Billing realisation

Fees billed divided by time recorded at standard rates: what the firm gave away before the bill went out.

DefinitionFees billed divided by time recorded at standard rates: what the firm gave away before the bill went out.

Billing realisation is fees billed over the value of time recorded at the standard rate card, per client, matter or fee earner. It falls when time is written off or written down before billing, and it also falls when the rate card rises and agreed rates do not, so it is computed at a fixed card when compared across years. Its owner is the billing partner. See the realisation benchmark.

How it is computed

Fees billed divided by the value of time recorded at the standard rate card, per client, matter or fee earner. Compare across years at one fixed rate card.

Example

Time worth $10.0 million at standard was billed at $8.8 million: 88 percent. After a 10 percent rise in the rate card with no change in agreed rates, the same work reads 80 percent.

Where it goes wrong

A rate card change read as a fall in realisation. Partners are told to bill harder for something the finance team did.

Articles that use this term

Board and management reporting · Law firms

Realisation by client: the clients whose discount grew without anyone deciding it

How a law firm measures realisation per client from time entries and bills: billed value over worked value at standard rates, the write-downs and write-offs behind the gap, the trend per client and per partner, and the clients whose effective discount has widened year on year through a hundred small decisions that nobody made as a policy.

16 Sept 20262 min read Wallet share and penetration · Consulting and advisory

What is a good realisation rate? The answer depends on three things you can measure

The honest answer to what realisation rate a law, accounting or consulting firm should have: the 85 to 95 percent figures quoted depend on which realisation is meant, billing realisation against recorded time or collection realisation against billed, on the rate card the time was valued at, and on the client and matter mix. This page gives the ranges by firm type, the three measurable things that set the right figure for one firm, and the table to compute before anyone quotes a percentage.

17 Sept 20263 min read