Where the Hours Went

Who

Internal Project: We built this for AbleSpark when a client's reasonable ask started eating into the time it was supposed to measure.

The Challenge

A client asked us for a weekly breakdown of where AbleSpark's hours were landing, sorted into a fixed set of project categories, with vendor-caused issues tagged separately so they could see the cost impact of outside dependencies. Reasonable ask, but every Monday it became a chore: pull time from two different sources, sort each entry into the right category, total up vendor issues, and assemble the summary. By the time it was ready, we had burned a chunk of billable hours producing a report about billable hours.

The Solution

We pointed our own tools at our own time data. A one-command report now does the assembly so the team can spend the time on actual work:

• Two Sources, One View: Time entries from our time-tracking system and our shared task sheet are pulled together, so nothing falls between the cracks.
• Consistent Categorization: Every entry is assigned to one of the agreed billing categories using a rules-first pass, with an AI assist for anything ambiguous.
• Vendor Impact, Called Out: Hours tied to vendor-introduced issues are tagged separately, so the cost of outside problems is visible instead of buried.
• Weekly, Monthly, On Demand: Double-clickable shortcuts produce a last-week, week-to-date, last-month, or month-to-date report whenever we need one, no manual export required.

The Result

The weekly breakdown the client asks for is now a few seconds of work instead of a recurring Monday tax on the team. The categorization is consistent week to week, so the client gets a like-for-like comparison every time, and vendor-caused hours stand on their own line for the cost-impact lens they wanted. Pull from every system that holds the truth, classify once, deliver on a schedule is the pattern we now reach for whenever a client (or our own ops) needs a recurring read across more than one tool.