Billable time

1. What is billable time?

The Billable time settings under Settings > Work and projects > Billable time, included in all Scoro plans, allow you to distinguish between billable and non-billable time at the task and time entry level for client projects:

• Billable time is the time spent on work and activities that are directly chargeable to a client for revenue. For example, project execution, client meetings, client-specific communication, and the creation or revision of deliverables are typically billable.
• Non-billable time encompasses necessary internal activities that support the business but aren’t invoiced to the client. For example, administrative tasks, internal team meetings, training and professional development, and business development/sales activities are typically non-billable.

By separating billable and non-billable time, you can clearly and precisely define what work generates revenue.

1.1. Billable status options based on the project type

Here’s an overview of the billable status options available for tasks, time entries, and calendar events linked to different types of projects:

• Internal projects: Activities are always non-billable because they don’t generate revenue; the Billable dropdown field is greyed out and cannot be modified.
  
• One-off and retainer projects: Activities are billable by default, but you can select No in the Billable dropdown field to make the activity non-billable, or select Custom and enter a specific number of the planned hours as billable.
  

1.2. Billable status for parent tasks and subtasks

By default, subtasks inherit the billable status of their parent task. You can manually override the billable status by modifying the subtask, but the available options depend on the project type:

• Internal projects: All parent tasks and subtasks are non-billable by default; you cannot modify their billable status.
• One-off and retainer projects: You can set any parent or subtask to billable, non-billable, or partially billable.

2. Enabling billable time

To enable billable time for your site (you need to be a site administrator to do this):

1. Go to Settings > Work and projects > Billable time.
2. Enable the Billable and non-billable time toggle.

Once enabled, you’ll be able to use the Billable dropdown field when creating and modifying tasks, events, and time entries to specify the billable status.

2.1. Additional billable time settings

The Billable time settings page under Settings > Work and projects > Billable time offers additional settings to control further how billable time is managed on your site:

• Allow time entries to include both billable and non-billable time – enable this toggle so your site users can specify how much time is billable when adding a time entry.
• Cap task billable time at planned duration – use this toggle to determine whether time entries on billable tasks (tasks with Yes selected in the Billable dropdown field) are always billable or capped at the task’s planned duration. This applies to time tracker and manual time entries.
  • When enabled, time entries logged beyond a task's planned duration are marked as non-billable by default.
  • When disabled, all time entries added to a billable task are billable by default, even if they go beyond the task’s planned duration.
  • While this toggle sets the default site-wide preference, you can always modify the time entries to change their billable status as needed.
• Default service on invoice – use this dropdown field to select the default product or service to apply when billing for time if a task or an event has no activity type.
  • For more information, see our time-billing article.
• Simplified time-billing – enable this toggle to include activities without an activity type on the invoice when time-billing, allowing you to manually link those activities to the relevant product or service in your database.
  • When this toggle is enabled, the Default service on invoice doesn’t need to be specified.
  • For more information, see our time-billing article.