Items per month report in SSRS (Reporting Services)

I have a database with trouble tickets, each one having a date and an amount of billable time spent on the ticket.  I am trying to create a report in ssrs that will show how how many tickets / billable time there are per month.  I am stumped on how to accomplish this seemingly trivial task.  What should my data query look like and does the report do the math or the query?

Thanks!