Team utilisation calculator: billable hours against your target
Utilisation is billable hours divided by available hours. Type each person's available and billable hours for the same period, your target and, if you like, your average charge-out rate. The calculator gives each person's utilisation and the team's, the billable hours short of the target, and what those hours are worth in the period and over a year.
Worked out for the example. Change the boxes to make it yours.
| Available hours | 147 hours |
|---|---|
| Billable hours | 103 hours |
| Not billed | 44 hours |
| Team utilisation | 70.1% |
| Billable hours short of your 75% target | 7.25 hours |
| Worth at $165.00 an hour, a week | $1,196 |
| Over a year at this pace | $62,205 |
| Hana: 31 hours of 37.5 hours | 82.7% |
| Tom: 30 hours of 40 hours | 75.0% |
| Priya: 20 hours of 32 hours | 62.5% (under target) |
| Mark: 22 hours of 37.5 hours | 58.7% (under target) |
- Utilisation is billable hours divided by available hours. Available hours are the hours paid in the period less annual leave, public holidays and sick leave taken.
- The target and the charge-out rate are your own: no law sets either.
Team timesheets shows the hours staff choose to share, by person, project and task, and who has not logged this week, with a CSV ready for payroll, optional approvals and your own billable rates. It never reads the pay or rates in anyone's own account, and has no rosters.
See Team timesheetsHow utilisation is worked out
Each person's utilisation is their billable hours divided by their available hours in the same period. The team's is the total billable hours divided by the total available hours, so someone on more hours counts for more. The hours short of the target are the target share of the team's available hours less the hours billed. At your charge-out rate, that is the revenue the gap represents, and the yearly figure assumes every week, fortnight or month goes the same way.
Available hours, and the leave that comes out of them
Available hours are the hours a person is paid for in the period, less the paid time they do not work. Under the Holidays Act 2003 a permanent employee gets at least 4 weeks of paid annual holidays after each 12 months, a paid day off for each of the public holidays (12 at most) that falls on a day they would otherwise work, and 10 days of sick leave a year after six months. For someone on 40 hours a week over 5 days, 4 weeks of leave and 12 public holidays alone take 256 of the 2,080 hours paid in a year. A week with a public holiday or leave in it has fewer available hours, so take those hours off before you compare weeks. Our cost of an employee calculator works out what each of those hours costs.
The target and the rate are yours
No law or official body sets a utilisation target or a charge-out rate: both are business decisions, and they depend on how much of the work is client work, training, sales or running the business. Our article on setting a charge-out rate for staff shows how the rate is built from cost, overheads and the hours you can bill. A target that only fits by working longer than paid hours is a warning sign. For a salaried employee, Employment New Zealand says to record any extra hours worked, to show they are still paid at least the minimum wage of $23.95 an hour (adults, from 1 April 2026).
Getting the hours from a record
Billable hours are only as good as the record behind them. If non-billable work such as admin, training and quoting has its own project, hours by person and project give you both figures for any period. Section 130 of the Employment Relations Act 2000 already asks you to keep the hours worked each day in each pay period, so the same record can serve both.
Questions
How do you calculate utilisation rate?
Divide billable hours by available hours and multiply by 100. Someone with 30 billable hours out of 40 available is at 75%. For a team, add up the billable hours and the available hours first, then divide.
What is a good utilisation rate?
There is no official figure: it depends on how much of each role is client work. Set a target per role, leaving room for training, admin and sales, and check it against what people actually log.
Do I count annual leave and public holidays in available hours?
No. Take annual leave, public holidays and sick leave out of available hours, so a week with a public holiday is not counted as a poor week. Count the hours people are paid to be at work.
What is the difference between utilisation and productivity?
Utilisation measures how many hours were billable, not how much was done in them. A team can be highly utilised on work that runs over its quote, so look at it beside each project's hours against its budget.
Can I see billable hours by person in jobtracker.co.nz?
Yes. Team timesheets shows the hours staff choose to share, by person, project and task. Mark each team project or task billable or not, and its report shows hours and billable hours by person and by project for any period, with a CSV. It does not work out a utilisation percentage for you, and never reads the pay or rates in anyone's own account.
Sources
- Holidays Act 2003.
- Employment New Zealand: managing public holidays as an employer.
- Employment New Zealand: taking sick leave.
- Employment New Zealand: record keeping.
- Minimum Wage Order 2026 (SL 2026/16).
- Employment Relations Act 2000, section 130: wages and time record.
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