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Learn how to use Timestamped
Time Tracking
Timestamped includes built-in time tracking for billable hours, case budgets, and payroll. Log time entries against cases with service types, hourly rates, and multi-currency support so your team always knows where their hours are going.
Why Track Time?
Without structured time tracking, investigation agencies often run into three recurring problems:
- Lost revenue: investigators forget to log hours, and billable time slips through the cracks
- Budget overruns: cases exceed their allotted budget before anyone notices, leading to difficult client conversations
- Payroll confusion: reconciling who worked what hours across which cases becomes a manual, error-prone process
How to Log Time
- Open the case you want to log time against
- Navigate to the Time tab
- Click Log Time
- Select the date, enter the duration (hours and minutes), and choose a service type
- Add optional notes describing the work performed
- Click Save to record the entry
Each time entry is tied to the team member who created it and includes the hourly rate that was active at the time of logging.
Team Dispatch
Admins and seniors can log time on behalf of multiple team members at once using the Team Dispatch feature. This is useful when a supervisor coordinates a surveillance operation and needs to record hours for everyone involved from a single screen.
- Navigate to Time > Log Time and switch to Multi-Member mode
- Select the case the team worked on
- Add a row for each team member and enter their hours
- Optionally override billing rates per member for this entry
- Submit to create all time entries at once
Org Setting: Team Timesheet Access
The teamTimesheetAllowedFor organization setting controls which roles can use team dispatch. By default, admins and seniors have access. Owners can adjust this setting to restrict or expand eligibility.
Service Types
When logging time, you'll select a service type that categorizes the work performed. The available service types are:
- Surveillance: field observation and monitoring of subjects
- Research: background checks, database searches, and information gathering
- Report Writing: preparing case reports, summaries, and documentation
- Interview: conducting witness or subject interviews
- Court Appearance: attending hearings, depositions, or trials
- Travel: transit time to and from field locations
- Administrative: general case management, filing, and coordination
- Other: any work that does not fit the categories above
Case Budgets
Each case can be configured with a budget to help you stay within client expectations. Budget mode is set when creating or editing a case. There are three budget modes:
Hours-based
Set a maximum number of hours for the case. Progress is tracked as total logged hours against the budget.
Cost-based
Set a dollar (or currency) amount for the case. Progress is tracked as total cost (hours multiplied by rates) against the budget.
No tracking
Time entries can still be logged, but no budget limit is enforced and no progress bar is displayed.
When a budget is set, the case displays a color-coded progress bar showing how much of the budget has been consumed: green below 75%, yellow between 75% and 90%, and red at 90% or above. An hourly background job checks all active case budgets and sends email alerts to case watchers when usage crosses configurable thresholds (default: 50%, 75%, 90%, and 100%). Admins can customize these thresholds per user in notification preferences.
Billing Rates
Hourly rates determine the cost of each time entry. Rates are resolved using a three-tier priority system:
- Per-member case override: a rate set for a specific team member on a specific case. This takes the highest priority.
- Case-wide override: a default rate set at the case level that applies to all team members unless they have a per-member override.
- Member default rate: the rate configured on the team member's profile, used when no case-level overrides exist.
This priority order means you can set a standard rate for each investigator, override it for specific cases when a client has negotiated a different rate, and further customize it per team member when certain specialists command a premium.
Each time entry records which level of the hierarchy the rate came from (billing source tracking), so you can always trace back how a cost was calculated during audits or billing disputes.
Multi-Currency Support
Timestamped supports 25+ currencies for teams that operate internationally or bill clients in different regions. Each case can be assigned its own currency, and time entries will use that currency for cost calculations. Exchange rates are updated regularly so budget tracking remains accurate across currencies.
Payroll Tracking
Time entries flow through a simple payroll pipeline to help administrators track payment status. Each entry carries one of three statuses:
The entry has been logged but has not yet been reviewed or processed for payment.
The entry has been approved and is being included in the current payroll cycle.
The entry has been paid out to the team member and is finalized.
Administrators can filter time entries by payroll status to quickly see which hours still need to be processed and which have already been paid.
Batch Operations
When processing payroll, you can select multiple time entries at once and update their payment status in bulk. Select the entries you want to process, click Update Status, and choose the new status. This is much faster than updating entries one at a time, especially at the end of a pay period.
Edit History
Every modification to a time entry is tracked in an audit trail. If an entry's hours, rate, service type, or description is changed, the original values and the change details (who changed it and when) are recorded. This protects against disputes about logged hours and provides a clear record for billing reconciliation.
Deleting Time Entries
Deleted time entries are soft-deleted: they are hidden from normal views but retained in the system for audit purposes. The case's total hours and cost are updated to reflect the removal. Only users with edit access to the case can delete time entries.
