About time billing

While todo.vu’s time tracker allows you to track and record the time you spend on tasks, todo.vu’s billing features ensure that that time is tracked and recorded at specific billing rates.

This means that you can see exactly how long different activities took, as well as the monetary value of that time, to put it simply. You can see this data within specific contexts: i.e., for a specified date range, team member, project, and so on.

Plus, you can create detailed billing reports to support your invoices.

In this article, you’ll learn how time billing works in todo.vu. You’ll understand how time billing enhances your workflows, and we’ll go through the billing dashboard.

To learn how to create a billing report in todo.vu, please see our ‘Billing time: Create a billing report’ Help article. Alternatively, learn how to update your time billing settings here, and your billing rates here.

Jump to:

1. How time billing works
2. Time billing example
3. Time billing and your workflows
4. The Billing Dashboard
5. The billing timeline
6. Unbilled time graph
7. Draft bills & Top clients

How time billing works

To understand how time billing works in todo.vu, it helps to understand how the platform records and manages your data.

As illustrated in the graphic below:

• Time is tracked, recorded (as time entries), and linked to todo.vu tasks*.
• Tasks (and their time entries) belong to specific projects.
• Projects (and their tasks and time entries) belong to specific clients.
• Clients (and their projects, tasks & time entries) belong to a single todo.vu Workspace.

*Time does not have to be linked to tasks; you can also track your time freely.

When time is tracked by a user at an hourly rate and linked to a todo.vu task, because that task is also linked to a client and project, you can see, calculate and report on time totals — and associated billing values —  for many different contexts and degrees of specificity.

You could report on time and billing values per:

• date range
• task
• client
• user
• project…

… as well as overall and for many combinations of the above.

You could, for example, create a report that includes time and billing data for a specific project only. Or, you could hone in and do the same but for a single user on a that same project, and so on. The possibilities are near endless.

For example:

In the animation below, this task ‘Update HTML on site’ (Task no. #998) belongs to a todo.vu Workspace owned and managed by a team called ‘Acme Widgets’. This task is organised according to a client, ABC Physiotherapy, and a project, ‘Website’. It is due on Monday May 1 at 5 p.m.

The time spent on the task so far (time entries) amounts to 2 hours and 5 minutes. This has been tracked by a todo.vu user, Keelie French, who has also added a time note as to what she completed during that time (“Investigating HTML error”).

Behind the scenes, todo.vu will have tracked the time at the hourly rate assigned to Keelie French.

Based on this tracked time, we can use todo.vu to create detailed reports that automatically calculate accurate time billing totals.

We can see, for example, in the images below, that a billing report has been created for the client for this task and project.

The total of the billing report has been calculated by todo.vu based on our user Keelie French’s charge-out rate of $150. Tax has been added (in this case Australian GST), as per our time billing settings.

We can also see this activity in our internal reports in todo.vu.

An example time report from time tracked on task #998. (Click to enlarge.)

If, however, I wanted to see all time (and billing value) tracked on all projects belonging to the client ABC Physiotherapy, and not only by Keelie French on the project ‘Website’, I could do that too.

Or, I could see the time (and billing value) tracked by all users to the client’s project, ‘Website’.

Because all time data is tracked and recorded at a hourly rate and at a task, user, client and project level, all I would have to do is use todo.vu’s Reporting dashboard to configure my desired report.

Learn more about todo.vu’s Reporting dashboard here.

Time billing and your workflows

So far, we’ve studied the functionality of todo.vu in tracking time at hourly rates, and creating detailed reports that calculate time and billing value totals.

Now, we’ll look into what role these functionalities play in your workflows.

Billing

With todo.vu’s time billing features, you can create itemized billing reports with accurate billing totals — including with specified taxes.

Billing reports show which users tracked time to which tasks and projects, how much time was tracked, when, at what billing rate — and then todo.vu calculates total billing values per project and report overall.

Additionally, billing reports can include fixed charges, such as item-specific charges.

Billing reports are commonly used as supporting evidence for your invoices, and can be shared with your clients with a unique URL.

todo.vu’s billing reports are created from the Billing dashboard. As they are created based on client profiles, they are created per client and can only contain data belonging to that client (i.e., task, time entry and project data).

Operations

todo.vu’s time billing features can also help you with detailed insights into the operational aspects of your business.

While billing reports in todo.vu support your invoicing process and client communication, your general reports in todo.vu help you understand more clearly how your business is operating, for example, with insights into efficiency, project management, and user performance.

Within your Reporting dashboard in todo.vu, you can create reports with a range of filters. These reports can include both time and monetary values, and they do not have to be created based on a client first. 

Unlike billing reports, these reports aren’t shared with a unique URL, but can be exported to Google Sheets or as Microsoft Excel documents.

This Help article is focussed on billing; however, you can learn more about reporting at our dedicated Help article here.

About billing statuses in todo.vu

Time billing data in todo.vu is recorded and displayed in both time and associated billing values.

However, your time billing data is also categorised by a billing status, as either:

• Billed
• Unbilled
• Draft
• Non-billable

Here’s what these mean:

Billed:

Time data is categorised as billed when it’s been included in a Time Billing report that’s been published.

Unbilled:

Time data is categorised as unbilled when it’s billable but has not yet been not included in a Time Billing report yet.

Draft:

Time data is categorised as Draft when it’s been included in a draft Time Billing report.

