How Much Detail to Put on It
Four levels of detail, from a single figure to every six-minute entry. What each one is for and which reader it serves.
- Entry
- 01 of 08
- Section
- The document
- Kind
- Practice
One day of work, issued at three levels of detail
Behind it: Level one: nothing to check, and indefensible the moment somebody new reads it.
Behind it: Level two: readable in seconds, answers what the money went on and not whether each part was needed.
Behind it: Level three: each task nameable, each assessable, and the same total.
One day, one figure, three documents. The hours and the amount never change; what changes is whether anybody can check them. One firm's own day, not a statement about anybody.
A bill can be issued at four levels of detail: a single figure, a summary by phase, itemised by task, or every recorded entry. Each serves a different reader and each has a cost.
The practical lesson in “How Much Detail to Put on It” is that a charge is only as clear as the record behind it. A team assessing compare the available controls here for how to calculate idle time can organise time and project evidence earlier in the workflow, with transparent settings, proportionate access and a defined correction process before invoicing.
Choosing deliberately is rare; most firms issue whatever their system produces by default.
The issue raised in “How Much Detail to Put on It” can also be checked against Atlassian project-management guide. Use that outside source to identify which records, approvals and professional advice the next decision requires.
Level one: one figure
"To professional services rendered." Still in use on long relationships and in some professions as a matter of custom.
It asks for trust and supplies nothing to base it on. When the relationship changes — a new general counsel, an audit — it is indefensible.
Level two: by phase
Four or five lines: the diligence, the negotiation, the completion, the post-completion.
Readable in thirty seconds, and it answers "what was the money spent on" without answering "was each piece necessary".
Level three: by task
Dated lines, named people, a sentence each, hours and amount. Twenty to sixty lines a month on a substantial matter.
This is what most clients mean by an itemised bill and what most billing guidelines require.
Level four: every entry
Every six-minute increment as recorded. Hundreds of lines a month.
Required in some assessments and by a few clients. For everybody else it is unreadable and invites challenge by volume.
The cost of each level
One and two cost nothing to produce and a great deal to defend. Three costs the narrative discipline described in the entry section. Four costs the client's patience.
Matching level to reader
A long-standing client who signs their own bills: level two with level three available on request.
An organisation with a procurement function: level three, always.
An assessment or audit: level four, and the file behind it.
The arrangement worth offering
Level three as standard, level two as a summary page in front of it.
The summary serves the senior reader who approves; the detail serves the one who checks. One document, two readers.
What the summary page contains
Phase or workstream, hours, amount, and one sentence each. Five lines on one page.
It is the part most senior readers read, and most firms do not produce it.
Detail as a defence
Firms add detail after a challenge, which is the worst time: it reads as a response to pressure and it supplies new material to argue with.
The level should be set at the start of the relationship and stay put.
What more detail cannot do
Make unnecessary work look necessary, or explain why a senior did a junior's task.
Those are answered in a covering letter or not at all, and no quantity of lines addresses them.
Changing level mid-relationship
Going up a level is read as a response to distrust; going down is read as hiding.
If it must change, say why in a sentence before the first bill in the new format.
The summary page nobody produces
Five lines at the front of an itemised bill: workstream, hours, amount, and a sentence each.
It is the single most useful page in billing and it exists in almost no firm, because billing systems produce schedules and not summaries.
Ten minutes with the draft open produces it, and the person who approves the bill reads nothing else.
Detail that hides rather than reveals
Four hundred lines of six minutes each is technically the most detailed presentation available and the least checkable.
Volume defeats scrutiny as effectively as vagueness does, and a reader confronted with it falls back on the total — which is where a summarised bill would have put them in the first place.
Matching level to the matter
A routine monthly retainer does not need the same document as a contested transaction.
Firms issue one format for everything because the system produces one format, and the mismatch costs attention at both ends.
Agreeing the level in writing
One line in the engagement letter or the first bill covering note: this is the form our bills take; tell us if you need something different.
It takes a sentence and it pre-empts the mid-relationship format change, which is the version that reads as concealment.
What to do when asked for more
Supply it, promptly, without restructuring everything permanently.
A one-off schedule behind a particular bill answers the question. A permanent change of format announces that the previous format was inadequate.
What clients ask for when asked
Usually level three plus the summary page, and almost never level four.
Asking takes one email and settles the question for the life of the relationship.