From hours to invoice, without retyping

For anyone who bills by the hour, the end of the month holds a quiet risk. The hours are in a notebook, a calendar and a few remembered afternoons, and they must be turned into an invoice that the client can follow. Mistakes here are rarely dramatic. They are small, and they erode trust.

One record, from the start#

Nabcloud has a time tracker in the workspace. A timer can be started and stopped, or a finished entry can be added afterwards. Entries carry the project and the client, and billable entries carry a rate. Your assistant can use the same tracker, so you may say "log two hours on the Hartmann project this morning" and it is recorded where the rest of the work is.

Billable time becomes lines#

When it is time to invoice, the tracker can list the billable time that has not been invoiced yet, as lines: a description, hours and a rate. These lines can be added to a draft invoice, and the entries used are marked as billed, so the same hour is not charged twice. If you decide against it, entries can be unmarked.

The sequence is short:

1. List the billable, not-yet-invoiced time for the client.
2. Add it to a draft invoice as lines.
3. Check the totals per VAT rate.
4. Issue the invoice, which locks it, and render the PDF.

A monthly timesheet PDF can be produced from the same entries, so the client sees the hours behind the amount.

An illustration#

The consultancy, the client and the figures below are made up.

A consultant has logged 18.5 hours for a client in October at an agreed hourly rate. She asks her assistant to prepare the October invoice. The assistant collects the billable lines, drafts the invoice and creates the timesheet. It then drafts an email with the PDF attached. The email does not go out. It waits in Approvals, and she reads it, then approves it.

Nothing was typed twice: not the hours, not the client's address, which comes from Contacts.

What stays with you#

The rate is yours to set. So is the decision whether a stretch of time is billable at all. The assistant can propose, but it cannot know that you promised a client the first hour free.

Getting the habit#

The tool is only as good as the entries in it. Two habits make the difference.

• Log time on the day. A timer left running is easier to correct than an afternoon that has to be reconstructed.
• Review the billable list before you invoice. Look for entries without a client or a rate.

For the details of the invoice tools, read invoices and quotes and matters and time. The feature overview is under documents and invoices.