For BCBA trainees
BCBA fieldwork hours tracker
Fieldwork does not fail on the total. It fails on the rules behind the total. Hourcrest tracks every one of them, signed by your supervisor as you go.
“2,000 hours done and I still can't sit for the exam.”
Track the rule, not the total. Hourcrest gives every constraint behind the number its own meter, so the one that blocks you is visible months early, not the week you file to sit.
The total is not the requirement
The BACB does not certify a number, it certifies a structure. Under the current requirements, the hours only count if, month by month, you also satisfy the constraints around them:
- The unrestricted share: at least 60% of your hours must be unrestricted activities, not direct implementation
- Supervision as a percentage of your hours each supervisory period, with a higher bar for concentrated fieldwork
- Minimum supervisor contacts per period, every period
- Documentation signed by your supervisor, on time, for each period
Miss one constraint in one month and that month's hours are at risk, which is how people arrive at 2,000 logged hours and no exam eligibility. A spreadsheet shows you the total. It does not show you the binding constraint.
What counts as unrestricted hours?
Unrestricted activities are the ones beyond direct implementation of behavior plans: conducting assessments, designing and revising programs, analyzing data, meeting with supervisors and caregivers, writing reports. Restricted hours are the direct-delivery sessions. The trap is that restricted work is what most trainees are hired to do all day, so hitting 60% unrestricted takes deliberate planning, and tracking.
The 2022 vs 2027 rules problem
The BACB has published updated fieldwork requirements taking effect in 2027, and trainees mid-fieldwork are stuck asking which rule set applies to them, with confident wrong answers all over the forums. Hourcrest tracks your hours against the rule set that actually applies to your timeline, and shows what changes for you if you span both.
What Hourcrest does about it
- A meter per constraint: unrestricted percentage, supervision percentage, contacts, monthly documentation, not one big total
- Your supervisor signs from an email link each period, no account needed, so a supervisor who quits mid-fieldwork takes nothing with them
- Signed months are sealed and exportable the way the board wants them
Logging will be free forever. The BCBA rules engine is in development; the waitlist decides whether it ships before or after the LCSW track.