Timestamped includes built-in time tracking for billable hours, case budgets, and payroll. Log time entries against cases with service types, hourly rates, and multi-currency support so your team always knows where their hours are going.
Why Track Time?
Without structured time tracking, investigation agencies often run into three recurring problems:
- Lost revenue: investigators forget to log hours, and billable time slips through the cracks
- Budget overruns: cases exceed their allotted budget before anyone notices, leading to difficult client conversations
- Payroll confusion: reconciling who worked what hours across which cases becomes a manual, error-prone process
How to Log Time
- Open the case you want to log time against
- Navigate to the Time tab
- Click Log Time
- Select the date, enter the duration (hours and minutes), and choose a service type
- Add optional notes describing the work performed
- Click Save to record the entry
Each time entry is tied to the team member who created it and includes the hourly rate that was active at the time of logging.
Team Dispatch
Admins and seniors can log time on behalf of multiple team members at once using the Team Dispatch feature. This is useful when a supervisor coordinates a surveillance operation and needs to record hours for everyone involved from a single screen.
- Navigate to Time > Log Time and switch to Multi-Member mode
- Select the case the team worked on
- Add a row for each team member and enter their hours
- Optionally override billing rates per member for this entry
- Submit to create all time entries at once
Org Setting: Team Timesheet Access
The teamTimesheetAllowedFor organization setting controls which roles can use team dispatch. By default, admins and seniors have access. Owners can adjust this setting to restrict or expand eligibility.
Service Types
When logging time, you'll select a service type that categorizes the work performed. The available service types are:
- Surveillance: field observation and monitoring of subjects
- Research: background checks, database searches, and information gathering
- Report Writing: preparing case reports, summaries, and documentation
- Interview: conducting witness or subject interviews
- Court Appearance: attending hearings, depositions, or trials
- Travel: transit time to and from field locations
- Administrative: general case management, filing, and coordination
- Other: any work that does not fit the categories above
Case Budgets
Each case can be configured with a budget to help you stay within client expectations. Budget mode is set when creating or editing a case. There are three budget modes:
Hours-based
Set a maximum number of hours for the case. Progress is tracked as total logged hours against the budget.
Cost-based
Set a dollar (or currency) amount for the case. Progress is tracked as total cost (hours multiplied by rates) against the budget.
No tracking
Time entries can still be logged, but no budget limit is enforced and no progress bar is displayed.
When a budget is set, the case displays a color-coded progress bar showing how much of the budget has been consumed: green below 75%, yellow between 75% and 90%, and red at 90% or above. An hourly background job checks all active case budgets and sends email alerts to case watchers when usage crosses configurable thresholds (default: 50%, 75%, 90%, and 100%). Admins can customize these thresholds per user in notification preferences.
Billing Rates
Hourly rates determine the cost of each time entry. Rates are resolved using a three-tier priority system:
- Per-member case override: a rate set for a specific team member on a specific case. This takes the highest priority.
- Case-wide override: a default rate set at the case level that applies to all team members unless they have a per-member override.
- Member default rate: the rate configured on the team member's profile, used when no case-level overrides exist.
This priority order means you can set a standard rate for each investigator, override it for specific cases when a client has negotiated a different rate, and further customize it per team member when certain specialists command a premium.
Each time entry records which level of the hierarchy the rate came from (billing source tracking), so you can always trace back how a cost was calculated during audits or billing disputes.
Multi-Currency Support
Timestamped supports 25+ currencies for teams that operate internationally or bill clients in different regions. Each case can be assigned its own currency, and time entries will use that currency for cost calculations. Exchange rates are updated regularly so budget tracking remains accurate across currencies.
Payroll Tracking
Time entries flow through a simple payroll pipeline to help administrators track payment status. Each entry carries one of three statuses:
The entry has been logged but has not yet been reviewed or processed for payment.
The entry has been approved and is being included in the current payroll cycle.
The entry has been paid out to the team member and is finalized.
Administrators can filter time entries by payroll status to quickly see which hours still need to be processed and which have already been paid.
Batch Operations
When processing payroll, you can select multiple time entries at once and update their payment status in bulk. Select the entries you want to process, click Update Status, and choose the new status. This is much faster than updating entries one at a time, especially at the end of a pay period.
Edit History
Every modification to a time entry is tracked in an audit trail. If an entry's hours, rate, service type, or description is changed, the original values and the change details (who changed it and when) are recorded. This protects against disputes about logged hours and provides a clear record for billing reconciliation.
Deleting Time Entries
Deleted time entries are soft-deleted: they are hidden from normal views but retained in the system for audit purposes. The case's total hours and cost are updated to reflect the removal. Only users with edit access to the case can delete time entries.