What you write
WEB-142 homepage layout (2.25h), Standup (0.25h),
- Write hours as (1.5h) or (0.25h). (1,5h), (30min) and (1:30h) work too.
- An entry that names two tickets gives each of them half of its hours.
Guide · Not on sale yet
Bill hours from your notes. Clients see what they pay for.
Freelime is a billable hours tracker in your Mac's menu bar. Write what you did next to the hours you bill, like “WEB-142 homepage layout (2.25h)”. Freelime adds them up, compares them with your tracked time and turns them into a summary your client can follow.
Free to join. Freelime isn't on sale yet, the price isn't set, and it needs a Mac with Apple silicon.
The panel with Billed today open. Names, hours and amounts are sample data.
The notes
Write what you did, with the hours.
Notes are a list of entries, separated by commas. Put the hours you bill in parentheses at the end of each one.
What Freelime reads
- The hours of each entry, added up by day, ticket, task and project.
- Ticket numbers: Jira keys like WEB-142 and ServiceNow numbers like INC0012345. Each entry also gets a category, such as Incident or Meeting.
- It only reads these in your notes. It doesn't connect to or sync with Jira or ServiceNow, so it needs no access to your client's systems. More in Jira and ServiceNow time tracking.
What gets billed
Choose what each folder or task bills.
You don't have to write hours (see the FAQ). Every session bills one of two things, its billing basis.
Tracked time, the default
- The session bills what the timer recorded, after your rounding, times the hourly rate.
- Notes can say what you did without hours.
- Tickets and ID budgets still count only entries that write their own hours.
Hours in notes
- The session bills the hours you write: “WEB-142 layout (0.5h), Standup (0.25h)” bills 0.75 h times the rate.
- The timer becomes your check.
Where to set it
For everything, use the switch “Bill the hours written in notes” in Settings › Billing. For one folder or task, use Rate & Billing… in its right-click menu. Folders pass their choice on to their tasks. Billed and paid sessions never change, and a change that would alter unbilled sessions asks first.
Rounding rules
Round it yourself, or let Freelime.
Billing hours in notes
- You decide. Freelime adds up the hours exactly as you write them.
- Write 0.25h or 0.5h to bill in quarter or half hours.
Billing tracked time
- Freelime rounds when the timer stops. In Settings › Tracking, choose Don't round, Round up, Round down or Round to nearest, in steps of 1, 5, 6, 10, 15, 30 minutes or 1 hour.
- With Round up and 15 minutes, 7 minutes become 0:15 and 52 minutes become 1:00.
- Out of the box, Freelime doesn't round. Sessions you already recorded aren't changed.
In the panel, under your notes
Billed today keeps score.
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Billed next to tracked.
The hours billed so far and what they bill, next to your tracked time, like “€142.50 · 2.0 h of 3:54”.
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What's left to write down.
A bar shows how much of your tracked time is in your notes. Under it, a line like “1:54 tracked but not in your notes yet”.
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Billing ahead is fine.
Billed more than you tracked? It says so without a warning. Hours move between days.
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Today's entries.
Click the card or press ⌘B to list them with their categories and, for tickets, the hours this month and in total.
If every session today bills its tracked time, there's nothing to write down: the card shows just the hours and the amount.
The daily check
Tracked vs billed hours.
Some days you bill more than you tracked, some less, for example when a client limits the hours per day. The Work Log's daily check shows where each day stands.
- In Reports › Work Log, the daily check lists each day with Tracked, Billed, Diff (tracked minus billed) and a running Balance.
- Select days with a click, ⇧-click for a range or ⌘-click to add or remove days. The card below then switches to Sessions: each one with its task, start and end, Tracked, Billed, Diff and a preview of its notes.
- A line above sums up the days: “Tracked 8:21 · Billed 8.0 h · Diff +0:21”. Sessions without notes are listed too, with a mark that they bill no hours.
Reports › Sessions with Day Totals on: tracked time, hours in notes and the difference, per session and per day. Sample data.
Billing status
Unbilled, billed, paid.
Every session is Non-billable, Unbilled, Billed or Paid. Billed means it's on an invoice and the payment hasn't come in. Paid means it has.
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Unbilled
Billable work that isn't on an invoice yet.
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Billed
Choose Mark as › Billed… and a date: today, one you pick, the last day of each session's month, or day N of the next month.
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Paid
Choose Mark as › Paid… and the date the payment came in, for one invoice or a whole history at once.
Keeping track
In Reports › Sessions, select sessions and use Mark as. Freelime doesn't write the invoice itself.
Why bill from notes
A summary your client can follow.
Your notes already say what you did, so the hours you bill become the entries on your client's summary.
- In the Work Log, switch from Details to Summary: groups with subtotals, each entry with its date and hours, and a total.
- Send it with Copy Image, Save Image…, Save as PDF… or Copy Text, which pastes as a formatted table into Mail, Outlook and Teams.
- Amounts and categories are optional. Your rates, tracked time and billing states never appear.
A Work Log summary for one client and one week. Sample data.
Waitlist
Want Freelime on your Mac?
Freelime isn't on sale yet. Whether it's released as a paid Mac app depends, among other things, on how many people sign up. If it is, you'll hear about it by email. Joining is free and doesn't commit you to buying.
Join the waitlistIf it is released, it's planned as a subscription: monthly, with a cheaper yearly option. The price isn't set. It needs a Mac with Apple silicon (M1 or later), and the minimum macOS version will be announced before release.