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Time tracking

Time tracking and timesheets

Track the hours you spend on projects and tasks, by timer as you work or by hand at the end of the week. Get them approved, then turn them into an invoice without retyping a single figure.

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The Invoice Office timesheets dashboard showing hours booked today, this week and this month, how many are approved, and booked hours by month across the year

Recording the hours

Two ways to fill a timesheet

Some work suits a timer running in the background; some suits sitting down on Friday with the week in front of you. The timesheet does both, on the same rows.

Entry modes
Day or weekEntry modes
As you work
Live timerAs you work
Browser based
Any deviceBrowser based
Start a timer as you work
In day mode, start the timer and track time against a project or task while you are doing it. Hours written up on Friday afternoon are always rounder than the ones recorded as they happened.
Or fill in the week by hand
Week mode lets you enter the time per day you expect to spend on each project and task. Click through the days of the week to record against different projects without starting again each time.
Hours belong to a project and a task
Every row is tracked against a project, a team and a task, so time is never a number floating on its own. That is what makes it billable later without any reconstruction.
See where the time went
Use the week or day overview to see how long you have actually worked on a project. Useful before you invoice, and more useful still before you quote the next job like it.
Track from site, not from memory
The timesheet runs in the browser, so the timer works the same on a phone on site as on the laptop back at the office. No app to install and nothing to sync afterwards.
Approved hours become an invoice
From the Action button, turn a timesheet into an invoice for the customer, tick what should appear on it, and send it like any other invoice. The hours you logged are the hours you bill.

Getting accurate time

Unbilled hours are the expensive kind

Time tracking only pays for itself if the hours are right. Four habits do most of the work — none of them take longer than the guessing they replace.

Step-by-step: the timesheet

  • Log as you go

    Timers beat reconstruction. Hours written up at the end of the week are always rounder than the real ones, and rounder almost always means you undercharged rather than over.

  • Log against the right project

    Time recorded on the wrong project is invisible on the invoice it belonged to. It is not lost from the system, but it is lost from the bill, which amounts to the same thing.

  • Get approval done promptly

    Approval close to the work is when the customer still remembers whether the hours were reasonable. A month later you are asking someone to agree to something they cannot picture.

  • Set the rate before you start

    The hourly tariff is set on the project — per task, per person or per project. Getting it right up front means the invoice needs no arithmetic when the work is done.

How it works

From project to logged hour

  1. Step 1Set up the project first

    Timesheets are built on projects, so go to Projects → Create projects and add the project, its team and its tasks before you track anything.

  2. Step 2Add a timesheet

    Go to Projects → Timesheets → Add timesheet, then select the project, team and task you want to track against.

  3. Step 3Track by day or by week

    Run the timer in day mode as you work, or fill in the week by hand. Click through the days to record time against different projects and tasks.

Time tracking questions, answered

How do I track time in Invoice Office?
Go to Projects → Timesheets → Add timesheet and select the project, team and task. Rows can be added per day — where you start a timer and track time as you work — or per week, where you fill in the time per day by hand.
Do I need a project before I can track time?
Yes. Timesheets are built on projects, so create the project, team and tasks first under Projects → Create projects. Once those exist you can start filling in timesheets against them.
Can I track time from my phone?
Yes. The timesheet runs in the browser, so the start/stop timer works the same on a phone on site as on a laptop. There is nothing to install and nothing to sync afterwards.
Can I turn tracked hours into an invoice?
Yes. From the Action button, choose to create an invoice for your client, fill in the customer, tick the options you want shown on the invoice and create it — then send it like any other invoice.
Can my customer approve the hours before I bill them?
Yes. Choose Action → Submit for approval and the timesheet goes to your client. Projects → Approvals gives you an overview of approved timesheets.
How is the hourly rate decided?
On the project. Turn on Invoice method when you create it and set the hourly tariff per task, per person or per project, along with the rate itself.
Can my team log their own hours?
Yes, and team members are free. A team member account is active in projects and timesheets only and uses no licence — see multi-user access and roles.

More answers in our FAQ and help center.

Related

Where your hours come from and go

Bill the hours you actually worked

Start the timer today. Free to begin, and team members cost you nothing.

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