Recording Time Sheets is One Miserable Task in Public Accounting

One of the many stressful things I hate about working in public accounting is the recording of my own time.  In a CPA firm, an accountant is required to account for the time he / she spends everyday.  Every hour during the day can either be billed to a client, or be recorded as non-billable administration of the CPA firm.

It sucks because clients don't want the accountant to bill too many hours and will sure complain about it when they are billed too many hours.  At the same time, the CPA firm doesn't want the accountant to incur too many administrative hours either.  When non-billable administrative hours show up often, the CPA firm's managing partner will roll his or her eyes and  will reprimand the accountant.  That means, accountants in public accounting are expected to record less time for more work they do. (e.g,spending 14 hours everyday to work for 5 clients and only bill 8 hours.).  I'm sure this doesn't happen to the accountants working in a corporation.  I never saw my clients' accounting staff stressing out and scrambling to get more work done.  They all seemed to take their time and were never in a hurry like I am....

When I spend 4 hours working on one client, which is not unusual, I better find 1 to 2 more clients to work for so I can bill my 4 hours to not just one client but to 2 to 3 clients.  The problem is, I still have to bill 4 more hours and it's already 6pm in the evening when I am done with client #3.

Am  I the only CPA who hates tracking and watching my time? Can anyone tell me if this is the issue with only shallow pocket small CPA firms?