This release started with a request from a user who bills one client under a monthly hour cap and carries the extra hours into the next month. The only way to show that on an invoice was two projects at $0 an hour and a running total kept by hand. A lot of freelance billing is not plain hourly, and the invoice should be able to keep count.
This release adds hour banks to Gigtime. It also adds recurring invoices and automatic overdue reminders on Pro, and a simpler way to list hours on an invoice without charging for them. Existing projects are untouched. If you bill by the hour today, nothing changes unless you turn something on.
An hour bank per project
Open a project and you will find a new question under its settings: how is this work billed? There are four answers.
- Hourly. The default, and exactly what Gigtime did before.
- Hourly with a cap and banked overflow. Set the cap, say 25 hours a month. Hours above it go into the bank. In a month with fewer hours, the invoice wizard offers to draw from the bank to fill the gap, and those hours are billed at your normal rate.
- Prepaid hours, a retainer. The client pays for a block of hours each month whether they use them or not. Unused hours roll forward as credit. Hours beyond the block and the credit are billed at an overage rate you choose.
- Track only. Hours are listed on the invoice with dates and descriptions, with no amount. It replaces the $0-project workaround.
Each choice asks for one or two numbers. Period, rollover limits, expiry, overage rate, and an opening balance sit under an Advanced section for the people who need them. One client can have projects on different rules, and several projects of the same client can share one bank.
What the client sees
Invoices for a banked project carry a small box: the balance you started the period with, hours added, hours used, anything that expired, and the balance you end with. It counts hours, never money, so a rate change later does not rewrite history. The dated entries behind the banked hours are listed underneath, which answers the question every client eventually asks: which hours were those?
The box is frozen when the invoice is created. Edit a rate or a rule afterwards and sent invoices still read the way the client received them.
How the month goes
Log your hours on the real project, the way you do now. When you build the invoice, the wizard shows one line per bank: hours worked, the cap or the block, what will be billed, what goes into the bank or comes out of it, and the closing balance. The suggested draw is the most you can take without going over the cap. Change it if you want. Then send.
If you cancel an invoice, its bank movements are reversed and the hours go back to unbilled. If your client's bookkeeper says the balance should be a different number, there is an Adjust balance button that asks you to write down why, and the correction appears on the next invoice.
Recurring invoices and overdue reminders
Two more things on Pro. An invoice can now repeat weekly, every two weeks, monthly, quarterly, or yearly. Gigtime drafts the next one on schedule, numbers it, and tells you it is ready. You still look it over and press send.
Overdue reminders are off by default. Turn them on under Settings, Invoice, pick how often to nudge, three, seven, or fourteen days, and how many times, and Gigtime emails the client's billing contact in their language when an invoice goes past due. Reminders use your own domain if you have one set up, and you can pause them on any single invoice.
Hours for reference, without a bank
If you only want some hours shown and not charged, you do not need a bank. The invoice wizard has a toggle to include unbilled hours for reference. It picks up non-billable entries and entries on $0 projects, lists them in their own section with dates, and leaves the total alone.
Custom email domains, with more patience
A few changes for Pro users who send from their own domain. If the email provider stops looking for your DNS records after its 72-hour window, the domain stays in your settings and you press Retry; nothing is removed. A domain that was working and then lost its records is never removed automatically either. Mail falls back to the Gigtime address until the records are back, and the domain waits for you. While the Email Domain card is open, Gigtime checks the records itself and shows which ones are in place. And when an invoice email bounces, it now shows in that invoice's activity so you know to fix the address. The full walkthrough, including a per-provider guide to adding records, is in the docs: Custom email domains.
Who this is for
One user asked for it. We expect it to fit more of you than that: anyone on a contract with a monthly ceiling, anyone selling a block of hours, anyone who has ever typed "not billed" into a line item. Our guide to retainers and deposits covers how to price the block in the first place.
Cap and retainer hour banks are part of Pro and of every 30-day trial. Track-only hours and the reference section stay free for everyone, as do recurring invoices and overdue reminders on Pro. One more change for new accounts only: Free accounts created from today can create 10 invoices a month, and drafts can always be sent. Accounts that already exist keep unlimited invoicing. Try Gigtime free for 30 days with the full Pro feature set and no credit card.