Projects and clients
Projects and clients are how you sort your time: an entry belongs to a project, and a project can belong to a client. Both live under Projects in the menu, each with its own list.
How projects and clients fit together
Every level is optional, so you only set up as much as your work needs:
- An entry doesn’t need a project. Time without one is still tracked, counted and reported, under No project.
- A project doesn’t need a client. Your own work, or a long-running job you don’t bill anyone for, can simply be a project.
- A client can have as many projects as you like. Each project belongs to one client at most.
Two clients can each have a project with the same name — “Website” for one and “Website” for the other are two separate projects. The same name twice under one client is not allowed, and neither are two clients with the same name.
Colours, and where you see them
Projects and clients each get a colour — one of the ready-made swatches, or a custom one. It is there to help you tell them apart at a glance:
- A project’s colour is the dot next to its name in the Time Tracker — in the project list, on each entry and in the suggestions under the description — and its slice in the Time by project chart.
- A client’s colour is its slice in the Time by client chart, and the dot next to it when you pick a client for a project.
The charts are described in report charts.
Rates, rounding and other defaults
The Defaults section of a project and of a client holds the hourly rate, the currency, the rounding and whether new time is billable. You don’t have to fill any of it in: an empty value is taken from the client, and then from your own profile. Set a rate once on the client and every project under it uses it, unless a project has a rate of its own. How that works, and what rounding changes, is on rates, currency and rounding.
A client or a project can also hold a monthly package of prepaid hours — see prepaid hours.
Creating a project from the Time Tracker
You don’t have to go to Projects first. The project list in the Time Tracker can create a project — and a client for it — without leaving the entry you are writing. It asks only for a name, a client and a colour; everything else is inherited until you change it under Projects. The steps are in entering time.