Get To Know Your Timesheet

A walk through of the features that make your Timesheet the best way to bill for your time.

Your Timesheet takes the information in your Timeline and turns it into your bill, saving you the effort. It shows your Activities as Entries organized by Client / Matter, ready for you to review before releasing to your firm’s Practice Management System (PMS). 

Here, we go into a bit more detail about how to navigate your Timesheet and explain the features designed to help save you time.

Where can I find my Timesheet and what can I see?

You can find your Timesheet tab on the left-hand side of your Global Header:

And this is what your Timesheet looks like:

Here, your work is organized alphabetically by Client / Matter name or nickname (if added). In your Timeline, the duration of each Activity shows in hours, minutes and seconds but in your Timesheet it’s converted into Billable Increments for each Client / Matter. The Total Billable Increments appear next to each client name, with the breakdown for each Entry underneath – organized in chronological order as you completed the work.

We also show you the raw duration of time for the entry in hours, minutes and seconds next to the increment calculation to ensure you can make adjustments if necessary. 

Now, let’s take a look at some of the features in your Timesheet in more detail:

Entries

In your Timesheet, each line item is what we call an Entry. As soon as an Activity in your Timeline gets assigned to a Client / Matter it shows in your Timesheet as an Entry with the relevant Narrative, Work Codes and Billable Increments. 

An entry can be made up of one or many activities. There are two types of Entry:

Single Entry

An entry made up of one activity.

Group Entry

An entry made up of multiple activities. A group Entry can appear either with TBP’s automatic grouping functionality or when a Timekeeper manually groups activities or entries together. 

An automatically generated group Entry consolidates individual Activities that relate to the same piece of work for the same Client / Matter into one billable Entry. TBP does this using our Linked Sessions logic, which automatically identifies and links related Activities. Grouped this way, it’s quicker to assign, edit and update Narratives and other details, and have Activities ready for release as a single Entry with fewer clicks in less time.

To read more about grouped Activities, read our Linked Sessions: Automatically Group Similar Activities As One guide.

A manually generated group consolidates individual activities that a Timekeeper has decided will make a single entry. 

If you want to see all the Activities that make up an Entry, just click on the arrow to expand the Entry bar to see the timestamps of each activity, the activity details, and the raw duration in hours, minutes, and seconds as well as allowing you to ungroup an individual activity from the group. 

Entry Details

Narratives

Each Entry, regardless of whether it is a single or a grouped Entry, will have its own narrative. This is fully editiable by Timekeepers and any edits made on Timesheet will be reflected in the Timeline view too. 

Work Codes

On the Timesheet view we have exposed any Work Codes that are associated with the Entry on the Entry line item itself. You can find the Work Codes assigned to each Entry next to your Billable Increments.

If you need to edit or add a Work Code, simply:

1. Click on the relevant Entry and the Client / Matter box will display on the right-hand side of your TBP window
2. Click ‘Edit Details’ and then the Phase & Task Code or Action Code boxes to type. These are dynamic so they filter instantly as you type
3. Click ‘Close’ when you’re done

Release Status

Every Entry in your Timesheet has what we call a Release Status. You can find this on the right-hand side of each Entry bar. 

There are five Release Statuses:

Review. More details are required to complete the Entry
Ready for release. The Entry is ready to be released to the Practice Management System (PMS)
Pending. The Entry has been sent to the PMS and is awaiting review
Released. The PMS has accepted the Entry
Rejected. The PMS has sent the Entry back and you need to edit it before releasing again

How do I release my time?

Release Your Time

Your Timesheet is where you review and release your time to the PMS. There are four ways to release your time:

• Individually. 

1. Click on an Entry to select it. Your Client / Matter box will pop up to the right-hand side of your TBP window above your Daily Timesheet.
2. Click ‘Release’ and you’ll see a confirmation modal just to be on the safe side – check the details are correct and, if you’re happy, click ‘Confirm & Release’. 

