In this article:
- Run a Timer
- Start a Timer on a Task
- View the Time Entries Dashboard
Timers in Canopy associated with a Client can be counted as billed time for your clients. Canopy also allows you to track your time towards service items, tasks or subtasks for your contacts.
Once you’ve added and saved time, you can easily create or link to existing invoices from those time entries. We recommend tracking time, even if your firm charges a flat-rate for services.
As you track time and work in progress, you can provide more detailed comparisons between what you could have billed for the time spent (billable amount) vs. what you actually billed your clients which helps you understand if you have efficiency issues on the work side or if you need to adjust your rates.
You can run, add or edit time in several ways within Canopy:
- Start or run a timer under the Time module.
- Start or run a timer from the Task Workspace
- Add or edit a time entry
I think it’s about time we get into it!
Run a Timer
Let’s start with the most basic way to start a timer. You can start a timer from anywhere in Canopy without disruption to your other work. You can do this by:
- Clicking on the Time module
- Click Start New Timer
After clicking it, a pane appears in the menu - and you guessed it, the time starts ticking. Let’s get acquainted with some of your options here. Your time controls appear across the top, including:
- Pause
- Save
- And Delete
When a time is active, a green dot is present next to the time and also on the Time module. It stays there no matter where you go in Canopy.
Pause Time
You can pause a timer at any time by clicking on the pause icon in the timer’s pane. When you do this the colored dot turns gray, indicating a pause. Click the play button to resume the timer.
Save Time Entry
Click on the Save icon to save the entry. Once you do this, the timer stops and you’ll be prompted to add more information to the time entry.
Delete Time
This deletes the timer.
Adding Timer Details
Below those options are several drop-downs where you are able to associate the time to:
- A Contact
- Task
- A Subtask
- And a spot for Notes.
Adding a Contact, Task/Subtask and Notes are all optional. You can simply leave a timer on if you wanted to count duration, but if you were tracking time to be billed to a contact, then you’ll need to associate it to a contact, at the very lea
Just click the dropdown and search for Contact by typing in their name.
If you were to add a Task, click the dropdown and choose one from the list. Canopy only pulls Tasks that are associated with that contact, so there’s no guesswork here other than making sure you are choosing the right job to track.
Naturally, subtasks work the same way. After you’ve chosen a Task, you’ll only do the subtasks under that Task.
Then you can leave Notes about what you did during this time.
You can start another timer as well, but multiple timers cannot run simultaneously - only one timer can run at a time.
A timer already running when you start a new timer or click play on an existing timer will pause. The active timer always moves up to the top. The other paused timers display in the Time menu until they are discarded or saved.
So after you’ve finished your time session, go ahead and click Save.
As mentioned before, you’ll be prompted to fill out more information for the time entry. This includes:
- Contact
- Service - service items.
- Task
- Subtask
- Team Member Assignee
- And notes
You can fill these in if relevant to you. Then click Save.
Upon Saving, your entry is saved in the Time Entries Dashboard.
Start a Timer from a Task
Let’s talk about one more place to track your time.
The timer can be started from directly within the task workspace to allow for a more streamlined and intuitive use of keeping track of time.
To get started, navigate to the Task workspace for a relevant task. If you’re in the Time Entries dashboard, you can click on a Task name.
In the Task workspace, the timer for the main or parent task is located at the top of the task. Clicking on the clock icon allows you to start a new timer or view Saved time.
When starting a new timer from a task, the contact and task are already filled in.
Like before, you can pause, save or discard this time entry.
You can add time entries if you need to by clicking on Saved time and selecting Add time entry.
You can also keep track of time on subtasks too. It works the same way and you’ll see that the subtask dropdown is also populated. You can do this for each subtask in your task.
The total amount of time, the time for the parent task and subtasks are all tabulated here at the very top.
Add Budget Hours
This is where Budget Hours come into play when you create or edit tasks. You may have seen this option when creating a Task or editing a Task in the Task Workspace. This is simply an estimate of the amount of time you’ll spend on this task. Your time entries are tied to the budget hours.
If you didn’t add budget hours when you created the Task, you can some in by clicking the three dots icon in the Task workspace and fill in a number for budget hours.
View the Time Entries Dashboard
You can track all of your The Time Entries Dashboard is where you can view and edit past time entries. You can also get here by:
- Click Time module
- Select Time Entries
It’s broken up into three sections:
- An overview of total hours worked, including billed vs unbilled hours.
- My Timers: current timers that are running or paused.
- Saved Time: saved time entries you ran in the previously.
Under My Timers, you can do everything that you could do from the time menu before, like playing or pausing time or adding contact and task information. You can also start a timer here.
Under Saved Time, you can view all of your previously saved time entries. You can view if they were billable or not, the invoice #, task and so on.
Also, make this table work for you! Each of the columns can be filtered to show certain information, like a contact, task or team member. You can also sort this info as well. To delete a sort/filter, just click on the x button next to the column name.
To edit a time entry, click on the number under Duration in the table. You can switch if this should be billable or not. You can also change the duration in #h ##m format. Make your changes, then click Update.
Add Time Entry
You can add a time entry from this table by clicking Add time entry. This would be handy if you worked on a task for a contact, but forgot about tracking time.
You can also access this menu from anywhere in Canopy by selecting the Global + button and selecting Time Entry.