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, because for a freelancer that is the common case. Switch it on the timer, in the manual form, or on an entry you open from the Report.

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 actually paid per hour, which is 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 TidstThere is no button called retainer. You set a fixed price on a monthly cadence, which resets by itself each month, and if you give it an included scope Tidst shows how much of this month is left.

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

Something the client agreed to, not a target you set for yourself. Twenty hours a month on a retainer means the fee covers twenty, and both sides know what happens past that.

In TidstIt only exists on a fixed price or a retainer. On hourly work there is nothing to include, because every hour is billed the same way.

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

It reads like included hours and it is the opposite. An inclusion is a promise to a client and every hour past it changes what you can charge. A goal is a target you chose, and passing it changes nothing about the invoice.

In TidstThe same field on the agreement panel is labelled Included hours on a fixed price and Goal on hourly work, because that is genuinely what it means in each case. Hourly goals reset monthly by default; a one-off pool runs until you renew it.

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 TidstIt is the third billing model beside hourly and fixed price. A client set to Not billed shows zero on purpose rather than by accident, which is the distinction that matters when a number is missing.

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 you set for yourself on hourly work, every hour is still billed exactly as before, so Tidst says so quietly instead.

What a job actually paid 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 TidstTidst is in the rare position of holding both halves, the price you agreed and the time you spent. It shows the result on the client page and moves it as new hours go 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. Whatever was in force when an entry was written is frozen onto it, so changing the rule later never rewrites work you have already billed.

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

The idea the whole product is built on. Rather than asking you to remember at the end of the day, the work comes to you: a task you completed in a connected tool, a meeting you actually attended, or a line you typed yourself. Nothing is saved until you confirm it.

Who the work is for.

The one thing Tidst genuinely needs. A name is enough to create one, and everything else, the rate, the report, the invoice, hangs off it. You can add the terms later, once there are hours worth pricing.

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 board, list or project a finished task came in on.

A Todoist project or a Trello board is an address. It tells you how the work reached you, which is a different question from who it was for. One client can reach you through two tools, and they are still one client.

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. Clients and projects answer who the work was for; a category answers what it was. One per entry.

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 scope, and the rounding. Holding them together is what lets Tidst put real amounts on a report instead of guessing.

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 issue invoices and has no plans to. It prepares the work and hands it over.

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 honestly, and it lands in a month that is closed. Nobody unticks a box on an entry they have just written, which is why noticing this cannot be left to the person who made it.

In TidstTidst records each extract, so it can compare an entry against the periods you have already handed over and tell you when one turns up late.