Budgets and Billable Time
TimeCampus turns raw tracked time into project economics. Every project can carry a budget (money), an hourly rate, a currency, and estimated hours — and every hour attributed to the project burns against them automatically. No spreadsheet reconciliation.
What you'll learn
- The two kinds of budget: money and hours
- How burn is calculated and displayed
- Billable vs non-billable work
- How this feeds client reporting
Two budgets: money and hours
A project tracks its health along two axes:
| Axis | Fields | Question it answers |
|---|---|---|
| Money | Budget + currency + hourly rate | "How much of the fee have we consumed?" |
| Effort | Estimated hours vs tracked hours | "Is the work taking what we thought it would?" |
You can use either alone, but they're strongest together: a project can be under its hours estimate and still over budget (rate mismatch), or on budget while blowing through the estimate (scope creep at a low rate). TimeCampus shows both so neither story hides the other.
How burn works
- Set the project's budget, currency, and hourly rate when you create the project (or add them later).
- Track time against the project or its tasks — the project's tracked hours accumulate.
- TimeCampus derives budget used and budget remaining from tracked time and the rate, and shows them on the project detail page.
Over budget is shown, not hidden
If tracked hours push spend past the budget, budget remaining goes negative. TimeCampus deliberately does not clamp the number at zero — an overrun you can see early is one you can act on: re-scope, renegotiate, or stop the bleed.
Billable vs non-billable time
The hourly rate is what makes time billable:
- A project with an hourly rate values every tracked hour in money — that's your billable work: client projects, retainers, paid engagements.
- A project without a rate still tracks hours — use this for internal work, admin, learning, and other non-billable time you want visibility into but won't invoice.
Keeping non-billable work in its own projects (rather than untracked) is what makes your billable ratio honest: you can see how much of the week actually converts to revenue, and where the rest goes.
Estimates as an early-warning system
Estimated hours on the project — and per task — give you a burn-down reference:
- Tracked comfortably below estimate with most tasks
DONE→ healthy. - Tracked approaching estimate with the board mostly
TODO→ re-scope now, not at delivery.
Because estimates exist at both levels, you can locate where a project is running hot: the project number tells you it's happening, the task numbers tell you which piece of work is responsible.
From budgets to client reporting
Budget and billable data flows onward without re-entry:
- Reports — export project breakdowns and client-ready timesheets built from the same attributed hours, so what you invoice is what was tracked.
- Client portal — projects linked to a client roll up there, giving the client-facing view of hours and progress.
- Expenses — pair tracked time with project expenses for a fuller cost picture.
Tips
- Set the rate and budget before the first hour is tracked — burn tracking is only as complete as its earliest entry.
- Give internal work real (rate-less) projects. "Untracked" time doesn't disappear; it just becomes invisible.
- Check budget remaining at a fixed cadence — weekly for retainers, at milestones for fixed-fee work.
- When a project goes over, archive the lesson, not just the project: compare estimated vs tracked per task to see which kind of work you underestimate.
Next steps
- Projects — create projects and set their economics
- Reports — export timesheets and project breakdowns
- Client portal — the client-facing view of tracked work