Everhour keeps Basecamp to-dos tied to billable status, rates, budgets, and invoice-ready retainer reports.
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One click and you're timing. Start a timer, add an entry, edit the details. This is exactly how it feels in Everhour.
Set a budget, assign rates, and get alerted before you're over.
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Track your budget through time or costs
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Tracked hours flow straight into a polished invoice — no copy-paste, no manual math.
A retainer period needs a clear boundary before anyone logs time. Set the client, the Basecamp project, the billing method, the covered dates, and the budget or fee that applies to that period. The to-dos stay in Basecamp, while the hour totals, billing status, rates, and budget view need a consistent place for review.
The practical goal is a clean answer at month end: which Basecamp work used the retainer, which work stayed non-billable, which hours remain uninvoiced, and which totals support the client invoice. Notes help, but the stronger record is structured time tied to a specific project, list, to-do, person, date, and status.
Billable status should match the client agreement, not the person doing the work. In Everhour, admins set billing status at the project level, choosing an hourly project rate, hourly member rate, or fixed fee. Within a billable project, a specific to-do can be marked non-billable so internal coordination, rework, or account administration stays visible without increasing the client charge.
Retainer work often includes both delivery and overhead. Keep both in the report when the team needs margin, utilization, or scope review, but exclude non-billable to-dos from the amount charged. Member-rate projects can also make one person's project time non-billable by setting that member's project rate to 0, which is useful for shadowing or internal review roles.
Rate setup should follow the commercial term the client signed. A single blended retainer fits a project rate. A seniority-based agreement fits member rates. A time-and-materials retainer with special work types fits custom task rates, which let admins price specific to-dos differently when the task title carries a separate billing rule.
The common retainer mistake is changing the rate without preserving the period it applies to. Everhour supports dated rate changes, so older reports keep the original calculation and new work uses the new rate from the chosen date. That matters when a retainer renews mid-year, when a role rate changes, or when a client approves a new rate after a specific date.
A manual retainer tally is enough when one person logs a few hours, the client only needs a total, and no one has to separate billable delivery from internal work. The moment multiple people, rates, write-offs, or recurring budgets enter the process, the record needs approval, locked periods, and a report that shows billable time, non-billable time, billable amount, and cost.
Everhour turns Basecamp to-do time into a managed billing workflow. Teams track from embedded Basecamp controls through the browser extension, review submitted time, apply project, member, or custom task rates, and generate invoices from uninvoiced billable time and expenses. Invoiced time is marked as invoiced, which prevents the same approved hours from appearing on a later invoice.
This content is for general information only, may not be fully up to date, and is provided without any warranty or liability.
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Summer 2026
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Track the retainer by billing period, client, project, to-do, person, date, and notes. The report should show billable time, non-billable time, billable amount, and uninvoiced totals. A monthly retainer also needs a reset point, so the team can separate current-period work from prior approved hours.
Internal administration, client management outside the covered scope, rework the team chooses not to charge, and training time should stay non-billable when the client agreement excludes them. Keeping those hours in reports still matters because they show margin pressure and explain why the retainer is being consumed faster than planned.
Rollover depends on the client agreement. The tracking record should keep each billing period separate first, then show whether unused hours were carried forward, written off, or left unused. Mixing periods in one total makes it harder to prove which hours belonged to the current retainer.
Special rates should attach where the agreement defines them. Use a project rate for one blended retainer rate, member rates for role-based pricing, and custom task rates for specific work types. Applying a special rate manually at invoice time creates reconciliation problems when the client asks for task-level backup.
A defensible record ties each charge to the Basecamp project, list, to-do, task status, person, date, hours worked, billing status, and rate logic. Client-facing backup should also separate billable and non-billable time. That structure lets the client verify scope without reviewing every internal note.
On Basecamp retainers, Everhour carries billing rules from the project setup into the report: admins choose project, member, or fixed-fee billing, exclude selected to-dos, apply custom task rates, or set a member's project rate to 0. Reports can then show billable time, non-billable time, billable amount, and cost by member or task.
Everhour Billing & Invoicing lets users select uninvoiced billable time and expenses, preview the breakdown, and generate an invoice from those records. Invoice line items can be grouped by project, task, person, date, or another available breakdown, then exported to QuickBooks Online, Xero, or FreshBooks.
Track Basecamp to-dos, separate billable from non-billable hours, and review rate-priced work before invoicing. Everhour gives teams a cleaner path from approved retainer hours to billing.
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