Budgets & Billing

Set project budgets in iTimedIT and receive alerts before you go over. Track billable hours and amounts in real time.

How budgets work for your agency

A budget is a cap you set on a project to define how much time or money you can spend on it. Once a budget is set, iTimedIT tracks logged hours in real time and compares them against the cap as each second of timer activity accumulates. When you approach or exceed the budget, iTimedIT sends alerts so you can act before a client commitment is at risk. You never have to check a spreadsheet manually — the budget status is visible on the timer page every time you run a timer against that project.

Setting a budget

  1. Click Projects in the left sidebar.
  2. Open an existing project or click New Project.
  3. Locate the Budget field.
  4. Enter a value and choose the budget mode:
    • Hours — a fixed number of hours you can log.
    • Amount — a monetary cap in your currency, calculated using the project’s hourly rate.
  5. Click Save.

If you choose a currency budget, make sure the project also has an Hourly Rate set. Without a rate, iTimedIT cannot convert logged hours into a billed amount for comparison against a monetary budget.

Budget alerts

iTimedIT fires budget alerts at configurable thresholds. By default, alerts fire at 80% and 100% of the budget. You can adjust these thresholds in your notification settings.

Budget alert banner showing 80% threshold reached

When a threshold is crossed, iTimedIT delivers:

  • A push notification to every device where you have enabled push notifications for your account.
  • An on-screen banner on the timer page and on the project detail view, visible any time you have the app open.

Alerts are sent once per threshold crossing. If you log more hours that push usage from 75% to 85%, the 80% alert fires once. It will not fire again unless the project is reset or the budget is increased and crossed again.

Billable amounts

Setting an hourly rate on a project turns time tracking into billing tracking. iTimedIT multiplies every logged hour by the project’s rate and surfaces the result throughout the interface:

  • Timer page — shows a live running billed amount that increments in real time while the timer is active.
  • Entries page — shows the billed amount for each individual time entry.
  • Projects page — shows cumulative billed totals per project.
  • Clients page — shows cumulative billed totals per client, aggregated across all their projects.

Billable amounts update as soon as a timer stops and the entry is saved. No manual calculation or export is required.

Overrun tracking

Reaching 100% of the budget does not stop the timer or lock the project. iTimedIT continues tracking normally and records overrun hours and the corresponding billed amount separately from the budgeted portion. This means you always have a complete, accurate record of the total work done — including the portion that exceeded the original commitment.

The project detail view displays both the original budget figure and the overrun so you can report the full picture to a client or use it to inform future project scoping.

Exporting for invoicing

iTimedIT does not generate invoices directly, but it gives you all the data you need to produce one:

  1. Click Entries in the left sidebar.
  2. Use the Project filter to select the project you are invoicing.
  3. Use the Date range filter to restrict entries to the billing period.
  4. Review the total hours and billed amount shown in the summary row.

You can use these figures directly in your invoicing tool of choice. Filtering by client first then by date range also works if you are producing a combined invoice across multiple projects for the same client.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Can I set budgets in hours or money?

A: Yes. iTimedIT supports both modes. Choose Hours if your contract specifies a number of hours. Choose Amount if your contract specifies a monetary cap and you have already set an hourly rate on the project. You can switch the budget mode at any time by editing the project.

Q: When do budget alerts fire?

A: By default, alerts fire when logged time reaches 80% and again at 100% of the budget. These thresholds are configurable in your notification settings. You can add or remove thresholds, for example if you want an early warning at 50% for a tight engagement.

Q: Does Pomodoro break time count towards the budget?

A: No. Only work-phase time in Pomodoro mode is logged as a time entry and counted against the project budget. Break phases are tracked separately and do not contribute to logged hours, billed amounts, or budget consumption.

  • Projects — create projects and configure hourly rates
  • Push Notifications — configure budget alert notifications
  • Settings — adjust notification thresholds and preferences
  • Pomodoro Mode — focused work intervals with automatic breaks
  • Clients — group projects and view per-client billing totals
  • Time Entries — view and edit logged time