Non-billable

Time data is categorised as Non-billable when it’s been marked as such in todo.vu. Non-billable time is stored neatly within the Billing section for each client and can be used for internal reporting purposes.

How billing statuses work

As users track time, that time is automatically categorised as ‘Unbilled’. As users create billing reports and add time entries to them, they move through ‘Draft’ and then ‘Billed’ statuses automatically (they are ‘Billed’ as soon as a billing report is published).

The only billing status that is used manually is the ‘Non-billable’ status.

Keeping track of non-billable time in todo.vu is useful for internal reporting purposes.

Non-billable time is kept per client (or as in-house) on the Billing Dashboard under each client (or in-house) profile.

Users can mark time as non-billable in a variety of ways:

Via a client profile on the Billing Dashboard

While on the Billing Dashboard, simply select the client from the left-hand list to which you know the unbillable time is stored. Or, select ‘In-house’, if the time data doesn’t relate to a client.

You’ll be taken to the Billing Report editor which is by default populated with Unbilled time data for that client. Simply select the time entires that are non billable, then select ‘Non-billable’ from the pop-up bar that appears at the bottom of the dashboard.

Via todo.vu’s Calendar

While on todo.vu’s Calendar, simply right click on an unbilled or draft billed time entry and select ‘Non-billable’ from the list of options that appear. Alternatively, you can select the unbilled or draft billed time entry to open the task it’s connected to, and then select the three-dot menu at the top right-hand side of the task. Then, select ‘Non-billable’ from the list of options that appear.

The Billing Dashboard

As soon as you select Billing from the left-hand sidebar of your Workspace, you are taken to your Billing Dashboard in todo.vu.

On your Workspace’s Billing Dashboard, you will see a visual overview of your business’ billing data in todo.vu.

The data on this page includes:

• A timeline showcasing the billing status of your tracked time (as either billed/draft/unbilled/non-billable)
• A donut chart & table representing top clients with unbilled time
• A table of draft bills
• A table of top clients sorted in descending order based on value, with the highest value client at the top.

You will also see a list of your clients down the left-hand side of the page. If you select a specific client from this list, you will open the Billing Report editor that contains all of that client’s unbilled hours by default. This is where you will create your billing reports for that particular client.

Read more about creating billing reports here.

The Billing Dashboard dual view

You can choose whether the data on your Billing Dashboard is displayed in time or billing values.

By default, you will see time data across the dashboard. To see your data in billing values instead, simply select the currency symbol (next to the clock symbol) in the top right-hand side of the dashboard.

This change applies to the data across the entire dashboard and remains in place until you use the clock symbol to revert to time values, even if you log out of todo.vu.

Note that this feature does not affect the data or function of the billing report editor.

Understanding the data on the Billing Dashboard

Next, let’s go through the data on the Billing Dashboard.

The Billing timeline

The first graph at the top of your Billing Dashboard is the Billing timeline. This graph charts the billing status of your tracked time from the first time you started using todo.vu.

You will notice various colours in the chart.

The colours represent:

• Blue: Unbilled time – This is the time for which a billing report has not yet been created.
• Red: Draft billed time – This is the time for which a billing report draft has been created but not yet published.
• Green: Billed time – This is the time for which a billing report has been created and published.
• Purple: Non-billable – This is the time spent on tasks which are not billable to a client, such as in-house tasks.

Navigating the chart:

Use the plus/minus (+)/(-) icons to zoom in and out on the graph, extending the timeline view. Or, click your mouse and drag it right or left across the timeline to move up and down the timeline.

Unbilled time

Beneath the Billing timeline, you will see your business’s ‘Unbilled time’ data, as it relates to your clients, represented in a donut chart.

This visual is designed to give you a quick overview of the client work you have yet to bill for.

You can delve deeper into this data with just a few clicks, like so:

Select a wedge in the graph, which is connected by colour and number to a client in the client list. Or, select any of your clients in your client list next to the graph. This will reveal a list of projects for that selected client which have the greatest amount of unbilled time logged.

Then, click on any project in that project list, or on any wedge in the graph, to reveal a list of tasks for that selected project which have the greatest amount of unbilled time logged.

Drilling down even further, you can then select any task in that task list, or on any wedge in the graph, to reveal which staff user has logged the greatest amount of unbilled time for that selected task.

Then, selecting that user, you can see exactly how much unbilled time they have logged for that selected task.

Reset the graph by selecting ‘Unbilled time’ from the breadcrumbs just above the pie graph. Or, like in our example above, you can return to any graph view by selecting the applicable view from the breadcrumbs.

You can also click the centre of the pie graph to go back one view. For example, if you are in a specific project, when you click on the centre of the pie chart, you will be taken back to the client to which that project belongs.

You can also go directly to a client, project or a task, or to a client’s ‘Unbilled time’ page, from this graph view; simply select the links that update while you are in different graph views underneath the pie graph.

Draft bills and Top clients

Below your ‘Unbilled time’  graph, you will see a column with your ‘Draft bills’ and a column with data on your ‘Top clients’.

These are quick reference tools. ‘Draft bills’ reminds you of any outstanding billing reports which have not yet been published, and ‘Top clients’ gives you an easy overview of which client you have billed the highest dollar amount to in the previous 12 months.

READ NEXT:

Understand and configure your time billing settings. Read here >>