Track time

Time Tracking records time you spend on work, totals it by project and Contact, and adds billable time to invoices. Entries and projects belong to the selected Personal or team context. Enter a description to start a timer. Starting it saves it on Magpie, so it continues running if you navigate away or close the browser. You can have one running timer across all contexts. If you open a page with a timer that has run for at least four hours, Magpie asks whether to stop it or keep it running. The reminder appears once for that timer after you dismiss it, and it never changes the recorded time by itself. On the Time Tracking page the running timer is the large red control at the top, showing the elapsed time; select it to stop the timer. On other pages its elapsed time appears in the page bar beside your account menu, including after you switch to another context. Stop it there or on the entry's page; you stay on the page you were using.

Every team member can start and stop timers, add time, and edit their own entries in the selected context. Team admins manage projects, tags, team sharing, rates and invoice selection. Members can use projects and tags already set up by an admin. Timer actions are also available from Contacts, Issues, To-dos, Calendar events and the Time Tracking page.

In the native mobile app, open Time Tracking from Home or More to see today's total, run or stop a timer, and review completed entries. Choose an active project when starting a timer. Add time accepts a duration or start and end times in your account timezone. A duration without a start time ends at the current minute. Select Week to see seven daily totals and time grouped by project. Use Previous week or Next week to change weeks. Select a day to see its entries, or select a day under a project to add time with that date and project filled in. An archived project cannot be used for new time. Select an entry to change its description, start, end, project, billing status or notes. The entry's start and end recalculate its duration. Time on an invoice cannot be changed. Today returns to the current day. The running timer continues if you leave the screen or close the app; reopen Time Tracking to see its current elapsed time.

Use the arrows beside the date to see the previous or next day, select the date to choose another one, and select Today to return. Day and Week switch between the two views, as in Calendar. Use Add time to enter a description and either a duration such as 1h 30m, 90m or 1:30, or a start and end time in your account timezone. A duration counts forward from the start time when you enter one; otherwise it ends at the current minute. Entries can have an optional project, tag, Contact, billable status, hourly rate, rate currency and notes. A project is not required.

Select an entry to open its page. Description, start, end, project, tag, Contact, billing and notes save as soon as you change them. A running timer's times cannot be changed until it is stopped. Team admins manage hourly rates; members can see rates only when the team allows it. Use More on the entry page to split a completed entry at a time inside it, or to delete it. Splitting keeps its project, tag and work links on both parts.

Week shows time by project and day. Select a cell for an active project to open that day with its project ready for a new entry. A cell for an archived project opens the day without adding time. Projects lists active and archived projects. Open a project to rename it, archive or restore it, and set its Contact, billable default, hourly rate, rate currency, billing rounding and hour budget. Tags are listed on the same page, where they can be renamed or deleted. Deleting a tag removes it from entries; adding a tag with the same name brings it back. Billing rounding can use exact time or the nearest 5, 6, 10 or 15 minutes. Time with no project uses exact billing. A new entry uses the project rate first, then the linked Contact's default hourly rate, then the context default from Invoicing settings. A rate entered directly on the time entry takes precedence. Contact and account rates use the context's default invoice currency; project rates use the project's currency or the context default. A new timer also uses the project's billable default. A project's Contact is linked to a new entry that has no other Contact; a deleted Contact is not linked. Rates and currencies are copied to each new entry. Changing a default later does not rewrite saved entries. The budget counts completed time recorded by the team. Projects and tags are shared within the selected context. Entries belong to the person who recorded them. On a shared team, admins can choose what reports members can see: only their own time, project totals, or everyone's entries. Rate visibility is a separate setting. Shared team reports are read-only. Members can manage their own entries from Today, Week or the entry page; admins manage shared projects, tags, rates and settings.

An Issue, To-do, Contact or Magpie Calendar event can start a timer linked to that record, and you stay on its page. From an event's Calendar drawer, choose Start timer. Magpie uses the event title as the entry description; the entry records the actual timer start and stop times separately from the scheduled event time. The event link appears on the time entry and opens that event in Calendar. This action does not create entries automatically and does not import Google or Outlook events. You can also add or change an entry's Contact on the entry's page. Reports summarizes your own entries by project, Contact and tag over a date range, with project, Contact, tag and billing filters, and lists the matching entries 100 at a time. Export CSV in the page bar downloads all matching entries with their original duration in seconds, billed duration, rounding increment, rate, currency and calculated amount. The CSV amount uses the current project rounding setting; it is not a copy of an invoice item's saved amount. The displayed report total counts only the part of each entry inside the chosen date range.

On the website invoice editor, Add unbilled time lists your completed billable entries that have a Contact, hourly rate and rate currency matching the invoice. Choose the invoice's Contact, select entries, and add them as draft line items. Each new item uses the project's current billing rounding, then calculates the amount from the billed seconds and hourly rate, rounded to cents. The picker shows both recorded and billed duration when they differ. The original recorded seconds remain in Time Tracking. Changing project rounding later does not reprice an item already on a draft. Older entries without a currency need one set on the entry's page before they can be added to an invoice. An entry on a draft cannot be changed until its line is removed. Issuing the invoice marks the linked entries Invoiced. Deleting a draft releases its time entries for another invoice. The mobile invoice editor does not select tracked time.

If an entry does not appear, check the selected context and date range. For more help, Contact support.

On a shared team, the report includes entries from current team members for admins, who can filter by person and see each person's totals. Members can see their own report, and an admin can also share Project totals, which shares project summaries without names or individual entries, or Everyone's entries, which shares descriptions and times. Rates are a separate setting and are hidden from members by default. Shared team reports are read-only; members can manage their own entries from Today, Week or the entry page.