How TimeTracker works

Most tools give you a time tracker, or a project board, or an invoicing app. TimeTracker connects all of them, so an hour you record shows up in five places without you doing anything twice. This page explains that model. It is the most useful ten minutes you can spend here.

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The chain

Almost everything follows one chain: Client → Project → Task → Estimate → Time entry → Approval → Budget impact → Invoice → Payment Read it as a sentence:

You do work for a client, on a project, broken into tasks. You estimate how long each task should take. People record time entries against those tasks. A reviewer approves that time. The time lands on the project budget. Approved billable time becomes an invoice. The client pays, and you record the payment.

Every feature in the product is either a link in this chain or a way of looking at it.

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Follow one hour through the system

Here is the same chain with real numbers. Sarah Lin is a designer at Northwind Studio. One action by Sarah – starting a timer – fed the timesheet, the budget, the margin, the report and the invoice. That is the whole idea.

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The building blocks

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Workspace

The workspace is the container. Your team, clients, projects and data all live inside exactly one workspace, and its name appears in every URL. You can belong to more than one workspace – an agency and a side business, say – and switch between them. See workspaces.

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Client and project

A client is a company you bill. A project is one engagement for that client. One client can have many projects. Bluebird Coffee is a client. Website Redesign and Monthly Retainer are two projects for that same client, with different budgets.

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Section and task

A task is a unit of work. Tasks live in sections, which are the columns or phases a project defines – “To do”, “In review”, “Done”, or “Discovery”, “Design”, “Build”. Sections are how a project describes its own workflow. See project sections.

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Estimate

An estimate is on a task: how long this piece of work should take. It is a prediction, and comparing it to reality is where you learn. An estimate is not a budget. See budget vs estimate.

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Time entry

A time entry is the atom of the whole product – one person, one stretch of time, against one task or project. You can create it with a timer or type it in afterwards. Both produce the same thing. Every entry records whether it is billable, and freezes the rate that applied when it was recorded. Changing a rate next month never quietly rewrites last month’s numbers. See rate snapshots.

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Timesheet

A timesheet is not a separate thing you fill in. It is your week’s time entries in one grid. Recording time is filling in your timesheet. The timesheet adds one thing: a submission, so a reviewer knows the week is finished. See how timesheets work.

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Approval

Approval turns “recorded” into “agreed”. Once a week is approved, the time is locked – it is now the basis for invoices and reports, so it should not shift under you. Approving is a Pro feature. See approvals.

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Budget

A budget is a ceiling on a project: either hours or money, either one-time or monthly for a retainer. Time entries consume it as they are recorded. See how budgets work.

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Invoice

An invoice turns approved billable work into a bill. It moves through its own states – draft, sent, viewed, partially paid, paid, overdue, void – and each state decides what you may still edit. See invoice statuses.

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The two numbers on every hour

This is what makes TimeTracker different from a plain time tracker. Every hour carries two rates: Revenue minus cost is margin. Because both numbers ride on every entry, you can see a project’s profitability while it is still running, not after you invoice it. Sarah’s 3 hours: $300 revenue,$135 cost, $165 margin. Cost is deliberately walled off. A Project Manager can see what you charge without seeing what you pay people. See cost rates.

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The parts that sit beside the chain

Not everything is a link in the chain. These run alongside it.

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Four gates decide what you see

Before any screen appears, four separate checks run:

1. Is the app switched on? – apps
2. Does the plan include it? – plans
3. Does your role allow it? – capabilities
4. Is this person or project in your scope? – scope

They fail in different ways. Learning to tell them apart is the fastest way to answer “why can’t I see this?”.

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What to read next

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Related guides

• Workspaces – the container everything lives in
• Billable vs non-billable – which hours can be invoiced
• Rates explained – how an hour gets a price
• Budget vs estimate – two numbers people mix up