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Team & capacity
Which Services Take the Most Staff Time?
Understand time spent by service, not money billed, so you can plan and price with real evidence.
Built by a practising Chartered Accountant · Unlimited users · Free for 60 days
Service time analysis by employee
Compare time spent by service and person.
- Premier Books Consultancy
- Cranleys Chartered Accountants
- CJM Accountants
- Towpath Accounting Solutions
- Auditax International
- RS
Quick answer
Service time analysis compares how long each type of client work takes across your team, using task and deadline data rather than billing records. It reveals which services quietly consume the most staff time relative to their volume, which is useful for capacity planning, pricing decisions and identifying processes worth simplifying.
What is service time analysis and why does it matter for UK practices?
It's comparing the time your team spends on each type of client service, so you know where effort is really going.
Most partners have a rough instinct for which services are heavy — year-end accounts usually feels bigger than a simple confirmation statement — but instinct rarely matches reality once complexity and inconsistent processes are added in. A firm might discover that a service assumed to be quick is actually a significant drain because of a messy manual step buried in the middle of it.
This is a time analysis, not a billing analysis. It doesn't require invoicing or timesheet data — task-level time estimates by service, tracked by employee, are enough to see the pattern.
Why don't firms know which services take the most time?
Time isn't recorded by service type at all
Tasks are tracked as a flat list rather than tagged by service, so there's no way to roll up total effort by year-end, VAT, payroll or any other category.
Different staff do the same service differently
Without a shared template, one person's 'quick' VAT return is another's half-day job, making comparisons unreliable across the team.
Complexity gets averaged away
A single average time per service hides the fact that a handful of complex clients are consuming a disproportionate share of the hours.
Nobody reviews the data even when it exists
Some firms do capture rough time estimates but never step back to compare services against each other and act on what they see.
What does it cost a firm not to know which services take the most time?
Firms end up under-resourcing the services that quietly consume the most effort, and pricing decisions get made without evidence.
If a firm doesn't know that, say, its management accounts service takes proportionally far longer than its year-end compliance work, it can't plan capacity or resourcing sensibly around it — and it risks pricing that service too low relative to the effort involved.
The same blind spot makes it hard to decide where process improvement effort would pay off most, since without data every service looks equally worth improving.
How do you analyse service time across your practice? Step by step
- 1
Tag tasks by service type
Use a consistent category (year-end, VAT, payroll, bookkeeping support, management accounts) so time can be rolled up and compared later.
- 2
Use templates so time is comparable
Build a standard task and subtask template per service so different staff are completing broadly the same steps, making time comparisons fair.
- 3
Record an estimated time per job
Set an estimate on each task or template, refined over time as you see how long jobs actually take in practice.
- 4
Total time by service across the team
Add up estimated or logged time across all clients within each service category to see which one consumes the most collective effort.
- 5
Break it down by employee too
Compare how long the same service takes for different staff — a wide gap often points to a training gap or an inefficient personal process.
- 6
Review alongside pricing and client volume
Combine the time totals with how many clients are on each service and what it's priced at, to see where effort and revenue are out of balance.
- 7
Act on the pattern
Simplify or template the heaviest services, retrain where individual variance is large, and revisit pricing where the time invested doesn't match what's charged.
How does Remindoo help with service time analysis?
Remindoo's service time analysis by employee shows how long different services take across your team, built from the tasks and estimated time already set up in the system. Service templates and task and subtask templates mean everyone follows the same steps for a given service, so time comparisons between staff are meaningful rather than comparing entirely different processes. Estimated time allocation on each task lets you build up a realistic total per service without needing separate billing timesheets. Task filters let you slice the data by client, employee or deadline type to dig into where the time is really going. Together this gives partners the evidence to make resourcing and pricing decisions based on what services actually cost in staff time, not assumption.
Service time analysis by employee
Compare time spent by service and person.
See featureService templates
Repeatable structures for every service.
See featureTask and subtask templates
Checklists that make every job consistent.
See featureEstimated time allocation
Plan capacity with expected effort per job.
See featureStrong task filters
Filter by tags, deadline, assignee and status.
