Glossary

Whether an hour is one you intend to charge for.

Most tracked time is billable. The rest is the work that keeps a freelance business running and that no client pays for directly: your own admin, writing proposals, chasing invoices, learning something. Marking it is how you find out what proportion of a working week actually earns.

In TidstNew entries are billable by default. Switch it off on the timer, in the manual form, or on any entry you open later.

A price per hour worked.

The simplest arrangement and the easiest to explain to a client. It also puts all the risk of a job running long onto them, which is why some clients prefer a fixed price and some freelancers prefer an hourly rate.

In TidstA rate can sit on a project, on a client, or on your account as the fallback. The most specific one wins, so a single project can be priced differently from the rest of that client’s work.

One agreed sum for a defined piece of work.

The client knows what it costs before it starts, which is often why they want it. The risk moves to you: if the job takes twice as long as you thought, the price does not move with it. That makes a fixed price the arrangement where knowing your hours matters most, and the one where freelancers are least likely to track them.

Work out a fixed price per hour

In TidstSet the price on the client and log the hours as normal. Tidst then works out what the job came to per hour worked, the number a fixed price hides.

A recurring fee for an ongoing arrangement, usually monthly.

It buys the client availability and it buys you a predictable month. The failure mode is quiet: the fee stays where it was agreed while the work slowly grows, and because no single month feels wrong, the drift is only visible across several.

In TidstSet a fixed price that renews monthly on the client. Add included hours and Tidst shows how much of this month is left.

The scope a fixed price or retainer is understood to cover.

Twenty hours a month on a retainer means the fee covers twenty, and both you and the client know what happens past that.

In TidstAvailable on a fixed price or a retainer. Hourly work has no included hours, since every hour is billed anyway.

A number you set for yourself, which nobody else agreed to.

A goal of 80 hours a month is a target you chose. Passing it is good news for your month and changes nothing about what you charge.

In TidstSet a goal on hourly clients, either per month or in total. A progress bar on the client and the dashboard shows how far you are.

Work for a client you never intend to charge.

Your own product, a favour, an internal project. Tracking it is still worth doing, because it is the only way to see what it costs you.

In TidstChoose Not billed as the billing model, beside hourly and fixed price. The hours count in your totals, and they never end up in an extract.

What you charge for work past the included scope.

Agreeing one converts a fixed arrangement into a fixed arrangement with a safety valve. Without one, hours past the scope are simply free, which may be a decision you are happy with as long as it is a decision.

In TidstPast the included scope with no overage rate, Tidst marks those hours amber, because that work now earns you nothing. Past a goal on hourly work, the hours are billed as usual and nothing turns amber.

What a job came to per hour, once the hours are known.

On hourly work it is simply your rate. On a fixed price or a retainer it is the price divided by the hours the work really took, and it is usually the most interesting number a freelancer can be shown, because it answers a question you cannot answer from the invoice alone: was that a good price?

The rate calculator, with a worked example

In TidstShown on the client page, and updated as new hours come in.

Billing in fixed increments rather than to the exact minute.

Quarter hours are a common convention, and six minutes is a tenth of an hour, which is what a lot of professional-services billing is built on. It is a term of an agreement rather than a preference: an agency client and a direct client may reasonably be billed differently.

In TidstRounding is set per client and rounds each entry up before anything is summed. Each entry keeps the rule that applied when you logged it, so changing it later never changes work you have already billed.

Finished work waiting for you to put a time on it.

A task you completed in a connected tool, a meeting you attended, or a line you typed yourself. Nothing is saved until you confirm it.

Who the work is for.

A name is enough to create one. The rate, the reports and the extracts all hang off it, and you can add the terms later.

A piece of a client’s work you want to keep separate.

Optional. A client with one kind of ongoing work does not need any. Reach for one when a client has something worth measuring on its own, like a site build running alongside a monthly retainer.

The Todoist project, Trello board or list a finished task came from.

Where a task was done says nothing certain about who it was for. One client can send you work through two tools, and one board can hold work for several clients.

In TidstArrivals land on the client’s own project. Move one somewhere else and Tidst remembers, so the next task arriving from the same place goes there too.

A label for the kind of work, across every client.

Design, meetings, admin, whatever your own split is. A client says who the work was for, a category says what it was. An entry can have more than one.

In TidstA category is private. It never appears on a report you share with a client.

What you and a client settled on, in one place.

The billing model, the price or rate, any included hours, and the rounding.

In TidstAn agreement lives on the client and a project can carry its own, so a single project can be priced differently from everything else that client sends you.

One client and one period, returned as priced lines.

The step between tracking and invoicing. You pick who and when, and the work comes back grouped and priced, ready to paste into whatever you actually invoice with. You choose how much detail the client sees, from a full breakdown down to hours and dates with no rates anywhere.

In TidstTidst does not send invoices. Copy the lines or download a CSV for the tool you invoice with.

A link a client can open to see their own hours.

Instead of a PDF going back and forth every time something changes, the client gets one address that stays current. It is scoped to that client, so nobody sees another client’s work, and you decide whether amounts are shown at all.

Billable work logged after its period was already invoiced.

It happens to everyone. You remember a call three days after sending the invoice, log it, and it lands in a month you already billed.

In TidstThe Extract page points out late entries, so they make it onto the next invoice instead of being missed.