Non-billable time is paid technician time you cannot charge a customer for: driving (unless you bill travel), waiting, shop and warehouse time, training, meetings, paperwork and unpaid return visits.
The formula
Non-billable time = Paid hours − Billable hours
As a share of the week:
Non-billable ratio = Non-billable hours ÷ Paid hours
Say a tech is paid 45 hours in a week and bills 29. Non-billable time is 16 hours, a ratio of about 36%. The total alone tells you little. The split by bucket tells you what to fix.
The usual buckets
| Bucket | What it is | Where it is decided |
|---|---|---|
| Drive | Travel between jobs, plus the first and last legs of the day | At booking, by which jobs share a day |
| Idle | Waiting for access, parts, approval or the next job | Duration estimates, confirmations, parts staging |
| Shop | Loading, restocking, vehicle checks, morning meetings | Process and start-time rules |
| Return visits | Callbacks and second trips for parts, often unbilled | Diagnosis, truck stock, first-visit prep |
| Admin and training | Paperwork, certifications, classes | Partly unavoidable, partly tooling |
Windshield time is often the largest bucket for service crews. Idle time is often close behind, and it gets mistaken for drive because both sit in the gap between jobs.
Worked example
The numbers are invented. Run the same split on your own timesheets: total paid hours, job hours from arrived to done, and the gaps between them.
Why it matters for scheduling
Billable time only grows if non-billable time shrinks or the week gets longer, and longer weeks cost overtime. The drive bucket is set the moment a job lands on a day: a day booked in a zig-zag carries more non-billable time than the same jobs in a cluster. That is why the cheapest place to cut it is the booking decision, not the route after the fact. The technician utilization calculator shows the effect on one tech's week.
A common mistake
Lumping every gap between jobs into "drive." If a 70-minute gap holds a 25-minute drive, 45 minutes is idle, and the fix is a confirmation text or a better duration estimate, not a new route.
What to take away
- Non-billable time = paid hours minus billable hours. The split by bucket matters more than the total.
- Drive and idle are often the two biggest buckets, and they have different fixes.
- The drive bucket is mostly set at booking, when jobs are assigned to a day.
Common questions
Is drive time billable or non-billable?
Non-billable unless your pricing charges for it, such as a trip charge or portal-to-portal hourly billing. Even then, only the part you actually bill counts.
What is a normal non-billable ratio for technicians?
It varies too much by trade, territory and pricing model for one benchmark to mean much. Track your own ratio by tech and by week, and watch the trend and the split by bucket.
How do I reduce non-billable time?
Measure the buckets first. Cut drive by booking nearby jobs onto the same day, cut idle with realistic durations and confirmations, and cut return visits with better diagnosis and truck stock.