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Time tracking

Time tracking for virtual assistants

Most VAs bill by the hour and record those hours somewhere other than where the work lives: a spreadsheet, a separate timer app, or memory at the end of the week. VA To-Do puts the clock on the task itself, so the record and the work are the same thing.

Time tracking is on the Agency planIt is not part of Free or Pro. Time is recorded against projects in an Agency workspace, so this page describes a team feature. Everything else on this site works on every plan.

What you can put a timer on

Time is recorded against workspace projects, which is where client work lives on the Agency plan. Personal projects have no timer and are otherwise unchanged.

  • A specific task, when the work belongs to one thing you can name
  • The project itself, for general work that does not belong to a single task
  • Either way the entry keeps its start time, end time and duration

Timing the project matters more than it sounds. Without it, every "just start the clock" moment forces you to invent a placeholder task first, and people stop bothering.

Breaks that keep your place

A running indicator follows you around the app, so you can see the clock from anywhere and stop it from anywhere. Taking a break does not end the session: the work you have already done is banked the moment you go on break, and the counter picks up from there when you come back.

A morning broken by two coffees still reads as one figure rather than three fragments you have to add up.

A saved entry is a billing record, so it is read-only

Once a member stops a timer, they cannot edit or delete that entry. This is deliberate rather than a limitation. The hours a client is invoiced for should not be adjustable after the fact by the person who recorded them.

Corrections go through an Owner or Admin, who can amend or delete any entry in their workspace. Every edit and deletion is written to the activity log with who made it and what changed, so a timesheet correction is visible rather than silent.

  • Members can always add time they forgot to record, even though they cannot edit an entry
  • Entries over twelve hours are surfaced for review rather than trimmed, usually a timer left running overnight
  • A solo Agency subscriber with no workspace can edit their own entries, since there is no admin to ask

Reports you can invoice from

Reports turn entries into the numbers an invoice needs. Set the date range to your billing period, filter to one client’s project, and read off the total.

  • By project, which is the invoicing view: how much went to each client
  • By member, for Owners and Admins, which is where an uneven workload shows up
  • By day, for when you want to know where the week actually went

Because member entries are read-only once saved, the number you are reading has not been quietly adjusted after the work was done.

Who can see what

Everyone who can track time gets My time, their own record and their own reports. The team view is separate.

  • VA / Team Member: tracks their own time, sees their own history and reports, adds manual entries
  • Owner and Admin: all of the above, plus the whole team’s hours, live activity, timesheets and the ability to correct any entry
  • Owners and Admins can switch tracking on or off per member, or for everyone at once

Turning a member’s tracking off stops a running timer and saves the work so far. Nothing recorded is discarded, and their past entries stay in timesheets and reports.

Common questions

Can I track time on the Free or Pro plan?

No. Time tracking is an Agency feature and is not part of Free or Pro. If you are a solo VA who only needs to bill hours, Agency is the plan that does it.

Does every team member need to pay for their own plan?

No. The workspace supplies the entitlement. If you hold a seat in an Agency workspace you can track time there even though your own personal plan says Free, and every paid seat also unlocks Pro on that member’s personal account.

Can I track time against a personal project?

No. Timers exist on workspace projects only. Personal projects work normally in every other respect, they simply have no clock on them.

I made a mistake in an entry. Can I fix it?

Not yourself, unless you are a solo Agency subscriber with no workspace. Ask an Owner or Admin, who can amend or delete any entry. The change is recorded in the activity log. You can always add an entry for time you forgot to record.

What happens if I leave a timer running overnight?

The entry is flagged for review rather than trimmed automatically, because guessing at what someone meant to record is worse than asking. An Owner or Admin corrects it.

What happens to tracked hours if the workspace downgrades from Agency?

Tracking stops, because the plan is checked before anything else. Nothing already recorded is deleted.

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