of partners, associates and subcontractors can use it without a per-user fee.
Can I track retainer hours per client?
Yes. Give each client or engagement its own project, and reports show the hours logged against it by day, month or year, so you can see how much of a retainer is used.
Can subcontractors see only their own engagements?
Yes. Users see only the projects they are assigned to, so a subcontractor can log time on one engagement without seeing your other clients.
Can I bill clients in different currencies?
Yes. Rates can be set in different currencies, so each client project can use the currency that client pays in.
How do I turn tracked hours into invoices?
Start from the Invoices report template, which lists time, hourly rate, net revenue, tax and total revenue per project, then export it to Excel or CSV for your billing or practice management software.
Keep exploring
Continue with the most relevant Sandtime.io pages for this topic.
Track breaks and other non-billable time
Sandtime.io has no dedicated break timer. Non-billable projects with the Billable switch off keep breaks in your timesheet and out of what you bill.
Open pageBillable Hours
Work hours that can be charged to a client or project. Essential for professional services firms to track revenue.
Open pageCost, revenue, and billable reporting
Use billable flags and rates to understand project profitability without losing the self-reported workflow.
Open pageCost
The expense associated with employee work hours. Calculated by multiplying time by cost rates for profitability analysis.
Open pageCreate a project for reported time
Create projects that people can report against, mark them billable or non-billable, and keep reporting tidy.
Open pageCustom Reports
User-defined reports with flexible groupings, metrics, and filters. Custom reports answer specific business questions.
Open pageTrack your first hour today
Create your free account and see results in minutes.