Timesheets for professional firms: from hours to invoice
In a professional firm, time is what gets billed, yet at month end it has to be pieced together from calendars, emails and memory. With Klokka every hour is logged straight onto the right client and matter, with its rate: the firm knows what to bill, what it has already billed and what to send the client.
Klokka for professional firms
Hourly billing only holds up if the hours are real
An accounting, law or engineering firm works for many clients at once, often within the same day. In Klokka work is described on four levels — client, project, sub-project, activity — and the project can be the matter, the case or the job. The rate is set on the client, the project or the sub-project, and every time entry inherits it: whoever bills finds the hours already priced.
Not all of a firm’s time is billable: internal training, quotes, work covered by a flat fee. Billability is set on the project or sub-project, so non-billable hours stay logged, and still count when you look at how much a client is worth, without ending up on the invoice. Klokka does not issue invoices: it prepares the hours and keeps track of those already exported.
What a firm that bills by the hour needs
Needs shared by accountants, lawyers, engineering and architecture firms.
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Rates per client and per matter
A client with an agreed rate, a matter with a different price, a phase priced separately: every hour picks up the right rate on its own.
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Billable and non-billable
Separating the time that goes on the invoice from the time the firm absorbs, without ceasing to measure it.
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Every hour billed once
Knowing which hours have already been invoiced, so none are forgotten and none reappear in next month’s file.
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The detail for the client
Answering “what did you work on?” with a tidy statement, not a spreadsheet rebuilt the night before.
From meeting to invoice: one month’s cycle
Example: how the hours on a matter reach the invoice and the client, exactly once.
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1 Client → Firm The client books a meeting with the firm: from the Kalendo event the professional starts logging, and the meeting lands on the right matter.
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2 Client → Firm Work requested by the client is logged with the timer or by hand against client, project and activity: rate and billability come from the project, the amount is calculated automatically.
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3 Firm → Client At month end the client receives the statement through a protected link: billable hours and amounts, never internal costs or margin.
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4 Firm → Client The firm exports the hours for invoicing and marks them as exported: next month the export offers only the new ones.
Klokka
What you track
Six things the firm keeps under control with Klokka
Each one tied to the client and the matter, and readable in the reports when needed.
- Every professional’s hours, by client, matter and activity
- Hourly rates for client, project and sub-project
- Billable hours and the ones the firm absorbs
- Hours already exported for invoicing, with date and author
- Statements sent to clients and who opened them
- Billable value, cost and margin of each matter
Clear numbers for the firm, clear detail for the client
The same data serves whoever bills inside the firm and whoever pays outside it.
For the firm
- Hours are logged while you work, not reconstructed from memory at month end.
- Amounts calculated with the client, project or sub-project rate.
- A changed rate does not rewrite hours already invoiced.
- Approval first, then the invoice: hours awaiting approval cannot be marked as exported.
- Each client’s margin calculated on real hours, set against the cost of the work.
For the client
- The period’s hours, entry by entry, on a page bearing the firm’s logo.
- It opens in the browser, with no account and no app to install.
- It downloads as a PDF, to keep alongside the invoice.
- In the language chosen for them among the ecosystem’s seven.
Beyond the timer
The features that carry hours from the matter to the invoice
Some are Klokka extensions, to switch on when you need them.
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Cascading rates
The sub-project rate overrides the project rate, which overrides the client rate: every hour takes the most specific one.
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Required questions
Before an entry is closed the firm can ask for the matter number or the client reference: the information is already there at invoicing time.
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Billing
With this extension exported hours stay marked, with date and author, and the “Already exported” filter offers only the new ones.
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Client statements
A link with a password or an emailed code, an expiry date and an access history; shared entries become read-only.
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Company groups
The accounts of a group of companies are logged once and appear in the reports of every linked company.
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Separate capabilities
Client statements, reports on all users, colleagues’ internal cost: distinct capabilities within the typology, granted only to those who need them.
Kamzan products for a firm that bills by the hour
Klokka measures time; the other modules bring it clients, meetings and jobs.
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Klokka
Time logging, rates, billability, client statements and the margin of every matter.
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Kore CRM
The same client list as Klokka: anyone who is already a client in the CRM is ready when hours are logged.
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Kalendo
The firm’s calendar: time logging starts from client meetings, with nothing entered twice.
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Projekta
Plans, deliveries and tasks for each job; with the Jobs extension their status shows in Klokka next to the hours.
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Alex