Browse articles
Bill time on an invoice
Pull a task's logged hours onto an invoice as one Time line, then filter, group, and re-price it the way the client should read it.
What you'll achieve
Turn a task's logged hours into a single, correctly grouped invoice line without touching anyone's timesheet.
You'll end up with: A Time line that absorbs exactly the right hours, grouped and priced the way you want the client to read them.
Before you start
A Time line is a lens on the timesheets, not a copy of them
If you bill time-based work, you rarely want every timesheet row dumped onto an invoice as-is. You want the hours that are actually billable, grouped the way this particular client expects to read them, at the rate you've agreed with them, and none of that should ever mean editing someone's timesheet. That's what a Time line does. Add one to an invoice, point it at a task, and it shows you the hours logged against that task right now, live, with filtering, grouping, and pricing all living inside the line itself rather than in the timesheets underneath it.
Sarah Chen has been logging hours against Concept Design on Riverside Apartments, and none of it has been billed yet. This is the tutorial where those hours become an invoice line.
The line stays live until you send
A Time line doesn't snapshot hours the moment you add it. It keeps reading the timesheets against its filters for as long as the invoice is a draft, so if Sarah logs another hour on Concept Design before you send, the line picks it up automatically. Nothing is committed until the invoice actually goes out.
That behavior only kicks in once two things are true: the invoice has been saved, and the line has a task assigned. Both happen automatically in the flow below, saving the invoice and picking the task, so the filtering and pricing panels light up the moment the line appears.
Monument needs somewhere to save the line and something to query hours against before it can show you anything. Save the invoice and pick a task, in either order, and the panels turn on.
Add the line
Start with Pre-fill line items on. Monument drafts what it can from the project, and you keep the useful defaults. If one generated line does not belong on this bill, remove that line alone. This is safer and faster than switching the whole feature off.
- 1
Create the invoice with Pre-fill line items left on.
- 2
Review the generated items and remove one line that is not wanted on this bill.
- 3
Click Add Line Item to open the window that asks what you're billing.
- 4
Set the Task to Concept Design. Monument lists what that task can bill, including any unbilled time.
- 5
Tick Unbilled time, then click Add line.
Monument builds the Time line and opens it straight away, with a Grouping control, a Sort control, a description template, and buttons for Time entries and Rates all ready to use.
Choose exactly which hours bill
- 1
Click Time entries to open the panel. Every candidate hour for Concept Design is listed, with a running total at the top.
- 2
Open Filters to narrow by date, pool, or resource. Billable only stays on by default, so internal hours never reach the client.
- 3
Tick or untick individual entries. The total updates as soon as you change a selection.
New Time lines start with Billable only switched on, so admin time and internal hours can't accidentally end up on a client's bill. Only turn it off if the client has specifically agreed to pay for something normally non-billable.
Decide how the client reads it
Grouping controls how much detail the client sees on this line, and it's a different decision for every client relationship.
- Lumped: every matching hour collapses into a single amount. The least detail.
- By pool: one row per rate pool.
- By resource: one row per person, so Sarah Chen's hours show as their own line.
- By entry: every individual time entry gets its own row. The most transparent, and the longest to read.
- 1
Set Grouping to By resource so Sarah Chen's hours show as their own row under the line.
- 2
Adjust Sort if you want a different order, by date or by amount.
- 3
Edit the description template if you want each row labelled differently, using tokens for the entry date, resource, or notes.
Moving from By entry down to Lumped just changes how coarse the breakdown looks, the underlying hours don't change. Pick the grain this client expects: a long-standing retainer client is usually happy with Lumped, while a client that scrutinises invoices line by line may want By entry.
Override the price, just for this invoice
Hours arrive at whatever rate they've already resolved to, but you're not stuck with that rate for this bill. Open Rates to set a one-off override that only applies here.
- 1
Click Rates, and switch between By resource and By pool to see who or what's in this line.
- 2
Click a row and type in an override, for a concession you've agreed with this client on this invoice only.
- 3
For a single unusual entry rather than a whole resource, set an entry-level override from the Time entries panel instead.
When more than one override could apply, Monument uses the most specific one: an entry override beats a resource override, which beats a pool override, which beats the default rate. Whatever you set here only affects this invoice; the underlying rate cards and timesheets are untouched.
Troubleshooting
- The panels stay greyed out. Either the invoice isn't saved yet, or the line has no task selected. Both need to be true before Monument has anything to query.
- "No time entries match this line's filters." The filters are too narrow. Widen the date range, clear the pool or resource filter, or check Billable only isn't hiding hours you actually meant to bill.
- The total reads lower than expected. Something's excluded, or Billable only is filtering out hours you wanted included. Reopen Time entries and check what's ticked against what you expect.
- An override doesn't seem to apply. Check the resolution order: an entry-level override on the same hours beats a resource override every time. Clear the more specific one if it's masking the change you just made.
Where this fits next
This line only exists because hours were already logged against Concept Design; if you need to add or fix those first, see Log time on the calendar. Once the line reads the way you want, finish and send the invoice in Create and send an invoice.