> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://help.getatelier.design/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Tracking time

> A running timer or a manual entry, against a project and optionally a task — and what makes an entry billable.

Design time is the part of an interiors job that most often goes unbilled,
because nobody wrote it down. **Time** in the sidebar is where it gets
written down.

## Two ways to log it

* **Start timer** — at the bottom of the sidebar, from anywhere in
  Atelier. Runs while you work.
* **Add entry** — after the fact, with start and end times you type in.
  This is most people, most days.

## The entry

| Field                 | Notes                                                                       |
| --------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Start** and **End** | Date and time for each. Duration is calculated and shown as you type.       |
| **Project**           | Searchable. What the time is billed against, and where the rate comes from. |
| **Task**              | Optional. Ties the time to a specific piece of work.                        |
| **Description**       | *What did you work on?* Free text.                                          |
| **Billable**          | A checkbox, **on by default**.                                              |

<Info>
  **Billable is on by default.** Uncheck it for anything you are absorbing —
  a courtesy call, redoing your own mistake, an internal review. Left
  checked, it will eventually appear on an invoice.
</Info>

### Writing a useful description

The description is what your client reads on the invoice line. *Design
work* invites a question. *Joinery elevations — master bedroom, revision
2* does not.

Write it as though it will be read by someone deciding whether to pay it.
It will be.

## The entries view

Range: **Today · Week · Month · Custom**. Above the list, two running
figures — **Total** and **Billable** — so the gap between them is visible
at a glance. That gap is your unbilled time.

Search filters by description; the filter control narrows by project or
billable status.

**Export** produces a CSV of exactly what's on screen — the same range
and the same filters, never a different set. If the export covers more
than one person's time, it carries a **Person** column, so a team export
tells you whose hours they are rather than just how many there were.

<Tip>
  Log at the end of each day, not the end of the month. Reconstructing a
  fortnight from a calendar loses roughly a third of it, and the third you
  lose is always the small stuff — the calls, the emails, the site trip
  that took an hour longer than planned.
</Tip>

## Turning time into money

* On an **invoice**, use **Time entry** to pull logged hours in as
  billable lines.
* On a **proposal** with an **Hourly** or **Mixed** fee type, tracked time
  is what the fee is measured against.

The rate comes from whoever logged the hour: their job role's rate, which a
project can override for that role or replace with one flat rate for everyone.
[How hours are priced](/time-tracking/rates) sets out the order. A project
without a flat rate is not unpriced — it bills at role rates.

## From the assistant

Starting and stopping a timer is something Atelier's AI can do directly —
*start a timer on the Birchwood project*, *stop my timer*. Useful when you
remember you are working before you remember to open the app.