I updated to 14.3.2 today and was excited to see the new features. One feature I was especially interested in is the new “Billable Time” tab. I have played around with it to see how it works, but I still have a couple questions:
Billable Time module is still work in progress (that’s why it hasn’t been announced in the last newsletter). It is not currently possible to copy billable time on an invoice but accounting mechanics are working.
That is, when you record billable time, amounts will show under Work in progress account on balance sheet. You can then bill the time on invoice by using Work in progress account which will decrease Work in progress balance and increase Fees from work in progress.
The only limitation right now is that you can’t copy billable time descriptions on invoice, invoice has to be manually written out. Also other features such as ability to optionally track billable time by staff member, task etc. is coming too.
Great, thanks.
I <3 Manager.
The Billable Time feature is a super addition to the software. I like the correlation with work in progress but would like to associate it with a custom account for invoicing purposes. Hopefully some such feature is on the roadmap and if not may be considered. Thank you.
I’m a graphic designer so sell my time but also am a painter and sell physical artworks. Ideally I’d love a timesheet option where I can log different time events to a job number (if it’s a job for a client I work on multiple times), and all job numbers (and descriptions of the jobs) for that client is automatically brought into the invoices for the month for that client. I currently have a filemaker system I set up myself but it doesn’t include an accounts software which I have to do separately.
I have the same issue. This app is great, but I need to be able to time projects and clients like Harvest. An iPhone app is also a must for me.
Love the app. Hope I can use it sometime soon.
I will be working on Billable time module next month. Right now, it is functional from accounting point of view but not as usable as Harvest.
Lubos, any update on when Billable Time and Billable Expenses will be updated? I’m really hoping we’ll be able to input time and expenses against a tracking code and easily convert those to an invoice. If not via tracking codes, it would work if we could just indicate an entry against billable time and get a menu of pending charges. If we could do that for time and expenses, I’d think this app was custom-built for my consulting business. Thanks for all your efforts.
It looks like I will have finally some more time next week.
The reason for delay was that I realized I need to add multi-currency first because multi-currency also affects billable time (and work in progress) if you record time for a client that is being billed in a foreign currency.
How’s the Billable Time module progressing?
Multi-currency is almost finished so I should be able to start improving billable time module later this week.
Subtle nudge…Any more news on this module?
Thanks Lubos
Yeah, I’m already working on billable time again. You will see next week ability to convert billable time into sales invoice. Billable expenses will be available shortly after.
Just to update this thread. The latest version (14.7.24) now contains New Sales Invoice button on Billable Time tab which allows to copy billable time entries onto sales invoice.
The implementation is still pretty basic, I was more concerned with making the accounting-side of things correct. For example, when you record billable time for $1,000 but resulting invoice will be for $800 only, Manager will automatically make appropriate write-off of $200 to Work in progress account so the sum of “uninvoiced” time in Billable time tab will always equal to Work in progress balance on balance sheet.
There will be more improvements to workflow as I gather more feedback from users.
Great news.
However, now all the time that I had previously created invoices for, is reset. All old billable time entries are now available for creating invoices and the summary shows that no payments have been made for work in progress.
Any way I can assign the old billable time entries to their appropriate invoices?
Good point. Check the latest version (14.7.31). There is new field Invoice when editing billable time entry. It will allow you to select sales invoice which the billable entry should be linked to retrospectively.
It’s important to make sure individual billable time entries are linked to right invoices because Manager does automatic write-offs to your work in progress account (no need to do it manually) based on how much you recorded in billable time and how much you actually ended up billing your clients. There will be interesting reports coming up taking advantage of this.
Ok thanks for the info.
A couple more things of notice:
When I click to create a new invoice from a client billable time, all billable time entries are checked and no choice of mass unchecking so if I have a lot of entries this can become tedious to work with. My suggestion is to automatically only check the billable time entries that haven’t been invoiced yet.
When I create an invoice from the billable time entries, each entry is added a separate item. I don’t know how others generally do their invoices, but I accumulate the hours into one entry on which I can then add the VAT and apply a discount if I wish, without having to do it for each entry individually. My suggestion is to accumulate the hours and amount into one entry or allow for mass adding VAT / discounts to all entries, preferrable the first.
Thanks!
RE: Subdivision above,
I on the other hand need to show individual charges to my invoices, so the current method of line items is good for me. In Fact I was going to ask Lubos, to add the “rate” field to the invoice too so that my customers can see that the hours (bracketed in the invoice line item) are charged at “rate” similar to the Qty and unit price in an inventory sale.
Perhaps if Subdivision is accumulating as he said, he is best to “edit” his field in Billable Time module before creating the invoice.
I also agree that the ability to UNCHECK ALL billable time fields is a must, if the fields are not to drop off once they have been invoiced. Agree that only checking those items not yet invoiced is a preferable idea.
Actually only “uninvoiced” billable time entries should be visible when creating invoice. If you see “invoiced” or “written-off” entries, then it is bug.
The invoice generation part will improve. One of the options is that you will be able to combine individual entries into single line item if you prefer it that way.
I agree with this and this option will be implemented.
Indeed it seems to be a bug. Below are two screenshots, first showing the invoiced entries and second showing the same entries checked for creating a new invoice.