A subcontractor submits time sheets for three weeks of hourly work. The site manager accepts them but does not review them right away, and they sit in a tray. When the invoice arrives, the client wants to cut the hours, but under Section 15(3) VOB/B, the German standard terms for construction contracts, the sheets have long since been deemed accepted. The opposite happens just as often: a tradesperson is pulled onto hourly work on short notice, with no agreement in place beforehand. Once the work is done, the client refuses to pay, because under Section 2(10) VOB/B, hourly work is only compensated if it was expressly agreed before it started. Both mistakes cost money and patience, and both are avoidable with clear deadlines and a clean filing routine.
Agreement First, Then the Clock: Section 2(10) VOB/B
"Hourly work" under VOB/B means work billed by actual hours, materials, and equipment use rather than by agreed unit prices or lump sums. Under Section 2(10) VOB/B, a payment claim for hourly work only arises if it was expressly agreed as such before the work began. As a rule, it is not enough that the client learns about the work afterward or tacitly tolerates it while it is underway.
Without such an agreement, the contractor is in a weak position: any claim for customary rates would have to rest on other legal grounds, and that is uncertain in a dispute. This is not legal advice, only a pointer that the facts of each case matter here. In practice, this means that before anyone on site says "we will just bill that by the hour," there needs to be a short, verifiable confirmation, ideally in writing with a signature or at least by email. Verbal arrangements at the site fence are hard to prove in a dispute, and that is exactly where most conflicts over hourly work start.
Notice Before Starting and Time Sheets: Section 15 VOB/B
Once an agreement is in place, Section 15 VOB/B governs the rest of the process. Under Section 15(2) VOB/B, the contractor must give prompt notice before starting hourly work, unless it was already expressly ordered. That notice gives the client, or the site management, the chance to observe the work on site and judge its actual scope, instead of only seeing paperwork afterward.
Under Section 15(3) VOB/B, time sheets must be submitted daily or, for contracts with a shorter execution period, weekly, depending on what was agreed. That is not an administrative detail, it is the core of evidence preservation: the longer sheets sit unreviewed, the harder it becomes to later verify whether the stated hours, workers, and materials actually belong to the project. How site walks and meetings are documented without gaps is covered in Begehungsprotokoll: vom Rundgang zum vollständigen Protokoll, the site walk protocol article.
What Belongs on a Time Sheet
A time sheet is only useful if it actually makes the work traceable. This usually includes:
- Date and reference to the project or trade
- Names and number of workers deployed per hour
- Type of work performed
- Start, interruption, and end of working time
- Type and duration of equipment use, where relevant for billing
- Type and quantity of materials used
- Reference to the order or agreement the hourly work is based on
If information is missing, site management should not simply let it slide, it should raise the issue when the sheet is submitted or note the gap as an objection. A sheet without a description of the work can hardly be traced back to a specific construction phase later, even if the hour count looks plausible. Many firms file this kind of record alongside other site documents, for example as a site diary entry with a photo and a date.
The Six-Business-Day Deadline: Review by Site Management
The real risk sits in the review step. Under Section 15(3) VOB/B, the client must raise objections to submitted time sheets promptly, and at the latest within six business days of receipt. If that does not happen, the sheets are deemed accepted, regardless of whether the hours are actually accurate or whether a valid agreement under Section 2(10) VOB/B existed at all. This is exactly the deadline that slips in many offices: sheets get left at reception or in the site office, the responsible person is on another job, and after a week the chance to review them is effectively gone.
This only works with a clear owner and a fixed rhythm: who receives time sheets, who reviews them and within what deadline, and how objections get documented and communicated back. That also means a plan-versus-actual comparison: do the names, times, and quantities match what was actually observed on site or noted in the site diary? How time-bound notices generally need to be kept provable is also covered in Bedenkenanzeige nach VOB/B: rechtzeitig und belegbar, an article on the German notice-of-concern procedure whose logic carries over to notices for hourly work.
Drawing the Line Against Unit Prices and Change Orders
Not every extra task belongs in hourly work. If a task is already covered by a position with a unit price in the bill of quantities, it should be billed through that position, hourly billing would be out of place there. If instead it is a genuine change or expansion of the contractual scope, a change order, called a Nachtrag under German construction law, is often the better fit than an hourly-work agreement: a change order negotiates the instruction and the price up front, hourly work bills for actual effort after the fact. Hourly work suits short-notice, hard-to-estimate minor tasks, things that do not fit neatly into a unit-price position. For larger additional work, the somewhat more involved but more defensible path through structured change order management usually pays off. How site diary entries are classified as their own form of evidence is covered in Bautagebuch Pflicht: Inhalt und Beweiswert, the article on mandatory site diary content.
Checklist
- Before starting, confirm: is there an express agreement on hourly work under Section 2(10) VOB/B, ideally in writing?
- Contractor: give prompt notice before starting hourly work, as required under Section 15(2) VOB/B
- Contractor: fill out time sheets completely, with date, workers, task, times, equipment, and materials
- Contractor: submit time sheets on the agreed rhythm (daily or weekly), do not let them pile up
- Site management: assign a clear owner for receiving and reviewing time sheets
- Site management: log the receipt date of every sheet so the six-business-day deadline under Section 15(3) VOB/B stays traceable
- Site management: compare hours, workers, and materials against what was actually observed on site or logged in the site diary
- Site management: raise objections in writing and within the deadline, not just announce them verbally
- For larger additional work, check whether a change order fits better than hourly billing
- File rejected or corrected sheets with a reason noted, do not just hand them back without a trace
Frequently asked questions
What happens if site management misses the six-business-day deadline?
If the client does not raise objections within six business days of receiving the time sheets, they are deemed accepted under Section 15(3) VOB/B. This covers the stated hours, workers, and quantities, not automatically the separate question of whether hourly work was validly agreed at all.
Is a verbal arrangement enough for hourly work?
Section 2(10) VOB/B requires an express agreement before work starts, and VOB/B does not strictly prescribe a particular form for it. In practice, a verbal arrangement is hard to prove in a dispute, which is why written confirmation, for example by email, is common and advisable.
Who has to give notice before hourly work starts?
Under Section 15(2) VOB/B, the contractor must give prompt notice before starting hourly work, unless it was already expressly ordered. That gives the client the chance to observe the execution.
What information must a time sheet contain?
Typical entries cover the date, the workers deployed, the task performed, the start, interruption, and end of working time, as well as the type and duration of equipment use and the materials used. Without these details, the work can hardly be reconstructed later.
What is the difference between hourly work and a change order?
With a change order, the instruction and the price for a changed or additional task are negotiated and agreed in advance. With hourly work, billing follows actual hours, materials, and equipment used, which suits short-notice, hard-to-estimate minor tasks.
Conclusion
Hourly work is not a catch-all for loose arrangements, it is its own deadline-bound procedure: agreement before starting, notice, regular submission, and review within six business days. Following these steps closely avoids both unintentionally accepted time sheets and unpaid hourly work. In Structify, time sheets can be filed as site diary entries with photos, deadlines, and assigned owners, so the six-business-day deadline stays visible, while the actual review remains with site management. If you would like to see how that looks on your project, book a short online demo.