See featureSpreadsheets vs Remindoo: what changes?
| Area | Spreadsheets & email | With Remindoo |
|---|---|---|
| Time by service | Not tracked at all | Rolled up from tagged, templated tasks |
| Comparing staff on the same service | Impossible without a shared process | Templates make time comparisons fair |
| Pricing evidence | Based on gut feel | Based on actual estimated effort |
| Spotting inefficient services | Only obvious once it's a crisis | Visible in the service time breakdown |
| Process improvement priority | Guessed | Focused on the services proven to take longest |
| Cost to analyse | Manual spreadsheet exercise | Built into the practice dashboard |
See it with your own clients
A 30-minute walkthrough using your services and deadlines.
Is this the same as time-based billing?
No, service time analysis is about internal workload and capacity, not billing clients by the hour.
Remindoo doesn't offer billing timesheets or invoicing, and this analysis isn't intended to generate client bills. Its purpose is entirely internal: understanding where staff time genuinely goes so you can plan, staff and price your services sensibly.
“Automated reminders and task templates save countless hours each week.”
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to bill by the hour to do service time analysis?
No, this is based on estimated task time, not billed hours, so it works even if your firm prices services on a fixed or per-client basis.
How accurate do time estimates need to be?
Rough is fine to start with — even estimates within an hour or two of reality reveal useful patterns once totalled across a whole service and client base.
Can this data support a repricing exercise?
Yes, understanding true time invested per service is one of the most useful inputs when deciding to reprice a service that's under-charged relative to effort.
How often should service time be reviewed?
A quarterly review is usually enough to spot meaningful trends without over-analysing normal week-to-week variation.
Is there a free trial to test this feature?
Yes, Remindoo is free for 60 days, long enough to run through at least one full service cycle such as a VAT quarter or payroll month.
Can I compare service time across multiple offices?
Yes, using teams to group staff by office and then comparing service time analysis within and between those groups.
Ready to run a calmer practice?
See Remindoo with your own clients, or start free for 60 days with unlimited users.
Sources
Comparing options? Read our guide to accounting practice management software.
Last updated: . General guidance, not regulatory advice. Check with your professional body.
Why recording time matters in an accountancy practice
Time is the main cost in every accounting firm. Without recorded time you are guessing whether a fixed fee is profitable, whether a client is taking more work than agreed, or whether a team member is overloaded.
Price services with evidence
Comparing recorded time with the fee for a year-end, VAT return or payroll run shows which clients and services are under-priced before renewal.
Spot scope creep early
When time on a client keeps rising, you can raise it with the client or send an updated proposal rather than absorbing the cost.
Plan capacity realistically
Estimated time against actual time tells managers how much work a person can really take in a busy January or accounts season.
Support fair reviews
Time linked to tasks and clients gives an objective view of workload, rather than relying on who seems busiest.
Practical tips from UK practice
- Start the timer on the task itself, so time is linked to the right client and service automatically.
- Set estimated hours in service templates, then compare them with recorded time each quarter.
- Review the most over-running services before you send renewal proposals or engagement letters.
- Agree as a team which work counts as client time and which is internal, so the numbers are comparable.
Written and reviewed by Waqas Sagar ACA FCCA FMAAT, Chartered Accountant with 18+ years in practice. Founder and MD of Accotax, an ICAEW, ACCA and AAT regulated London practice that has served over 5,000 clients, and founder of Remindoo. Guidance is general; check current GOV.UK and professional body guidance for your firm.
What UK practices say about Remindoo
Read all reviews on Trustpilot“With Remindoo, everything from the first enquiry to onboarding and ongoing client management is tracked in one place… It saves us hours and gives me, as a practice owner, complete visibility of where the firm stands.”
“The biggest benefit is having clients, tasks, deadlines, workflows, proposals and communication all organised in one place.”
“During my trial, the team were absolutely amazing. They helped onboard my clients, set up my settings and made sure everything was ready for me to use… they made the whole process completely stress-free.”
“It brings client information, tasks, recurring deadlines, workflows and reminders together in one place, giving us much better visibility across the team.”
