From approved timesheets to an invoice

Month end at an agency is a reconciliation exercise. Somebody exports hours, somebody else checks which of them the client has agreed to, a third person looks up the rates, and the invoice is typed into a template. Each hand-off is a place for last month's hours to be billed twice or this month's to be missed.

LogTicks removes the hand-offs by drafting the invoice from the same records the approvals were made on. The rule it applies is strict, and it is the reason to use it: only time that is billable, on that client's projects, in a week whose timesheet is fully approved, and not already on an invoice. This article closes a month for one client, step by step.

Closing a month for one client

Approve the weeksManager, then client if the project needs it

New invoiceClient and period

Check the previewLines, rates, what is left out

Edit the draftTax, discount, notes

Send and trackPDF, mark sent, mark paid

Step 1: get the weeks approved

An invoice can only contain approved weeks, so start in Approve Timesheets. Clear the Awaiting review filter for the people on the client's projects, and look at Awaiting client if the project has a client approver: a week that the client has not signed off is not fully approved.

The Approve timesheets queue with counts for awaiting review, awaiting client, approved and changes requested, and submitted weeks listed by employee — Approve first. A week that is still waiting here will be left off the invoice, and the invoice preview will tell you how many hours that is.

Step 2: start the invoice

Open Manager Tools, Invoices, and press New invoice.
Choose the Client.
Set Period from and Period to, or press Last month or This month.
Enter a Tax % if you charge one. It applies to the whole invoice.

The preview appears as soon as a client and period are chosen, and changes as you change them. Nothing exists yet.

The New invoice dialog with the client Initech and last month chosen: a preview with one line for Initech Data Migration and Liam Chen at 12 hours times 130 dollars, a subtotal and total, and a note that 111 hours are not included because their weeks are not fully approved — The preview. One line, and a plain statement of what was left out and why.

Step 3: read the preview

The preview has three parts, and each one answers a question you would otherwise have to check by hand.

In the preview	What it means	What to do
Lines	One per project and person: hours, rate and amount	Check the people and hours are who and what you expect
"needs a rate"	Time with no rate on the person or the project. It is flagged and left off	Set the project's hourly rate, or the person's rate on the project's Team tab, then preview again
Not included: hours in weeks not fully approved	Billable time in the period that cannot be billed yet	Approve those weeks, or accept that they go on next month's invoice
Already on an invoice	Time in the period that a live invoice already covers	Nothing. It will never be offered twice
Expenses	Approved, billable expenses on the client's projects in the period	Untick Include expenses to bill time only

Expenses on the same invoice

If people have recorded expenses that the client pays, they come along. With Include expenses ticked, the preview adds an Expenses group under the time lines: each approved, billable expense on that client's projects, dated in the period, with its category, merchant, person and date. Expenses are billed at cost, and one that is on an invoice is never offered again. An expense still waiting for approval is listed under "not included", like unapproved time.

The New invoice dialog for Globex Corp for last month with Include expenses ticked: an Expenses group with one line, Travel, Amtrak, Liam Chen, 184 dollars 50 at cost, and a note of hours not included — An Expenses group in the preview. Here the month's time is already invoiced, so the only thing left to bill is an approved train fare.

Which rate is used

For each person, the rate is their own rate on the project if they have one, and the project's hourly rate otherwise. So a senior added to the project at a higher rate is billed at it without anyone remembering to.

"Nothing to invoice"

If the preview says there is no approved, billable, un-invoiced time for the client in the period, read the sentence under it. It says how many hours are waiting in unapproved weeks and how many are already invoiced, which tells you whether the answer is "approve more" or "this is already billed".

Step 4: create the draft and adjust it

Press Create draft. The invoice gets the next number for your company, in the form INV-2026-0003, and opens as a draft.