• In multiples. There are a couple of different ways to release multiple Entries at once: 

1. Click on an individual Entry and in the Client / Matter box on the right-hand side of your TBP window, check ‘Select all entries’ and click ‘Release’. 
   
   
2. Or you can just click on the Client / Matter header and it will select all the associated Entries. You can click on any number of Client / Matter Headers to select and release them all at the same time. When you’re happy you’ve got them all, just click ‘Release’.
   
   

• By day. Click the ‘Release Day’ button in the top right of your screen to release all your time for the entire day in one fell swoop. 

• Ad hoc. When you create a manual Entry either by using the plus button in the top right of your TBP window or the plus button on your Daily Timesheet Panel, you can either ‘Save & Close’ or skip straight to ‘Save & Release’.

The number you can see in the round brackets next to ‘Release’ on the button is dynamic and corresponds to the number of Billable Increments for the Entry or Entries you’ve selected:

To be on the safe side, once you’ve clicked ‘Release’, TBP will show you an overview and ask you to confirm that you definitely want to Release the time you’ve selected: 

And, if you try to release time for Entries that aren’t ready, TBP will let you know:

What editing capabilities do I have on Timesheet?

Group Entries

Grouping Entries together is simple. Here’s how:

1. Select the Entries you want to Group by clicking the by each Entry.
   • For Entries from the same Client / Matter, click on the Client / Matter Header. Or select any Entry for the Client / Matter in question and then check the ‘Select all entries’ box in the Client / Matter box above your Daily Timesheet. This will increase the speed of selection. 
2. In the Client / Matter box click ‘Group and Edit’ and the Client / Matter box will expand 
3. Here, you can edit the Billable Increments, Narrative and Work Codes and then click ‘Close’

To see more detail about grouping, please refer to the How To Group & Ungroup Activities & Entries article. 

Reassign Time

Sometimes when using your Timesheet view you may spot an entry that is assigned to the wrong Client / Matter. You can easily reassign this now by:

1. Clicking on the entry you want to reassign
2. Clicking the ‘+’ button on the Daily Timesheet Panel next to the Client / Matter you want to reassign the Entry to

To see more detail about grouping, please refer to the How To Assign & Re-assign Your Time article. 

Create Manual Entries

If you know you spent time on an activity that TBP will not pick up, such as offline research, you can easily create a manual Entry to account for this time. Here’s how:

Create an entry from global navigation

1. Click on the plus button in the global navigation bar
2. Fill in the Client / Matter name, the duration (in INC) and any additional details such as Narratives and Work Codes
3. Click Save & Close

Create an entry from daily timesheet

1. To save time, use the ‘+’ button on the Daily Timesheet panel next to the Client / Matter you want to create the Manual Entry for
2. The Create Entry modal will already have the Client / Matter filled in
3. Add the duration (in INC) and any additional details such as Narratives and Work Codes
4. Click Save & Close

Delete Entries

To delete an Entry or group of Entries, just click on in the selection panel.

How do I see my time totals split on the Timesheet view?

Time Totals

Knowing how much time you’ve spent in different contexts is important, so we’ve given you several ways to view your total times in your Timesheet:

• Daily, Weekly and Monthly
• By Client / Matter

There are two ways to see your total time spent on each Client / Matter:

1. On the Client / Matter Header showing the total time you’ve spent with each client shown in Billable Increments
2. On the Daily Timesheet showing the total time you’ve spent with each client shown in Billable Increments. 

You can also find a total of your billable and non-billable hours at the top of your Daily Timesheet and on hover over your Week and Month totals. 

Can I search my entries on Timesheet?

Search Bar

At the top of your screen is your Timesheet specific Search Bar. You can use this to search for:

• Client names
• Client / Matter names
• Client / Matter numbers
• Narratives

Everything relevant to your search will display in your Timesheet. Anything that’s not relevant to your search is hidden.