Billable utilisation rate shows how much of the available working time in your business is spent on client work you can charge for. If an accountant records 112 billable hours from 160 available hours in a month, their utilisation rate is 70%.
Billable utilisation rate
(Billable hours ÷ available hours) × 100
The useful choice is which working hours to count. A partner with two days set aside for review and business development should not carry the same target as an accountant whose week is mostly client delivery. A solo consultant also needs room for proposals, administration, and business development.
How to calculate billable utilisation
Start with billable hours, then divide them by the working hours available for the role. For most small professional-services firms, that means contracted hours less leave and public holidays.
| Calculation basis | Hours counted as available | Best used for | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard working hours | Contracted weekly hours × weeks in the period | Simple external benchmarking | Leave and public holidays can make individuals or periods look artificially low |
| Available working hours | Standard hours minus leave and public holidays | Day-to-day team and capacity reviews | Keep the leave rules consistent across people and periods |
| Role-adjusted capacity | Available hours minus agreed non-client responsibilities | Planning a role with substantial management, review, or business-development duties | If you subtract too much internal time, the percentage rises even though the firm has done no more client work |
| Paid hours | All paid time, including leave where applicable | Labour-cost or workforce analysis | It is rarely comparable with benchmarks based on a fixed working year |
Available working hours give most small firms a straightforward monthly measure. If a role has a fixed allowance for management or review, agree that adjustment before the reporting period starts. Otherwise, keep the calculation simple and account for those duties when you set the role’s target.
Billable utilisation is enough for a first review. Some organisations also track productive utilisation, which can include client delivery that is not billed and sometimes training, mentoring, or process improvement. TSIA’s utilisation framework recommends defining each category before comparing results. Write down what your business includes so the number keeps the same meaning from month to month.
Weekly, monthly and annual calculations
The formula works at any interval, but each view serves a different decision:
| View | Example calculation | Best used for |
|---|---|---|
| Week | 26 ÷ 37.5 = 69.3% | Current scheduling and work allocation |
| Month | 112 ÷ 160 = 70.0% | Management reviews and short-term trends |
| Year | 1,344 ÷ 1,920 = 70.0% | Pricing, staffing, and external comparisons |
Weekly results can jump around because of leave, training, project delays, and late timesheets. A monthly or rolling-quarter view is usually more useful for staffing and pricing decisions.
What is a good billable utilisation rate?
A useful target leaves room for the rest of the role. An accounting partner who spends Friday reviewing work and meeting a prospective client should not look under-utilised beside an accountant delivering client work all week.
Benchmarks can provide a starting point, but the surveys below count working time in different ways and cover different professions:
| Source | Reported result | What it measures | Comparison limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 SPI Professional Services Maturity Benchmark | 68.9% overall; 64.3% for organisations under 10 people; 65.4% for 10-30; 69.2% for 31-100 | Annual billable hours divided by a fixed 2,000-hour year | IT and management consultancies made up most of the 403 respondents; only one accounting organisation took part |
| 2025 AICPA PCPS/CPA.com National MAP Survey | Firmwide medians ranged from 48.1% to 61.5% across the five fee bands below $5 million | US public-accounting practices, with 1,073 completed responses and fiscal-2024 data | Results vary by firm size, service mix, region, role, and the survey’s utilisation definition |
| 2025 Clio Legal Trends Report | 38% | Share of an eight-hour day recorded as billable work by US legal professionals | Useful legal-sector context, but not a target for other professions |
These are reported results, not universal targets. The SPI figure for organisations under 10 people may help a small consultancy judge its own trend, but it says little about the right target for an accounting partner or a junior bookkeeper.
What’s a good utilisation rate for accounting partners?
The AICPA MAP Survey reported median utilisation of 58.1% for equity partners and 59.4% for directors. Its top-performing practices reported a lower equity-partner median of 52.9%, alongside greater staff leverage (more billable professionals per equity partner) and higher net client fees per professional.
That result is a useful warning against pushing partners to maximise delivery time. A partner may create more value by reviewing difficult tax work, coaching a manager, repricing an engagement, or meeting a prospective advisory client.
What’s a good rate for managers and senior accountants?
The same survey reported medians of 64.9% for senior managers, 66.9% for managers, and 70.0% for senior associates. These roles often carry more client delivery than partners, but their targets still need to allow for review and supervision.
Compare managers with people doing a similar job. A manager responsible for a large team should not be judged against one who spends nearly all week delivering work.
What’s a good utilisation rate for junior accountants and bookkeepers?
Associates in the AICPA survey recorded a median of 66.0%. Treat 66.0% as context. Set targets from the work expected of comparable people in your own practice. New starters need training, and fixed-fee bookkeeping work may require a different target from tax or advisory work.