A draft invoice INV-2026-0003 for Globex Corp: issue date, due date and period, two lines of time by person, a discount line, subtotal, tax and total due, notes, and buttons for CSV, Download PDF, Delete and Mark sent — A draft. The time lines came from approved timesheets; the discount line, the tax and the note were added by hand.

While it is a draft you can change it:

Edit details: the issue date, the due date, the tax percentage, and notes. Notes are printed on the PDF, so this is where payment terms and bank details go.
Add line: a description, a quantity and a unit price, for anything that is not time, such as travel, licences or a fixed fee.
A discount is a line with a negative unit price.
Remove a line with the cross beside it. Removed time goes back to being un-invoiced.
Delete the draft entirely if you started it by mistake.

The Add a line dialog on a draft invoice with a description, a quantity and a unit price, and the hint Negative for a discount — Adding a line. The hint under the unit price is the whole discount feature: enter a negative amount.

Step 5: send it and track it

Press Download PDF (or CSV for a spreadsheet or an import into your accounting tool).
Email the PDF to the client yourself.
Press Mark sent. The invoice moves from Draft to Sent and counts as outstanding.
When the money arrives, open the invoice and press Mark paid.

The Invoices page with tiles for outstanding, overdue, paid this month and draft amounts, status filters for draft, sent, overdue, paid and void, and a list of three invoices with client, issue and due dates, period, status and total — The Invoices page. The four tiles are the receivables picture: what is out, what is late, what came in this month, and what has not been sent.

A sent invoice that passes its due date shows under Overdue. The list filters by status and by client, and exports.

If the invoice is wrong: void and re-issue

A sent invoice is not edited. If it is wrong, Void it. Voiding keeps the invoice and its number on the list, marked Void, and releases its time, so those hours can be invoiced again. Then fix the cause, usually a timesheet or a rate, and create a new invoice for the same client and period. It gets a new number.

A worked example

Northwind closes October for Globex

On 2 November, Maya opens Approve Timesheets. Two October weeks for the Globex project are still awaiting review. She reads and approves them.
In Invoices she presses New invoice, picks Globex Corp and Last month.
The preview shows two lines: Liam, 28 hours at $160, and Sofia, 10 hours at $160. Underneath: some hours are in weeks not fully approved. Those are weeks waiting on Globex's own approver, so they will go on November's invoice.
She creates the draft, INV-2026-0003.
Northwind agreed a $200 goodwill discount for October. She adds a line, "Agreed discount, October", with a unit price of -200.
In Edit details she sets the tax to 8% and writes the payment terms in Notes.
She downloads the PDF, emails it to Globex's accounts address, and presses Mark sent.
Three weeks later the payment arrives and she presses Mark paid. The invoice moves from Outstanding to Paid this month.

Illustrative. Northwind Studio and the people in it are made up; every step is one the product supports today.

A month-end checklist

Every week in the period is approved, including by the client where the project needs it
No "needs a rate" in the preview
The "not included" hours and expenses are ones you mean to leave for next month
Tax, discount and notes are on the draft before it is marked sent
The PDF has actually been emailed before you press Mark sent

What it doesn't do (yet)

It does not email the invoice. "Mark sent" only changes the status. You send the PDF yourself.
No online payment. A client cannot pay from the invoice. "Mark paid" is a manual mark, and it is for the invoice in full.
No partial payments and no credit notes. A wrong invoice is voided and re-issued.
No accounting sync. Nothing is pushed to QuickBooks, Xero or any other ledger. Use the CSV.
One currency label. Amounts are shown in US dollars. There is no conversion and no per-client currency.
One tax percentage per invoice, applied to the whole of it.
One line per project and person. There is no breakdown by task or by day on the invoice.
Expenses at cost. There is no markup on a billed expense, and no currency conversion.
Managers only. Members and client approvers do not see invoices.

Bill what was approved, once. Everything else on the invoice is a line you chose to add.

Draft your first invoice

Approve a week on a client project, open Invoices, and preview the client for this month.

Start free