UK businesses that provided professional services are being warned that they are losing around £437 billion a year in total due to poor time keeping and lost billable hours, reveals a new study by international telecommunications company, Movius.ai.

The new research, which analysed new business activity data from the Office of National Statistics combined with a survey of over 1,000 senior managers in professional services sectors, reveals the extent to which UK businesses are not accurately recording and charging for all of their time.

According to the research findings, a significant 21.6% of billable hours are not accounted or charged for, resulting in approximately £437 billion in lost turnover for professional services firms each year. This equates to an annual loss of about £617,075 for the UK firm offering professional services in the UK each year.

The study further highlights the potential yearly losses due to lost billable hours in different sectors. The average lost potential earnings for businesses offering legal (£977,494), computing & IT services (£944,875), telecommunications (£7.25 million), insurance (£30.18 million), and financial (£44.67 million) services have been significantly high compared to the average professional services firm.

Moreover, the research reveals that 15.7% of full-time workers in England and Wales work more than the 48 hours-a-week maximum working hours set under the Working Time Directive. This suggests that frequent unrecorded overtime resulting from unrecorded billable time may also be a factor that incentivises some staff to work later into the day, which can adversely affect their mental health and productivity at work over time.

Commenting on the significance of the research findings, John Clear, Vice President Sales at Movius.ai, stated, “The lack of sufficient time recording, management, and billing of hours worked by staff in professional services firms is having a large impact on the profitability of companies and the mental wellbeing of their staff. A big part of the problem is that time sheets make it difficult to record time, as they rely on employees remembering everything they have done and effectively guessing the length of tasks, such as voice calls.”

Movius.ai has recently introduced a range of new AI-driven solutions to address this issue, including their Timewize and Multiline™ solutions. Timewize is an AI scheduler that utilises intelligent and automated scheduling technology to better manage teams’ tasks and time for maximum efficiency. Meanwhile, Multiline™ offers reliable time tracking of voice and text communications to ensure that businesses can accurately record and charge for all hours worked for their clients.