GHJ Unlocks Firmwide Time Intelligence with Laurel

GHJ unlocks firmwide time intelligence, giving leadership visibility into how resources are allocated across every corner of the firm.

Key Takeaways

• 0.42 billable hours recovered per timekeeper per day
• $16,128 in billable fees recovered per timekeeper annually
• 0.02 fewer days to time submission, improving timekeeping hygiene and invoice realization

Headquarters

Los Angeles, California

founded

1953

industry

Accounting

GHJ is a national advisory and accounting firm with over 250 professionals serving clients across the U.S. and around the world, with a focus on entertainment, food and beverage, media and advertising, and nonprofit organizations.

After piloting Laurel with its client services teams, GHJ has expanded the platform firmwide, extending automatic time tracking to executives, administrative staff, and non-traditional timekeepers who had never tracked time at all.

The results: Laurel has helped GHJ capture an additional 0.42 billable hours per timekeeper per day while reducing time to submission by 0.02 days. Beyond the financial impact, the rollout has given GHJ visibility into how resources are allocated across the entire firm, not just on the billable side.

The Challenge: Incomplete Visibility Across the Firm

GHJ's previous timekeeping system was creating friction throughout the organization. For client services teams, the solution was so cumbersome that batch-entering time felt like a chore, requiring significant effort to reconstruct the workday after the fact. For firm services teams and executives, there was no system at all. Administrative staff weren't tracking time, leaving leadership without insight into how resources were being allocated or whether workloads were sustainable.

Ashley Beimford, Chief of Staff at GHJ, felt this firsthand. In a role that spans leadership support, firm operations, and strategic initiatives, she had no way to quantify how her time was being spent or to demonstrate the value of work that wasn't tied to a client matter.

The Solution: Laurel's Automatic Time Tracking

GHJ initially implemented Laurel for its client services teams during Ashley's parental leave. When she returned and participated in the rollout, she immediately saw applications beyond the billable timekeeper use case.

"I very quickly saw the value for my own workflow, especially in this chief of staff role," Ashley explains. "It's important for me to understand how I'm spending my time and how I'm supporting the firm."

What set Laurel apart was its automatic capture capability. Unlike traditional systems that required manual entry and retrospective reconstruction of the workday, Laurel captured work as it happened.

Firmwide Adoption with Minimal Friction

The true test came when GHJ turned off their legacy system completely, forcing full adoption of Laurel.

"We were geared up for pushback when we turned off the crutch," Ashley says. "And it was crickets. We didn't get anything. Everyone was fine."

Impact: From Billable Hours to Firmwide Intelligence

Recovering Billable Time

GHJ is capturing an additional 0.42 billable hours per timekeeper per day, time that would have otherwise gone unrecorded and unbilled. "It doesn't take very much of that to be translated for it to have an impact," Ashley notes.

Extending Beyond Billable Teams

GHJ is now rolling out Laurel to firm services teams, administrative staff who have never tracked time before. "I'm really framing it as: wouldn't it be great to truly understand what you're doing?" Ashley explains. "We can all look back at our day and say, 'I think I spent approximately one hour on that.' But to really have the data is going to give a lot of insight to us as individuals."

This data will enable better resource allocation, provide evidence for hiring decisions, and help managers identify when they're spending too much time on tasks that should be delegated.

Visibility for Non-Traditional Roles

For professionals like Ashley, whose work doesn't map neatly to a timesheet, Laurel has provided a new kind of visibility. Returning from parental leave and stepping into an expanded leadership role, she finally had concrete data to show how her time was being spent and where she was having impact across the firm.

"Being able to look at the hours and see that time, especially that late-night time add up — I could tell myself, 'Okay, be kind to yourself. Yes, you are [doing enough].'"