Use the first few months to establish an internal range for comparable roles. If someone falls outside it, check their workload and time records before treating the result as a performance issue.
What about consultants, lawyers, and solo owners?
Accounting benchmarks do not transfer neatly to every profession. A consultancy can group people by delivery and management responsibility; a law firm can compare partners separately from fee earners. If you work alone, use your own monthly trend and leave enough time for proposals, administration, professional development, and review.
Low, healthy, and dangerously high utilisation
| Pattern | What it can mean |
|---|---|
| Below the role’s range across several periods | Thin pipeline, incomplete time records, poor work allocation, or a target that does not fit the role |
| Within the role’s range, with acceptable margin and realization | Client delivery is covered without crowding out review, learning, and new work |
| Sustained high utilisation with little buffer | Leave gets deferred, managers review work at night, proposals wait, or urgent requests force a reshuffle |
SPI found stronger financial results among organisations above 80%, but its report also warns that maintaining utilisation above 80% can become unsustainable because of burnout and attrition.
Check what happens after the hours are recorded
Utilisation measures the share of available time recorded as billable work. Realization rate measures how much of that recorded billable value is invoiced after write-downs and discounts. Margin tells you whether the engagement paid, while the forward workload tells you whether more work is coming.
Two engagements can both record 70% utilisation while producing different results. One stays within scope and invoices almost all recorded value. The other overruns its fixed fee and absorbs a large write-down.
Keep an eight- or twelve-week workload view beside the monthly rate. The capacity trap for small firms appears when every diary is full and there is no room for review, onboarding, or worthwhile new work. If utilisation rises while margin falls, investigate pricing, scope, write-down patterns, rework, and who is doing the work. Modest utilisation alongside strong client profitability may be healthy for a fixed-fee or value-priced service.
Worked example for a small accounting practice
A four-person accounting practice reviews the following month after removing leave and public holidays from available hours.
| Role | Billable hours | Available hours | Utilisation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Partner | 75 | 150 | 50.0% |
| Manager | 104 | 160 | 65.0% |
| Senior accountant | 112 | 160 | 70.0% |
| Accountant | 104 | 160 | 65.0% |
| Practice total | 395 | 630 | 62.7% |
At 62.7%, the overall result looks unremarkable. The role-level figures are more useful: the senior accountant has the heaviest delivery load, the manager has room, and the partner has spent the month reviewing complex tax work, coaching, and meeting prospective advisory clients.
Two fixed-fee compliance jobs have also run over budget. The practice can move some delivery work to the manager and reprice the weaker package, with no need to raise everyone’s target.
Copyable billable utilisation worksheet
Add one row per person or role, then a total row for the practice. Reuse the worksheet each month so a rise or fall reflects the work rather than a change in the calculation.
| Period | Person or role | Standard hours | Leave and holidays | Role adjustment | Billable hours | Available hours | Utilisation | Target range | Decision or action |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| YYYY-MM | Example manager | 168 | 8 | 0 | 104 | 160 | 65.0% | Practice-defined | Take on more delivery work |
Calculate available hours by subtracting leave, public holidays, and any agreed role adjustment from standard hours. Compare people doing similar work and record the resulting decision beside the percentage. If a role changes, note the date so the trend still makes sense later.
A consultancy or law firm can use the same worksheet with its own role names. If you work alone, keep one row for yourself and use the final column to record the change you intend to make.
Diagnose the pattern before changing targets
Pair utilisation with pipeline, margin, and time-recording data before acting. The combination tells you where to look:
| Pattern | Investigate first |
|---|---|
| Low utilisation and a thin forward workload | Pipeline and business development |
| Low utilisation and a strong pipeline | Missing time or scheduling gaps |
| High utilisation and weak margin or realization | Scope, price, rework, or work assigned at the wrong level |
| High utilisation and after-hours review | Too little capacity for review or management |
Incomplete time records can distort every pattern in the table. Agree what counts as billable, track fixed-fee work as carefully as hourly work, and review missing entries while the work is fresh. The billable and non-billable hours guide covers the classification decisions in more detail.
Keep training, business development, and necessary review work visible. Calling that work client delivery may lift the reported percentage, but it will not create more revenue or capacity.
MinuteDock provides the time and billing records needed for the calculation. Your practice still decides which working hours and role-level targets make sense.
Use utilisation in the monthly review
Review utilisation monthly by person or role alongside realization, margin, write-offs, and the forward workload. Record the action that follows, whether that means reassigning work, fixing missing time, revisiting a price, or protecting review capacity.
