What is time tracking?
Time tracking is how people in Operating record completed work — the time entries they log become the actuals that drive billing, profitability, and utilization reporting.
Written By Lauri Eurén
Last updated 1 day ago
What a time entry is
A time entry is a single unit of tracked work: an amount of time (in hours or minutes) logged by a person against a project for a specific date. A time entry can optionally carry a task and a position — and because the position determines the phase and billing rate, the time entry inherits its project phase and rate from the position it's tracked on. A task can also carry its own rate, which overrides the position's rate when time is tracked against that task.
The timesheet
A timesheet is where a Person enters their own time — either as a weekly grid or as a list. It's where most day-to-day tracking happens. Reviewing and exporting hours across people and projects happens separately, in the time entries list view.
What time entries feed
Time entries are the foundation for the rest of Operating:
they're the actuals in planned vs. actuals reporting,
they feed revenue — both invoicing time-and-materials work and revenue recognition on fixed-price work,
they feed cost and profitability — earned revenue, cost, gross profit, and margin,
they drive utilization, and
for people on per-hour contracts, the hours can feed payroll.
The tracking cycle
Most teams follow a weekly rhythm: track time through the week, then submit (lock) the timesheet so it can be approved. Locking and approval are how a team signals that a period's hours are final and ready to bill.