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Time and timers

Firmdesk keeps the time your team spends on clients and on the firm's own work: run a timer as you go, or type your hours into your week. Billable time gets a value from the person's billing rate and waits under Unbilled until it's invoiced.

Run a timer

Start a timer from:

  • Time, with Start timer. Choose the Client, Engagement and Task it's for, add a Description, and click Start timer. Leave the client empty for internal time.
  • A task: the play button beside it in My work, on a client's Tasks tab or on a deadline's page, or Start timer on the task's own page.
  • A client: Start timer on its Time and billing tab.

While a timer runs, a bar at the top of every page shows the clock and what it's for. Click Stop to log the time, or Discard to drop it.

  • You have one timer at a time. Starting another stops the first and logs its time.
  • The time is rounded to the nearest minute and logged on the day the timer started.
  • To pick up something you worked on earlier today, click the play button beside that entry on your timesheet. The new time is added to the same entry.

Tip

From any page, press Ctrl+K (Cmd+K on a Mac) and choose Start a timer or Log time.

Fill in your week

Time opens your Timesheet at this week: a row per client, or per client and engagement, and a column per day.

  1. Under the grid, choose a client in Add a row for, or Internal time, and click Add row. Copy last week's rows brings back the rows you used last week.
  2. Type the hours into each day. 1.5, 1,5, 1:30, 90m and 1h 30m all work.
  3. Click Save hours.

To remove time, clear the box or type 0. Move between weeks with the arrows and This week.

A box that holds more than one entry, or billed time, can't be typed into. Change those entries in the list under the grid, where each day shows its entries and its total. Click Log time beside a day to add an entry with a task and a description, or Edit to change or delete one.

Billable or not

Time on a client is billable unless you tick Non-billable when you log it. Internal time is never billable. Hours typed into the grid for a client are billable; to change that, edit the entry and tick Non-billable.

Billable time is worth its hours at the billing rate of the person whose time it is. An admin sets each person's Billing rate on their page under Team. Each entry keeps the rate it was logged at.

See the time report

Time › Report totals your time for a Period, this month to start. Group by Client or Entries, and filter by Client and Billable. Click a number of hours to see its entries. Export CSV downloads every entry in the report.

Managers, partners, admins and owners see everyone's time and what it's worth. They can also group by Person, choose Whose time to show, and filter by Billed.

Unbilled time

Managers and up also have Time › Unbilled: billable time nobody has billed yet, by client, with its value and its oldest entry. From there, Invoice a client's time, or Mark billed when you invoiced it outside Firmdesk.

Good to know

  • You see and change your own time. Managers and up can open anyone's timesheet with Whose, and log time for someone else with Who.
  • One entry holds at most 24 hours, and a day on the grid can't add up to more.
  • A submitted or approved week is locked, and so is billed time. Stop your timer before you submit a week.
  • A timer left running more than 12 hours still logs its time, with a warning to fix the entry if you stopped earlier.
  • When an admin changes someone's rate, their unbilled time that has no rate gets it. Ticking Use this rate for all their unbilled time changes the rest of their unbilled time too. Billed time never changes.