Billing Best Practice
Brightflag recommends that law firms:
Bill in 5- or 6-minute increments
Avoid billing for seconds
Billing in seconds (e.g., 5 minutes and 2 seconds) creates unnecessary rounding issues and inconsistencies between invoice formats. Using standard increments ensures accurate processing and alignment across systems.
Decimal Time in Legal Billing
Legal billing commonly uses 6-minute increments
Example Conversions
| Hours & Minutes | Decimal |
|---|---|
| 1 hour | 1.0 |
| 1 hour 6 mins | 1.1 |
| 1 hour 12 mins | 1.2 |
| 1 hour 15 mins | 1.25 |
| 1 hour 30 mins | 1.5 |
How Time Appears in Brightflag
By default, time is displayed in HH:MM format (hours and minutes) on the Invoice Review screen.
For example:
00:12 = 12 minutes
Viewing the Decimal Unit Value
If you click on the time value shown under Units, a small pop-up window will appear displaying the decimal unit value.
For example:
The screen may show 00:12
Clicking it will display 0.2 in the pop-up
This allows reviewers to see both:
The time in hours and minutes
The underlying decimal value used for billing calculations and to compare against the invoice PDF.