Question 1

Is it legal to round up billable hours?

Accepted Answer

In most private freelance and consulting contracts, yes — as long as the rounding policy is disclosed in the engagement agreement before work starts. Some federal contracts (e.g., US government work) and a few corporate procurement policies restrict rounding up; some require rounding to nearest or down. Always check the contract first, and use the 'nearest' or 'down' setting if in doubt.

Question 2

What is the standard billing increment for lawyers?

Accepted Answer

6 minutes — also written as 0.1 hour or one-tenth of an hour. The hour is split into ten equal blocks, so 1-6 minutes = 0.1 hr, 7-12 minutes = 0.2 hr, and so on up to 55-60 minutes = 1.0 hr. It is the dominant standard across US law firms, federal CJA billing, and most accounting practices.

Question 3

What billing increment do developers and consultants use?

Accepted Answer

Most developers, designers, and consultants use 15-minute increments (0.25 hr). It is simpler to track, easier to defend in an audit, and aligns with how most freelance time-tracking apps default. A few agencies use 10 minutes; very few use 6, since legal-style precision rarely matches the kind of work being done.

Question 4

What is a tenth of an hour?

Accepted Answer

A tenth of an hour is 6 minutes (0.1 hr). It is the unit lawyers and accountants most commonly use to bill, because dividing 60 minutes by 10 gives a clean integer and the resulting decimals (0.1, 0.2, 0.3...) are easy to multiply by an hourly rate.

Question 5

How should I round a sub-1-minute task?

Accepted Answer

If you are using 'round up', any non-zero time becomes one increment — so a 30-second email reply rounds up to 6 minutes (0.1 hr) on a tenth-of-an-hour system. If your contract bars billing for trivial tasks, set the tool to 'round down' or simply do not log it. The fairest middle ground for most relationships is 'round to nearest', which bills 0.1 hr only when the task crosses 3 minutes.

Question 6

Should I always round up?

Accepted Answer

No. Rounding up is the legal-billing default because it compensates for unbilled context-switching and overhead, but it is not universal. Rounding to nearest is more defensible in audits and friendlier to the client over time. Rounding down is the safest choice for any contract that explicitly forbids upward rounding (some federal and government work).

Question 7

Should I round each entry individually or sum then round?

Accepted Answer

Rounding each entry individually charges more (each task gets bumped up), while summing then rounding charges less. Both are common; the choice has to be in your contract. This tool rounds each entry individually in batch mode — which matches how most legal and consulting contracts are written — and shows the raw total alongside so you can compare.

Question 8

Does the tool work for clients in different currencies?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Pick USD, EUR, GBP, CAD, AUD, JPY, or CNY in the currency selector and the billable amount is formatted natively for that currency. The rounding math itself is currency-agnostic — minutes are minutes everywhere.

Billable Hours Rounding Tool

Rounded entry