Billing fields on a ticket

What the Billing client, Policy, Mode, Billing description, and Estimate fields on a ticket mean, who may set them, and what changes when the billing client or kind changes.

Written for
user, admin
Roles
owner, admin, member, project-manager
Requires
Workspace user on the project, Owner or Admin, or anyone triaging the Inbox; Owner or Admin to re-attribute unbilled time
Feature
tickets

Every ticket in a project carries a Billing (staff) group in its details rail: who the work is billed to, how it is priced, when it bills, and the line the client will read on the timesheet. A separate Time group shows the logged minutes. Client users never see the Billing group, "not even when elevated on the project. They see billable minutes and 'not yet billed', never rates or amounts."

Before you start

  • Billing fields are set by workspace users on the project, by Owners and Admins on any ticket, and by anyone triaging a ticket in the Inbox. Client users get "Billing fields are set by workspace users on the project."
  • Tickets still in the Inbox have no billing client until they are routed.

Fields

Field Meaning and rules
Billing client The client the ticket's time is billed to: the project's billing client (the default for new tickets), one of the project's collaborating clients, or Internal work (no client). Anything else is refused: "The billing client must be the project client or a collaborating client." The billing client also decides which client's users can see the ticket.
Policy Inherit, Paid, Free, or Bank: {name} for a bank of the current billing client. Inherit means the project, client, or workspace rule for the ticket's kind applies. See Billing policies.
Mode Inherit ({resolved}), Per period, or When the ticket closes. Inherit shows the project's mode in brackets. Per period bills entries with the period they were logged in; When the ticket closes holds them as work in progress until the ticket is in a closed state, then bills them in the client's next run.
Billing description Up to 500 characters. "The client-facing line for this ticket on the timesheet. Staff write it; it is reviewed before a billing run and never copied from the title, which the client does not see." A billing run cannot commit while a priced ticket lacks one.
Estimate Planned effort, workspace users only. "Leaf tickets only. Write 1h30, 90, or 45m." A parent ticket shows "(sum of children)" and cannot carry its own estimate. Estimates are compared with spent time in reports.

The Time group

  • Logged: the net minutes on the ticket, including corrections. Workspace users also see "{minutes} billable" when some entries are non-billable; client users see "{minutes} not yet billed" instead of any breakdown.
  • Log time opens the entry dialog for this ticket; see Register time.
  • Re-attribute unbilled time (Owners and Admins, once the ticket has time) points the ticket's unbilled entries at its current billing client.

What changes when the billing client changes

A time entry keeps the billing client it was logged with. Changing the ticket's Billing client, or moving the ticket to a project with another client, changes where new entries go; existing entries stay with the old client until an Owner or Admin selects Re-attribute unbilled time. Entries already priced by a run and entries with corrections are never moved. The pre-close checklist lists such tickets under Moved or re-attributed tickets.

Moving a ticket between projects can reset the billing client; that move needs an Owner or Admin who confirms it. See Move a ticket.

Changing the project's own billing client changes the default for new tickets only; existing tickets keep the billing client they have.

Changing the kind with unbilled time

Policies are per kind, so the kind decides how unbilled time will be priced. Workspace users can change the kind at any time. An elevated client user is refused while the ticket has unbilled billable time: "This ticket has unbilled billable time, so its kind cannot change yet."

Examples

  • A support request from Acme is routed from the Inbox into the "Acme operations" project. It gets Billing client Acme AS and Policy Inherit, so Acme's Support rule (a time bank) applies. The engineer writes Billing description "Restored the nightly export after the schema change" before the month is run.
  • A fixed deliverable: on the ticket, set Mode to When the ticket closes. Time logged over three months stays as work in progress on Acme's timesheets and bills in full in the period the ticket is closed.
  • Internal refactoring in a client project: set Billing client to Internal work (no client). The time is visible in reports and never priced.

Common problems

"Billing fields are set by workspace users on the project." You are a client user, or a workspace user who is not a member of this project. Ask a project member or an Admin.

"The billing client must be the project client or a collaborating client." Add the client as a collaborating client under Projects → project → Settings, or choose another client.

"No billing description on the ticket" at a billing run. Write the description on the ticket or in step 3 of the run wizard.

"A parent ticket has no estimate of its own; it is the sum of its children." Set estimates on the child tickets.

The Policy picker offers no banks. Banks are listed for the ticket's current billing client only; the client has no active bank, or the ticket is internal work.

  • How billing works The path from a logged time entry to a client timesheet, in order, and who configures each step.
  • Billing policies Set per ticket kind whether work is paid, free, or drawn from a time bank, at the workspace, client, project, or ticket level, and understand which rule wins.
  • Client timesheets (documents) What the timesheet documents a billing run produces contain, who can download them, how they are delivered to billing recipients, and how to fetch them through the API or MCP.
  • Register time Log a time entry on a ticket as a work date plus a duration, from the ticket page, the Time page, the weekly grid, the command palette, or the API.
  • Edit or delete a time entry Change or remove a time entry while its period is open, what Owners and Admins can still change after a close, when an entry is frozen, and how to re-attribute unbilled time to a ticket's current billing client.
  • Update a ticket Edit a ticket's title, description, kind, priority, labels, dates, estimate, and assignee from the ticket page, and who may change each field.
  • Move a ticket Move a ticket to another project or route it out of the Inbox, and what happens to its billing client, viewers, conversation, links, and logged time.
  • Tickets List, read, create, update, move, archive, delete, and redact tickets through the SAQ REST API, with every filter, body field, response field, and error.