How WIP works

WIP (work in progress) is your firm’s unbilled work: time your team has tracked but not yet invoiced. It lives under Billing in WIP, grouped by client and job, and it is the starting point for billing tracked time.

What counts as WIP

Every billable time entry starts as WIP the moment it is saved. An entry stays in WIP until you invoice it, write it off, or delete it. Entries marked non-billable never appear in WIP.

How WIP amounts are priced

Each entry’s WIP value is its hours multiplied by an hourly rate. Tidyflow picks the rate in this order:

1. The default rate of the entry’s service
2. Otherwise, the rate saved on the entry itself, which comes from the team member’s billable rate at the time it was logged

If an entry shows no amount, it usually has no service and the team member has no billable rate. Set default rates on your services under Settings in Services, or set billable rates per team member under Users.

Billing by time vs fixed fee

The WIP page has an Hourly and a Fixed fee toggle at the top:

• Hourly shows billable time entries priced by rate. This is the pile you invoice from when you bill by time.
• Fixed fee shows jobs billed at an agreed fee instead of by hours. Click Invoice fee to bill the job’s fee. Time tracked on a fixed-fee job is cost monitoring only and is never billed by the hour.

A job’s billing type comes from its service or can be set on the job itself.

How WIP clears

WIP clears when the time is invoiced through the WIP page:

• Click Invoice on a job to turn its unbilled time into a draft invoice
• Select several jobs and use Create draft invoice(s) from selected jobs to bill them in one run
• Use Add time from WIP in a draft invoice’s menu to pull more time into an existing draft

Invoicing from WIP links each time entry to the invoice and marks it billed, so it leaves the WIP page immediately. The draft lands on a review screen where you can edit lines, adjust descriptions, and send. Editing or sending the draft keeps the time linked.

Time you will never bill can be cleared without an invoice:

• Write off removes selected time from WIP with a reason, for example goodwill or out of scope. Written-off time can be restored later.
• Adjust applies a write-up or write-down to a job’s hourly amount without changing the tracked hours.

Why is WIP still showing after I invoiced?

The most common cause is a manually created invoice. An invoice created from Billing in Invoices with the + button is not connected to your tracked time, even if you type in the same work. The time stays in WIP because nothing links it to that invoice. To bill tracked time, always start from Billing in WIP so the entries are linked and cleared, or use Add time from WIP on the draft.

Two other cases return time to WIP on purpose:

• Deleting or voiding an invoice returns its linked time to WIP so it can be billed again
• Removing a line from a draft invoice returns that line’s time to WIP

If WIP still looks wrong after invoicing from the WIP page, contact support and include the invoice number.