Timecards: From Tracked Time to Client Hours

Tracking tells you where your day went. Timecards turn the part that belongs to a client into hours you can explain, price and export. One rule runs through all of it: FocusNow never assigns your time to a client on its own. It keeps the record; you decide what goes on a card.

Timecards, billing and reports are free during early access. We plan to include them in a paid Pro plan later and will announce the terms before anything changes.

1. Turn timecards on

Timecards sit in the sidebar with Tasks, Projects, Billing and Reports. On new installs they're already on. If you don't see them, open Settings → General → Timecards & billing. Switching it off keeps FocusNow a plain activity tracker, and nothing you logged is deleted.

2. Set up clients and projects

Open Projects. It has three tabs: Projects, Clients and Tags.

• Clients hold the details a work statement needs: contact name, email, phone, address, tax number and notes.
• Projects belong to a client and carry the money: an hourly rate and a currency (a three-letter code such as EUR or USD), plus an optional budget in hours. The project page then shows Logged, Billable, Amount and Budget used.
• Tasks can carry their own rate, which overrides the project rate for entries on that task. Useful when design hours and meeting hours are priced differently.
• Turn on Billable by default for a project and every new entry on it starts billable.

A project without a client can still collect time, but it can't go on a work statement until you give it one.

3. Log time, three ways

Run the timer. The bar at the top of Timecards asks what you're working on, which project, and whether it's billable. Press Start, then Stop. You can pair the timer with a Pomodoro or Deep Work block, and while it runs a Timer running pill sits above Settings so you don't forget it.

Add an entry by hand. Add entry is hours-first: type 2:30, 2.5, 90m or 1h 15m. Add start and end times only if you want them. An entry can hold several time ranges, and its hours then add up from them.

Build it from your tracked activity. This is where an automatic tracker earns its keep. Open Calendar, pick a day, and on the Records tab select the window titles that belong to one client. Press Create timecard. The new entry carries those records as evidence ("3 records") with their time ranges, and its duration comes from them. If you'd rather bill a different amount, choose Set time by hand; the records stay attached either way.

A finished focus session can also become an entry, and later you can pick up anything you missed from Billing's coverage list (see Billing, Work Statements & Reports).

4. Write what the client should read

Every entry has two text fields, and they're separate on purpose:

• Narrative is the client-facing line: what was done, for whom, what comes next. It's the headline of the entry and the line on a work statement.
• Internal notes are only for you. They stay out of the narrative and export in their own CSV column.

Add a task and tags if you like. Both become filters here and groupings in Reports.

5. Review before you bill

The filters narrow the list by client, project, task, billing status (not billed, billed, paid) and Open or Closed. Above the list, four numbers keep you honest:

• Logged: time on timecards in this range.
• Billable: the part you'll charge for.
• Coverage: timecard time as a share of the time you actually tracked. Low coverage usually means work you did but haven't logged yet.
• Amount: billable time multiplied by the rate. When the range mixes currencies, totals stay separate per currency.

FocusNow also flags entries that need a look, and says what's missing under each one: a timer running for over 12 hours, no project, a project without a client, no description, no hourly rate, a project without a currency, or an overlap with another entry. Review entries shows only the flagged ones.

6. Close, export, move on

When entries are final, select them (or a whole day) and Close them. Closed entries are locked until you reopen them. Export CSV hands the data to a spreadsheet or your accounting tool.

When a client needs a summary of the work, the next step is a work statement: Billing, Work Statements & Reports.