Getting Started With Resource Planning, Timesheets, And Invoicing

FYI: This article shows a demo account of Operating filled with dummy data. Sign up for a free trial on our website to get an account with pre-filled data.

Core Concepts in Operating

Projects, People, and Positions

Operating is built around three core entities: projects, people, and positions.

Projects represent your client engagements and internal work. People are your workforce. Positions are the link between the two. A position is a person, or a placeholder role, assigned to a project.

Positions without a named person are open positions, which form your staffing pipeline.

Each of these entities can be viewed as a customizable list or on a visual timeline.

Planning Work with Views

Working with List Views and the Timeline

In list views, you can choose which columns to display, including project financials, availability, role, and other attributes.

The timeline is where you plan and schedule work visually. On the people timeline, sorting by availability helps you identify who has capacity. On the project timeline, opening a project shows its team, budget, planned margin, and allocation details.

For ongoing projects with tracked time, hovering over the financials shows actual margin to date and projected margin. Clicking Open details takes you to the project status page, where planned and actual hours are compared in detail.

Allocations can be edited directly on the timeline by clicking or dragging the handles. Gray lines indicate tentative allocations, while green lines represent confirmed work.

Tracking Time with Timesheets

In the Hours tab, team members log time against their allocated projects and tasks.

The timesheet shows planned hours from the timeline alongside logged hours, making it easy to see whether work is tracking as expected.

Team members enter hours, add notes where helpful, and submit their timesheets at the end of the week. Operating supports optional approval flows, such as requiring the project owner to approve hours on client projects before they can be invoiced.

Generating Invoices

The Invoicing Workflow

The Invoicing tab brings your billing workflow together. Invoices are generated based on each project’s billing type, whether fixed price, time and materials, or per hour, and the tracked, approved time.

Each project moves through a clear invoicing pipeline.

Missing data
The project still needs invoicing metadata, such as a billing schedule, client details, or rates. These are configured in the project’s financial settings.

Pending
The project setup is complete, but there may still be open or unapproved timesheets. Review the Approvals tab and ensure all hours are approved.

Ready for invoicing
All required data is in place. Create the invoice, optionally include or exclude project expenses, add any final metadata, and mark it as sent.

Invoices can be exported as CSV files or connected to your finance platform.

Timesheet Approval Setup

Setting Up Timesheet Approvals

Under Settings, you can configure approval flows to control how timesheets are reviewed before invoicing.

For example, you may require that all client project hours are approved by the project owner. When a team member submits a timesheet, the approver receives a notification. Once approved, the hours are marked with a green checkmark and become available for invoicing.

Staffing and Open Roles

Filling Open Positions

Filter the Positions tab by “Person is none” to see all roles across your portfolio that still need staffing.

Each open position shows the required role, start date, and duration. Clicking Suggest prompts Operating to recommend people based on availability, site, role, seniority, and skills.

This view functions as your staffing to-do list.

Reports

Portfolio

Portfolio provides an overview of planned hours and revenue across your project pipeline.

Capacity

Capacity shows your team’s future utilization, including both tentative and confirmed allocations.

Planned vs. Actual

Planned vs. Actual compares timeline allocations against timesheet data at the team level. You can set a deviation threshold to highlight where people are significantly over or under plan, helping catch workload issues and revenue leakage early.

Customizing Your Workflow

Creating Pinned Views

Save and pin filtered views to your sidebar for quick access.

Useful starting views include:

• My schedule, the people timeline filtered to just you

• My projects, projects where you are a team member

• Open positions, positions with no person assigned

• Open time entries, submitted but not yet invoiced entries for month-end billing

• Available people, people with capacity in the next 30 days

• Team views, people filtered by a specific role you manage

Pinned views can be shared with your team.

Integrations and Navigation

Connecting Your CRM

If your organization uses a CRM such as HubSpot, Operating can integrate so that deals flow automatically into your project pipeline.

This is configured under Settings. Once connected, new opportunities appear in Operating and are ready for resource planning.

Quick Navigation and Settings

Use Cmd+K on Mac or Ctrl+K on Windows to jump anywhere in Operating.

Explore the Settings area to review your organization setup, sites, roles, approval configurations, and integration options.