Where control turns projects into profit

You’ve seen the "leakage" that happens when a five-minute email turns into a zero on a billable report, or when a consultant rounds down because they don’t want to seem "too expensive." Managing professional services margins means ensuring every minute of expertise is captured fairly, without manual math slowing down your week.

Establishing Commercial Control over Every Minute

Professional services firms don’t sell widgets; they sell time. When that time isn’t captured in standard increments, your revenue becomes a series of messy decimals that are hard to invoice and even harder for clients to audit. AtomicSam fixes this by enforcing rounding rules that protect your margins while keeping your data clean.

In AtomicSam, rounding isn't just a visual trick—it’s a commercial policy. To maintain margin protection, the system always rounds up to the nearest increment. This ensures that the costs of switching between tasks and the administrative overhead of small requests are covered in your billing cycles.

💡 Tip: Most agencies find that the 6-minute (0.1h) increment strikes the perfect balance between granular tracking and easy math for clients.

Choosing Your Increments

You can set your firm’s standards by heading to Settings and selecting Time Tracking. You have six options for how the system handles increments:

Increment Option	Decimal Equivalent	When to Use This
No Rounding	Precise minutes	Best for internal-only tracking where billing isn't tied to precise time.
6-minute	0.1h	Standard for law and high-end consultancy; very easy to read on invoices.
10-minute	0.16h	A middle ground for firms that find 6 minutes too "fussy."
12-minute	0.2h	Good for firms moving away from 15-minute blocks but wanting clean decimals.
15-minute	0.25h	The creative agency standard; simple and easy for clients to digest.
30-minute	0.5h	Used for senior-level advisory or high-value fixed-call durations.

The Two Layers of Rounding

One of the biggest friction points in firm management is the "rounding gap"—the difference between what a team member sees on their screen and what eventually appears on an invoice. AtomicSam manages this through two independent layers:

UI Rounding: This happens when a user clicks Save on their timesheet. You can set this to "None," "On Save," or "On Export Only."
Billing Rounding: This occurs during invoice generation. You might track time internally in 6-minute blocks but choose to bill a specific client in 15-minute blocks.

⚠️ Heads up: If you use both layers, ensure you have Double-rounding Prevention toggled ON in your settings. This prevents a 7-minute entry from being rounded to 12 minutes in the UI, then rounded again to 15 minutes during billing.

Compliance and Expected Hours

Revenue confidence comes from knowing your team is working the hours they’re supposed to. AtomicSam calculates Expected Hours for every team member based on their individual Work Schedule, automatically subtracting public holidays and approved leave.

In the Approval Workflow, managers can see a real-time compliance status for every submittal. The system flags whether a user has met, exceeded, or fallen short of their expected capacity for the period. This isn't just about "watching the clock"—it’s about ensuring that delivery matches the capacity you've promised to your clients and that burnout isn't hiding behind high billable numbers.

✅ Did you know: You can set different rounding rules for different projects if a specific client contract dictates a 15-minute minimum, keeping you compliant with your agreements automatically.

Pro Tips for Managing Time Rules

Audit the "None" setting: If you allow users to save time with no rounding, check your WIP reports weekly. Small, unrounded chunks of time often create "fractional cents" in your accounting software that can cause reconciliation headaches.
Use Round-on-Save for accuracy: Encouraging team members to see their rounded time immediately (using the "On Save" setting) helps them understand their own billable velocity and reduces the "sticker shock" during the invoice review process.
Check Capacity before Approving: During the Approval Workflow, look for users who consistently exceed expected hours by more than 20%. While it looks great for revenue today, it usually signals a delivery bottleneck or an upcoming burnout risk that will hurt your margins next month.