If you do billable work on a given PTO/vacation day, do you still count that day as vacation? Or do you get that vacation day "back"? Or do you only get the part that you billed "back"? (Or some other option.)

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I bill the work and don’t use vacation time. Our time system doesn’t force any set number of hours daily so I never put in vacation time unless I do literally nothing whatsoever.

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I have a similar 7 hours per day requirement- if I bill on a PTO I usually just bill normally and then do the remainder as PTO (like 1 hr- billable matter 6 hrs PTO), but if it doesn’t matter when billed (let’s say, a research project over a few weeks or due diligence) I sometimes will just make the date of that a non-PTO day as long as it’s within a day or two

At my previous firm, if you even billed .1, it didn’t count as vacation.

likehelpful

What's the point in using PTO on a day you bill unless you'r at a place with unlimited PTO? It's not like PTO hours count toward billable hours. You may as well call it admin time or something and save the PTO for a full work-free day.

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My firm has a 7 hour daily requirement to be entered, so our PTO days are based on the number of 7 hour PTO increments. If I do billable work on a day I’m supposed to be off, I only include PTO time to make up any difference in the hours I worked and the 7 hours req. never had an issue with this, and if you’re already having to work on your PTO, it shouldn’t have to count against you even more.

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Thank you for the clarification, L&E1!

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At my firm it’s all or nothing. If you bill more than 4 hours on a vacation day, you get it back. But if you bill less than 4 hours, it still counts as a full vacation day.

likehelpful

This is how my firm is as well

I don’t put in vacation time unless I have to, I bill for something even if it’s .1

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I genuinely don’t know what the PTO policy is at my firm. I use the PTO “time entry” to avoid getting dinged for not submitting hours on time. Otherwise I just take time off and hit my
hours.

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Our informal policy is if you bill more than 4 hours on the day, don’t enter any vacation. If you just do a couple small things, you are still supposed to enter vacation for the rest of the day. If I work 1.5 hours on a vacation day, then I usually will just add a 6.0 entry for vacation to get close to 8 overall. That said, no one is closely checking any of this and it’s not like we use all our vacation days anyway (though I try and have gotten close a few years!).

helpful

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