Timesheets in Avaza record who worked on what, and for how long. Avaza uses that time for approvals, reports and invoices. The time also counts towards project budgets.
This guide explains how to set up time tracking and the four ways to log time. It also shows how to put billable time on an invoice.
Before your team starts
Time is always logged against a project. Before your team starts, set up these three things.
Create a project. Every time entry belongs to a project. See getting started with projects.
Set up timesheet categories. Categories describe the kind of work, such as Design, Copywriting or Project Management. Each category is either billable or not billable. Manage them in Settings › Timesheet Settings. To manage the categories of a single project, open the project's settings and go to Categories. See tracking different types of work.
Give people permission to log time. In Contacts, open the person and tick the Timesheet/Expense User role. Then open the project's settings. Under Members, check that Timesheet entry allowed? is on for that person.
External contacts can have the role too, for example a customer's staff or a contractor. You find them on the Company Contacts tab. Like team members, they count towards your plan's Timesheet/Expense User limit.
Log time
With the timer
Click Start at the top of any page to start a timer. The timer keeps running when you open other pages in Avaza. Click the timer again to stop it. Then choose the project and category. You can also close the prompt and add them later. The entry stays on your timesheet as a draft.
The clock button next to Start opens today's entries in a popup. There you can edit them or add a new entry, without leaving the current page. See how timers work.
In day view
Open Timesheets from the left menu. In Day view, click Add Entry and choose the Project and Category. You can also pick a Task and add Notes. Enter a duration, or a start and end time, and click Save Entry. You can also start a timer from the same popup. To move between days, use the arrows, Today or the calendar.
If your team uses resource scheduling, day view also lists your scheduled assignments. Click Create Time to turn one into a time entry. See creating timesheets from schedule assignments.
In week view
Week view is the quickest way to fill in a whole week and check it before you submit. Each row shows the project, with its customer in brackets. The task and category are below the project. To move between weeks, use the arrows, Today or the calendar.
- Add Row: add a row for a project, category and task. Type the hours for each day, then click Save.
- Notes: when you type a day's hours, a Notes box for that day opens below the grid. Add your note there and click Save. A small triangle in the corner of a cell shows that the cell has a note.
- Copy over previous week's timesheets: copy last week's rows. This option is in the menu next to the week's dates.
- Pin: click the pin on a row to keep that row when you move to other weeks.
- Delete row: click the cross at the end of a row to delete the row's time for that week. You can't delete a row that has locked entries.
From a task
Open a task and click its clock tab (Task Timesheets). The tab lists your time entries on that task. Click Add Entry to open a New timesheet entry popup. The project and task are already filled in. Save a duration, or start a timer.
On the same tab, you can type an estimate into Estimated Effort (hours). A bar then shows the team's estimated, actual and remaining hours. The bar turns red when the actual time is more than the estimate.
In a project's List and Board views, a task with an estimate shows a ring (List) or a bar (Board). A task without an estimate shows a clock icon. Hover over the clock to see the hours logged. The clock is grey when no hours are logged. Click the ring, bar or clock to open the task's time tab. The play button next to them starts a timer on the task.
Submit and approve
Some projects require approval. On those projects, your entries stay drafts until you click Submit for Approval. Approvers then review the entries on the Pending Approval tab. They can approve or reject a whole week, a single day or one entry. To set up approvers and rules, see timesheet approvals.
Administrators, Finance Managers and Portfolio Managers can also view and edit other people's timesheets. Choose the person from the name at the top of Day or Week view. To save changes, Finance Managers and Portfolio Managers also need the Timesheet/Expense User role themselves. See editing another person's timesheet.
Invoice your time
You can put billable time that isn't invoiced yet directly on an invoice.
Go to Invoices, click Create Invoice and choose the customer. For a shorter list, tick the option to show only customers with uninvoiced timesheets, expenses or task fixed amounts.
On the new invoice, click Add Time.
Filter the time by project, person, category, task or date range. Then choose how to group the time, for example one line per project or one line per task.
Click Add Time. Each group becomes one invoice line. The quantity is the hours, and the rate comes from the project's billing settings.
For every grouping and description option, see adding uninvoiced time to an invoice. For the rest of the invoice, see getting started with invoices.