Client Hours & Budgets

The Hours tab on a client answers "how many of this client's hours are left, and who used them?" It compares the time logged on the client's tasks against their included hours for a period, then breaks the hours down by team member and by task, with every entry and its note.

Overview

The Hours tab sits next to Billing on a client. For the period you're looking at it shows:

Card	What it shows
Budget	The client's included hours for the period, and where they come from
Used	Hours logged on the client's tasks in the period, with how many are billable and how many entries
Remaining	Budget minus used, or Over by in red once it's exceeded
Used of budget	The share used, with a bar that turns amber at 80% and red past 100%

The tab's label carries the same percentage, so you can spot a client running low without opening it.

Below the cards:

• By tech — each team member's hours, their share of the period and how many entries they logged.
• By task — each task's hours and who worked on it. Select a task to see its entries: the date, who logged it, the hours and the note.

Who Sees It

• Staff who can view clients see the Hours tab.
• Clients never do. No budget, breakdown or "hours left" figure is ever shown to client users.
• Changing the period is limited to people who can edit the client's billing settings.
• Creating an invoice from the tab needs permission to manage invoices. See Invoicing Tracked Time.

Reading the Hours Tab

• All time on the client's tasks counts, billable or not. Billable tasks carry a Billable badge, and the Used card shows how many of the hours are billable.
• Every entry is listed under its task. An entry without a note shows what kind it is: Carried over for time logged before time entries existed, or Adjustment to the task total when someone typed a new total instead of logging an entry. See Time Tracking.
• Invoiced time is marked. A task shows Invoiced when all of its time in the period is on an invoice, or Part invoiced when some is. Each invoiced entry links to its invoice.
• Trashed tasks don't count. Restore the task and its time counts again.

Where the Budget Comes From

The budget is the client's Hours per Month allowance, the same one used by estimates and ticket triage. A client gets it from, in order:

1. This client's override — on the client's Billing tab, under Override for this client, select Add an override (or Edit override), choose the Hours per Month allowance and enter the Included hours per month.
2. Their retainer — the client's active subscription to a product whose allowance is Hours per Month, with its included hours.

The Budget card says which one applies: Set on this client or From the plan's name. The account default can't include hours, so a client with neither still shows the hours used, without a budget, and the tab explains where to set one. See Plans & Rate Cards.

Periods

Which dates a "period" covers depends on the client:

The client has	Their periods are
A period set on the client	Whatever you set: see below
A retainer subscription	The subscription's billing cycle, for example the 15th to the 14th
Neither	Calendar months

A period set on the client always wins over a retainer's billing cycle. Switching it back to Automatic returns to the retainer's cycle, or calendar months.

The budget follows the period's length

The budget is a monthly number. When you set a longer or shorter period on a client, the budget scales to match, and the Budget card shows how, for example "30 h/month × 3":

Period set on the client	Budget
Monthly	The monthly hours
Quarterly	Three months' worth
Yearly	Twelve months' worth
Every so many days	The monthly hours × days ÷ 30.4 (14 days is about 46% of a month)

A retainer's budget does not scale: the hours on the retainer product are per billing cycle, whatever the cycle's length.

Setting the Period on a Client

1. Open the client's Hours tab and select Change period next to the description of the current period.
2. Choose a Length: Automatic, Every … days, Monthly, Quarterly or Yearly.
3. For Every … days, enter the Days in a period, from 1 to 366 (7 is weekly, 14 every two weeks).
4. Pick the date A period starts on. Any date that starts one of the client's periods works; earlier and later periods are counted from it, in both directions. Choose the 1st of a month with Monthly for calendar months.
5. Select Save period.

The tab switches to the new current period straight away, and the client's "hours left" chip in My Tasks and their usage on tickets follow it.

Examples

• The 15th to the 14th: Monthly, starting on any 15th.
• Quarters starting in February: Quarterly, starting on February 1.
• Every two weeks from Monday, March 2: Every … days, 14 days, starting March 2.
• A start date at the end of a month: a period starting on the 31st starts on the last day in shorter months, then goes back to the 31st.

Choosing Another Period

Use the Period menu at the top right:

• The current period and the 11 before it, labelled with their dates. The current one is marked.
• Custom range… — pick any From and To dates, up to a year apart, and select Show. A custom range shows the hours and breakdowns but isn't compared against the budget.

Hours Elsewhere in the Portal

The same numbers appear in:

• My Tasks — the "hours left" chip beside a task's time, for staff. See Time Tracking.
• Tickets and the assistant — the client's included-hours usage on the estimate card, in billing triage notes and in the assistant comes from these entries too, so it always matches the Hours tab. When the current period holds time carried over from before time entries, the usage is marked as less certain, because that time sits on a single date.

Notes & Gotchas

• A period set on the client beats a retainer. If a client has a retainer and you set a period, the retainer's billing cycle is ignored until you switch back to Automatic.
• Time counts where the task points. Time is attributed to the task's client. A task without a client doesn't count anywhere. Change a task's client and its time moves, unless it's already invoiced.
• Corrections land on their own date. An adjustment is dated the task's completion date or the day it was made, so a correction made in a later period doesn't reduce the period where the mistake was. Edit the original entry instead when you can.
• Only your team's time counts. Clients can't log time, and time is counted only for team members who work with the client.

Related Pages

• Time Tracking — logging time on tasks
• Invoicing Tracked Time — turning a period's hours into an invoice
• Plans & Rate Cards — included hours, retainers and rate cards
• The Client Workspace