Time bank

A time bank is a pool of prepaid or recurring hours for one client; billing policies decide which kinds draw from it, and every run posts the ledger rows that move its balance.

Written for
admin, integration-developer
Roles
owner, admin
Requires
Owner or Admin
Feature
billing

A time bank is a pool of hours a client has already paid for, either as a recurring allowance credited every period or as a prepaid pool credited once. Time that a billing policy sends to the bank is covered from the balance instead of being charged. The bank keeps an append-only ledger, and its balance is simply the sum of the ledger. Owners and Admins create banks on the client's Time banks tab.

How it relates to other concepts

  • The bank does not decide which time it covers; policies do, per kind. One bank can serve several kinds.
  • A bank may be limited to one project. A policy naming a bank that does not belong to the client or project blocks the run.
  • The billing run is the only thing that consumes and rolls over a bank. A run with nothing to bill still posts the rollover.
  • Balances are visible to Owners and Admins, to workspace users with client-wide document access, and through the MCP tool for bank balances. The bank block also appears on the client timesheet.

Rules

  • Settings: name, type (Recurring with hours per period, or Prepaid with an opening pool), carry forward (No carry, or Carry up to a cap in minutes), borrowing (No borrowing, or Borrow to a cap in minutes), overage (Charge at the rate, or Free), optional start and end dates, optional project.
  • Ledger row kinds: Credit, Carry out, Carry in, Consumed, Reversal, Adjustment.
  • Rollover at a run for a recurring bank: the closing balance is carried out; a positive balance carries in up to the cap (or not at all with No carry); a negative balance (borrowed hours) carries in in full, so borrowing is repaid before the new period's credit. Then the period's credit is posted. Prepaid banks have no rollover and never borrow.
  • Consumption uses the balance first, then borrows down to the borrow cap. Minutes beyond that are overage: charged at the rate or free, per the bank's setting.
  • Voiding a run posts reversals for every row that run created. Banks depend on run order, which is why a client's runs must be committed and voided in sequence.
  • Owners and Admins may post a signed adjustment in hours with a reason; it is audited.
  • Banks can be archived and reactivated.

Example

"Support 10h" is recurring, 10 hours per period, carry up to 5 hours, no borrowing, overage charged. In September Nordic Retail used 7 hours: 3 carry into October, plus October's 10, so 13 are available. A 15-hour October would charge 2 hours at the rate.

  • Time banks Set up recurring or prepaid pools of hours per client, understand every bank setting and ledger row, post adjustments, and see who can read balances.
  • 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.
  • Run billing for a client Price a client's time for one closed period with the five-step run wizard, fix blockers, review billing descriptions and bank totals, commit, and void a run when needed.
  • Billing policy A billing policy decides, per kind, whether time is paid, free, or drawn from a time bank, resolved from the ticket, then the project, then the client, then the workspace default.