Billing Items

Billing items appear as line items in the Billing Entries tab of the project Billing section and can be added to invoices. There are three types of billing entries: time entries, expenses, and flat fee items.

• Item Types
• Not Chargeable or Not Billable Items
• Statuses

Item Types

All billing items include the date, a description of the item, options for making the item billable or chargeable, and, if set up, options for billing codes. 

Time Entries

Time entries capture the time that a team member spends working on a project. Time entries include fields for the following: 

• team member
• if you have rate-viewing permissions, the team member’s rate (decided by the rate schedule)
• hours

Time entries can also have a unique Draft status.

Time entries can be created in many places, including the following:

• the Timesheet flyout
• in the timer
• from a task in the project’s activity feed
• as part of an auto-task generated from a taskflow
• the project Billing section
• from the calendar

Expenses Entries

Expense entries are for expenditures like gas, meals, or copies. Common expenses can be added as “expense types” to make adding an expense entry easier.

Expenses include fields for the following:

• quantity 
• price per unit
• unit

Flat Fee Items

Flat fee items are for fees that are not time-dependent. The flat fee item allows users to add billing entries like a monthly retainer, which are neither an expense nor a time entry.

Flat fee items include fields for the following:

• quantity 
• price per unit
• unit

Not Chargeable or Not Billable Items

By default, billing items are marked as billable and chargeable. When adding an item, you can toggle to make the item “Not Billable” or “Not Chargeable.” 

Items marked as Not Chargeable can be added to and shown on an invoice, but will have a line-item total of $0 and will not affect the total of the invoice. 

Items marked Not Billable are typically items that you want to track internally, but do not want to include on invoices. Items marked Not Billable will be marked as $0. Additionally, items marked not billable items cannot be added to an invoice. (If an item is marked not billable, it will automatically also be marked not chargeable.) 

Not billable items and not chargeable items will be tagged as such in lists of billing items. Items marked as not billable will also appear in faded text.  

Statuses

All billing item types include statuses indicating whether they have been invoiced, finalized, and more. The statuses are as follows: 

• Draft: The billing item exists in draft form. This status applies only to time entries. Read the following section to learn more.
• Saved: The billing item has been saved in Filevine, but has not yet been added to an invoice.
• Invoiced: The billing item has been added to an invoice in Filevine, but the invoice has not yet been finalized. 
• Pending Approval: The item has been marked as ready for the approver to review. This status is only available when a user is marked as the approver. 
• Approved: The billing item has been marked as approved by the approver. The item is no longer editable.
• Finalized: The billing item is on a finalized invoice in Filevine. The item is no longer editable. 

Draft Status

Time entries with the Draft status cannot be added to invoices. Draft status can be used to help keep track of time entries that may still need to be edited to become client-ready.

Time entries with the Draft status appear in the Timesheet and in the project Billing section. Draft time entries are not considered in Unbilled or Outstanding items. These entries are also excluded from calculations like Summary totals or totals listed in the Time Entries section in the Billing Section.

Un-invoiced time entries, marked with the Saved status, can also be moved to Draft status at any time. Once a time entry has been added to an invoice, however, it can no longer be moved to Draft status.

To make a time entry available for integrations or invoicing, the entry must first change status from Draft to Saved status. When a time entry with the Draft status is opened for editing, the Save as Draft option will be unselected by default. To keep the time entry in Draft status upon saving, make sure that you select Save as Draft. If you do not select Save as Draft, the entry will be moved to the “Saved” status upon saving, and will be available for invoicing and API integrations.