Time policies

Time policies are the rules every time entry in your workspace has to follow. They live in Settings → Time policies and an owner or admin sets them once.

​

What is on the page

Three cards:

​

Entry rules

The card is titled Entry rules: “What every time entry must contain, and how billable time is rounded.”

​

The three switches

All three are off in a new workspace. A workspace enforces nothing until you opt in. These rules are checked in two places. The timer greys out Start and Stop with a tooltip naming the missing field, and the server refuses the write with the same sentence.

​

Editing window (days)

How far back someone may still change an entry. Leave it blank for no limit – the placeholder reads No limit. With a window of 7, an entry that started more than seven days ago can no longer be edited or have its duration retyped. The refusal reads “This entry is outside the editing window and can no longer be changed.” An entry exactly on the boundary is still editable.

​

Daily limit (minutes)

A cap on tracked minutes per person per day. Leave it blank for no cap – the placeholder reads No cap. The check adds the new entry to everything already tracked on that day, in the workspace timezone. If the total goes past the cap the entry is refused with “This entry would exceed the daily time limit for this workspace.” A limit of 600 means ten hours a day.

​

Idle threshold (minutes)

How long a running timer can sit with no activity before TimeTracker asks about it. The default is 10 minutes. The minimum is 1. When you come back to the tab after a longer gap, you get the idle dialog and choose Keep time or Discard idle time. See Using the timer.

​

Rounding increment

How billable time is rounded. The choices are exactly four: Click Save time policies to apply everything on the card. You get “Time policies saved.”

​

How rounding works

The rule is nearest increment, ties round up.

1. Take the exact duration in minutes.
2. Divide by the increment.
3. Round to the nearest whole number, with exact halves going up.
4. Multiply back by the increment.

​

Worked example

Sarah Lin tracks 1 hour 7 minutes – that is 67 minutes. At her $100/hour billable rate, those same 67 minutes are worth:

​

Ties round up

An exact half always rounds up, never down.

• With 15-minute rounding, 1h 07m 30s rounds to 1h 15m.
• With 30-minute rounding, 1h 15m rounds to 1h 30m.

​

One more minute can matter

With 15-minute rounding: One extra minute moves a quarter of an hour. Pick your increment with that in mind.

​

Timesheet submission

The second card is Timesheet submission: “The length a single timesheet bundles. Submitting any week submits the whole period that contains it.” Changing this changes what the Time page shows and what a single Submit timesheet covers. See How timesheets work.

​

Period locking

The third card is Period locking: “Locks all approved time on or before a date. Locked entries can’t be edited, deleted or added to – corrections go through adjustment entries.” Period locking needs period.close, which is Owner and Admin only. Everyone else sees “Only an owner or admin can lock periods in this workspace.” Full detail: Close a period.

​

Example

Maya Ellis is setting Northwind Studio up for client billing.

1. She turns on Require a task, so no hour ever reaches an invoice without something to bill it against.
2. She leaves Require a description off – the team writes them anyway, and she does not want the timer blocked mid-sprint.
3. She sets Editing window to 14 days, so the previous timesheet can still be fixed but last quarter cannot.
4. She sets Daily limit to 720 minutes – twelve hours – as a sanity check against a runaway timer.
5. She sets Rounding increment to 15 minutes, matching what Northwind quotes clients.

The next month, Daniel Okafor closes the period through 31 July before raising invoices.

​

Permissions

Both are Owner and Admin only. Anyone else sees “You don’t have access to change time policies in this workspace. Ask an owner or admin for access.”

​

What happens next

• New rules apply to the next write. Entries already saved are untouched.
• Turning on Require a task does not retroactively invalidate old entries.
• Changing the rounding increment changes what new entries bill. Entries already saved keep the rounded duration they were given.
• Changing the timesheet period changes what the Time page groups, from now on.

​

Common questions

​

Troubleshooting

​

Related guides