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A client is a company you do work for and send invoices to. Every project belongs to at most one client, and every client can have many projects.

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What is a client?

A client record holds the billing facts about one company:
  • Its name
  • Its default currency
  • Its default hourly rate
  • Its payment terms, billing address and tax details
  • Its contacts – the people you talk to
You do not track time against a client. You track time against a task inside a project, and the project points at the client. See /concepts/data-model for the full chain.

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When to use clients

Create a client as soon as you have a company you will bill more than once.

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The client list

Go to Clients in the sidebar. Each row is one company. Click any row to open that client.

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Controls on the list

1

Search

The search box filters on what you can read on screen – name, currency and rate.
2

Sort

Click a column heading to sort. Click again to reverse it.
3

Active / Archived / Trash / All

The dropdown next to Add client switches which lifecycle state you are looking at. It defaults to Active, so retired clients stay out of your way.
4

Rows per page

The footer shows the row count and lets you page through 25, 50 or 100 rows at a time.
5

Add client

Opens the new client form. This button only appears if you can manage clients.

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Empty states

  • No clients yet: “No clients yet – add your first client to start organizing projects.”
  • An empty Archived or Trash view: “No clients in this view.” That means nothing is archived, not that you have no clients.

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Who can see clients

Two things decide this, and both must pass. 1. The capability. You need client.view or client.manage. Without either, the page shows “Clients are hidden for your role”. 2. Your supervision scope. Client reach is derived from project reach. You see a client when you can see at least one of their projects. A role scoped to its own projects therefore sees only the clients behind those projects. A role scoped to the whole workspace sees every client.
This is deliberate. A separate client rule could disagree with project reach and leave someone able to see every client but none of their projects.

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Example

Northwind Studio has two clients: Bluebird Coffee and Harbor Logistics.
  • Maya Ellis (Owner) sees both, plus Fenwick Legal.
  • Priya Raman (Project Manager) manages the Bluebird Coffee projects, so she sees Bluebird Coffee.
  • Sarah Lin (Member) is staffed on Website Redesign, so she sees Bluebird Coffee too – but only if her role holds client.view.
  • Ana Ferreira (Contractor) holds no client capability, so Clients is hidden for her entirely.

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Permissions

Contractors and portal clients hold neither. See /concepts/roles-and-capabilities.

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App and plan gating

Clients live inside the Projects & tasks app. If an owner or admin switches that app off in Settings → Apps, the Clients page disappears and its URL stops working. Nothing is deleted – switch the app back on and everything returns. Projects & tasks is included on Free. Client portal access is a Pro feature. See /concepts/plans-and-features.

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Common questions

Yes. Pick No client when you create the project. Internal work usually has no client. You cannot invoice a project with no client, because an invoice needs a company to bill.
No. A project has exactly one client, or none. If two companies split the cost, create one project per company.
That should not happen – client reach follows project reach. If you see it, the client is probably reachable through a project that was just archived. Switch the project list to All to check.
A client company does not. A client portal contact does, because it is a login. See /team/seats-and-billing.

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Troubleshooting

Create a client

Add a company and set its billing defaults.

Client details

Every field on the client form.

Client projects

How projects attach to a client.

Client permissions

Who can see and change clients.

Supervision scope

Why you see some clients and not others.

Projects overview

The next layer down.