Situation: employees record their hours in Excel, on scraps of paper or — worse — in their heads. At the end of the month someone gets to retype everything, and somewhere between the working week and the invoice, hours invariably evaporate. At an agency with five consultants that adds up fast: two lost hours per person per week is easily a few thousand euros of revenue a month.
Urenstaten aanzetten
Install the Timesheets app via the Apps menu. Because timesheets hang off projects and tasks, this works together with the Project app: every hour is booked on a project, and every project is linked to a customer. That takes care of the link hour → project → customer straight away, without a single Excel formula.
How employees log their hours
Under Timesheets → My Timesheets, every employee sees a clear grid view per day or per week:
- Pick a project, pick a task, enter the hours — done.
- Prefer to track as you go? The start/stop timer in Odoo clocks automatically while you work.
- On the move, the mobile app does the job: log hours from the building site or on the train home.
Last week's lines are repeated as suggestions, so anyone who works on the same projects every week is done in two minutes.
Billable or internal — Odoo keeps them apart
Hours on a task linked to a billable sales order automatically appear as delivered hours on the customer invoice (see also our earlier post on project invoicing). Internal hours — meetings, admin, preparing the Friday afternoon drinks — you book on an internal project. Those never appear on an invoice, but they do count in the analytic costs, so you can see where the time really goes.
Checks before the invoice, not after
Switch on the approval flow in Timesheets → Configuration → Settings. A manager then approves the hours weekly via Timesheets → To Validate. Mistakes — wrong project, forgotten day, 8 hours that should have been 0.8 — are corrected before invoicing. Sending a credit note because the wrong hours were on the invoice is a lot more painful.
Finally
Practical tip: check Timesheets → Reporting every month for the billable/internal ratio per employee. If that ratio drops, you'll know before the revenue tells you. Need help setting up timesheets? Contact DAADit Group.
Situation: employees record hours in Excel, on scraps of paper or — worse — in their heads. At the end of the month someone gets to retype it all, and somewhere between the working week and the invoice, hours reliably evaporate. For an agency with five consultants that adds up fast: two lost hours per person per week is easily a few thousand euros of revenue per month.
Enabling Timesheets
Install the Timesheets app via the Apps menu. Because timesheets hang on projects and tasks, it works together with the Project app: every hour is booked on a project, and every project belongs to a client. That gives you the hour → project → client link straight away, without a single Excel formula.
How employees log their hours
Under Timesheets → My Timesheets, each employee sees a clear grid per day or per week:
- Pick a project, pick a task, fill in the hours — done.
- Prefer tracking live? The start/stop timer in Odoo clocks automatically while you work.
- On the road, the mobile app works fine: log hours from the construction site or on the train home.
Last week's lines are repeated as suggestions, so anyone working on the same projects every week is done in two minutes.
Billable or internal — Odoo keeps them apart
Hours on a task linked to a billable sales order automatically end up as delivered hours on the customer invoice (see our earlier post on project billing). Internal hours — meetings, admin, preparing the Friday drinks — go on an internal project. Those never appear on an invoice, but they do count in your analytic costs, so you can see where the time really goes.
Checks before the invoice, not after
Enable the approval flow in Timesheets → Configuration → Settings. A manager then approves hours weekly via Timesheets → To Validate. Mistakes — wrong project, forgotten day, 8 hours that should have been 0.8 — get corrected before invoicing. Sending a credit note because the wrong hours ended up on an invoice is a lot more painful.
Wrapping up
Practical tip: check Timesheets → Reporting monthly for the billable/internal ratio per employee. If that ratio drops, you will know before your revenue tells you. Need help setting up time tracking? Get in touch with DAADit Group.