Padding your timesheet by fifteen minutes is shoplifting with extra paperwork.

Time billed and not worked is the same transaction as taking something off a shelf, with a form in between to make it feel administrative. The small size keeps it invisible and the repetition turns it into a habit, until the number you write has less and less to do with the day you actually had. Most people doing it would never take cash from a till.

Write down what happened, even when the honest figure is unimpressive. If the real hours are not enough to live on, that is a conversation to have out loud with someone. It is a much better conversation than the one that starts with an audit.