“...You Europeans have clocks, but we in the Orient have time.” – Julia Drosten, The Lioness of Morocco
That one phrase describes my time tracking/value billing psyche. With only one value billing client, I noticed my work and interactions were different compared with my time billing clients. This noticeable difference pushed me to move all my clients to value billing. Free of the time clock, my life changed.
Psychologically, the time clock was shackling me to a narrow view of client work. My attitude was to start work (clock in), finish work (clock out) and be done until the next month. It seems, I required a sense of completion.
But since I was bookkeeping, really, when was I ever finished? It was an imposition to stop to wait for a client response or to stop for someone else. Interruptions, from my spouse, cat, neighbor and clients were insufferable. Psychologically, this time was taken. It didn’t belong to anyone else, just that one client. It didn’t even belong to me!
That sense of completion would even prevent me from getting things done. If I had a client meeting in 30 minutes, I wouldn’t even start on a project. I simply wouldn’t have the time to complete all the tasks. Often, I wouldn’t try to answer a phone call or even some e-mails, because any of them might take more than 30 minutes. This was like throwing time away (gee, can that even happen). It did feel wasteful.
While I was locked in this clock prison, e-mail messages, phone messages piled up. The phone would ring. I’d wince. There was a sense of urgency to finish the work. I had to get this work done. I had to finish. I had other things to do. There wasn’t enough time in the day. How was I going to get everything done?
By the end of the day, I felt overwhelmed, underappreciated and exhausted.
Now, I have a new value billing attitude. My clients are offered services. Sometime during a month, I perform these services. The clock is gone and, with it, the chore of clocking in and out (also, the chore of writing down my tasks).
Now, starting client work, I may finish or may not finish. Other clients can interrupt me with an urgent situation.
Even my spouse, cat or neighbor can interrupt me. Even if I don’t complete all the tasks in a day, week or month, there is the next day, week or month. Everything is work in progress. I will never be done. Isn’t this the way it should be? If I was truly done with a client, wouldn’t the client be out of business (due to sale or failure)? Or wouldn’t I be replaced?
This is the untold story of value billing. We all have heard the standard reasons, more money, time is not a commodity, clients like choice & certainty etc. But I never heard anyone say that value billing would set me free.
I suggest that you try value billing with your next new client. It may just change your life.
Christy Bertani top 100
Christy Bertani is the semi-retired founder of Christy Bertani Bookkeeping, a "2016 Insightful Accounting Top 100 ProAdvisor" firm. These days, she continues to assist small businesses with their bookkeeping needs, from manual journal entries and general ledgers (the "Jurassic" period, as she calls it) to the Cloud, QuickBooks Online, Xero and its accompanying apps.