Billing & invoicing

Get paid for the exact number of hours worked on a project. This is also known as the time and materials pricing where you can add additional expenses like travel and material costs. You need to track your hours so you know exactly how much time was spent on a project as a whole.

‍Pros:

• It’s flexible
• Get paid for the exact number of hours worked
• Common in business

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‍Cons:

• Clients don’t like it – an unexpected cost may surprise them
• If you are efficient you will get paid less
• Caps earnings - there is a limit to how many hours you can work in a day‍‍

In My Hours you can select a Project-based rate and enter your hourly billable rate. This way all time logs on the selected project will be marked as billable with the entered rate.

Set different rates for specific tasks in a project. This is a more detailed hourly billing method that offers more flexibility and is a better representation of your work than the project-based rate. A time tracker is a must to keep track of hours worked on specific tasks.

‍Pros:

• Can handle more complex projects
• Better represents the work put into a project
• Show clients exact costs per task

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‍Cons:

• More complex than the project-based rate
• Harder to keep track of hours on specific tasks without a time tracker
• May raise additional questions from clients at invoicing

In My Hours you can choose a Task-based rate and enter billable rates on each individual task for maximum flexibility.

Assign a specific hourly rate for each of your team members or employees. This is the most straightforward hourly billing for teams, large and small. Employees track time and you bill accordingly.

‍Pros:

• Get paid more when experienced employees (they usually cost you more) are working on a project
• Gives a good idea of your costs per employee
• Great for larger teams
• Encouraging productivity

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‍Cons:

• More complicated than the project hourly rate
• Possible competition between employees

Set a billable rate for each individual separately in My Hours. You can also customize default employee rates for specific projects.

A daily fee is billed no matter how long the work took, but usually, there is an agreement on how many hours of work need to be in a day. This has the same principles as the hourly rate, so you can simply calculate the daily rate from your hourly rate from the Activity report.
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‍Pros:

• Easier for some customers to accept daily rates instead of hourly rates
• Allows a more flexible approach to your work
• Less complicated

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‍Cons:

• Not as accurate as hourly rates
• Not suitable for shorter periods of work
• May lead to more work hours in a day than you bargained for

In My Hours you can round your time up to 1 hour. This way you'll get a full day of billable hours even when it took you a few minutes less.

A weekly fee is billed no matter how many hours were actually put into a project. This is a less common option for freelancers and agencies.
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‍Pros:

• The most flexibility of any flat rate
• A larger buffer zone for possible extensions or corrections in the project

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‍Cons:

• You need to have a long-lasting project
• Difficult to handle multiple projects with this rate
• Less detailed on how you work for your clients

Set a specific fee for your project. You will always get paid that much, no matter the hours you put into the project. Set up a budget to monitor your costs vs fixed billable amount. Compare fixed fee against actual costs and figure out how to improve profitability.
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‍Pros:

• Predictable – clients love that
• Encourages efficiency
• Simple

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‍Cons:

• Harder to negotiate high fixed prices
• Needs really good estimations
• Risk of underselling

There are a few ways to set up fixed fee projects:

1. In case the value of your project output is very similar between tasks or team members, use the "Hourly-based" budget. Set how much time are you willing to spend on this project.
2. In case you want to make sure that you don’t undervalue your output, set the "Billable amount-based" budget and set Task- or Member-based rates.
3. In case you really just care about internal costs not going over the agreed fee, set the "Cost-based" budget.

You set up a monthly budget for a specific project. This is usually the best option when you have a lasting relationship with a customer you trust. The projects should be recurring each month or it should last a longer period of time.
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‍Pros:

• Predictable and continuous flow of income
• Build lasting relationships
• Recurring tasks like meeting go away

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‍Cons:

• You have a lasting responsibility
• Client may want to add tasks without changing the fee
• Working on a recurring project may get boring

Monthly retainer can be set up in a similar fashion than the Fixed fee project (see above). Just make sure that you select the "Monthly" budget period. This way your progress will reset every month.

TIP: In the Economy report, you can view your history of staying under the budget.

When a task is billed no matter how long it took. The easiest way to implement the fixed task rate is to add a fixed amount in the “expense” field in the task and set fixed tasks as $0 hourly rate in a Task-based hourly fee project.
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‍Pros:

• More flexible than fixed project rate
• Still offers predictability for clients

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‍Cons:

• Need a very accurate estimation for each task
• Every task is a possible over or undershoot regarding time and money
• More room for client negotiations

Non-billable time like breaks or other tasks can be measured by creating a project and setting the billing rate to non-billable. If you still want to include these tasks into reports, set Projects as Task-based rate, and set non-billable tasks to $0. For the most flexibility, you can set specific logs as non-billable.

When you're just starting with client invoicing you don't need a fancy invoicing software. You simply want to send a PDF with the hours logged and invoiced amount. My Hours enables you to do just that.

When the bare invoice is not enough to the client, you can attach a PDF of the Dashboard or Activity report as well. Both reports offer ways to select which information you want included or left out.

In case you are using a separate accounting software, you can mark logs in My Hours as "Invoiced" and enter a unique invoice ID as well. This way you can keep your records straight. Invoiced time logs are locked and cannot be edited.

My Hours integrates with Quickbooks software so you'll always be in sync without the manual exporting and importing between systems.