Design agencies sell staff expertise by client, phase, and milestone. Everhour turns those hours into reports and billing context.
Enter your time in and out for each day. Overtime and gross pay are calculated automatically.
| Day | Time In | Break Start | Break End | Break | Time Out | Total |
|---|
The calculator gives you the number — Everhour takes it from there.
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.
Measurement
Track your budget through time or costs
Every report you need — configured your way, always up to date.
Tracked hours flow straight into a polished invoice — no copy-paste, no manual math.
A design agency tracks time to see where client work actually goes: discovery, concepting, production, revisions, presentation prep, and project management. The useful output is a record by client, project, task or phase, person, date, and billable status. That record helps you price future work, protect scope, and explain invoices without rebuilding the week from memory.
For U.S. employers, time records can also support payroll review. The FLSA requires covered employers to keep accurate records for non-exempt workers, including hours worked each workday and total hours worked each workweek. The law does not require a specific timekeeping system, but the method must be complete and accurate enough to support wage-and-hour records.
Design proposals commonly define the scope of work, process, schedule, milestones, fees, expenses, work schedule, and billing schedule. Your time categories should follow that structure. A branding project can use phases such as strategy, logo exploration, identity system, presentation, revisions, and final production. Each entry should show whether the work is billable, non-billable, included in a fixed fee, or outside the approved scope.
Rates matter even when the client sees a fixed fee. A standard hourly rate is an internal budgeting tool shaped by overhead, available client-project hours, and target profit margin. Expenses need the same discipline. Out-of-pocket items such as shipping, presentation materials, parking, taxis, or approved travel belong in project records when the agreement allows reimbursement or the client asks for receipts.
The common mistake is tracking only total hours after a project becomes uncomfortable. That total shows effort, but it does not show where the scope moved. A better record separates original work from revision rounds, extra concepts, urgent production, and account management. This matters when a client asks why a fixed-fee project consumed more time than expected or questions a reimbursable expense.
Client review also affects record quality. Some design clients request photocopies of reimbursable-expense receipts, and some ask for the right to audit project records when needed. Time entries should use client-safe task names, consistent phase labels, and comments that explain the work without exposing private internal notes. The record should support the invoice, the estimate review, and the next proposal.
A one-off weekly total works for a solo designer checking whether a small project stayed near the estimate. It is also enough for a quick internal review after a short deliverable. The limit appears once multiple designers, phases, billing rates, reimbursable expenses, and approval steps enter the same engagement. At that point, a spreadsheet total turns into cleanup work.
A managed workflow gives an agency a durable record: tracked time by client and project, submitted timesheets, reports by phase or person, budget review, and exports for billing or payroll review. Everhour fits that longer cycle when design teams need project hours to flow into reporting, invoice preparation, and profitability analysis instead of staying as disconnected weekly notes.
This content is for general information only, may not be fully up to date, and is provided without any warranty or liability.
High Performer
G2
Summer 2026
Best Ease Of Use
Capterra
Summer 2026
Rated in the top time trackers across G2, Capterra, and TrustRadius — with consistent praise for ease of use, integrations, and support.
A useful design-agency time entry includes date, person, client, project, phase or task, hours, billable status, rate context, and a short work note. Agencies that bill expenses should keep receipts or expense references beside the project record. For employees covered by the FLSA minimum wage or overtime provisions, employer records must include daily hours worked and total hours worked each workweek.
Yes. Fixed-fee pricing does not remove the need to understand labor cost, revision volume, and margin. Time tracking shows whether discovery, design exploration, production, or client review consumed the estimate. That record helps you improve the next proposal, identify scope expansion, and decide whether a similar project needs a different fee, schedule, or review process.
Agencies should track non-billable time with clear labels such as internal review, proposal work, training, administration, or business development. Those hours do not appear as client charges, but they affect utilization and rate planning. Since worker knowledge and skills are the major production input in professional services, untracked internal time hides the real cost of running the agency.
No. The FLSA does not require overtime premium pay solely because work happens on Saturday, Sunday, a holiday, or a regular rest day. For covered non-exempt employees, federal overtime applies to hours worked over 40 in a fixed 168-hour workweek at not less than one and one-half times the employee's regular rate, unless another law or agreement adds more protection.
Mixing phases, revisions, and account management into one generic project bucket creates the worst invoice problems. The client sees a large number with no project story. Separate entries by approved phase, revision round, and out-of-scope request. That structure supports a clean invoice, a defensible budget conversation, and a more accurate post-project review.
Everhour Reporting turns logged agency time, budgets, costs, and project data into configurable reports. Design teams can use 45+ columns, filters, grouping, date ranges, exports, scheduled email delivery, and profitability dashboards to compare client work, billable time, labor costs, invoice status, and actual hours against estimates.
Everhour can run standalone or inside project tools such as Asana, ClickUp, Jira, Monday, Notion, Trello, GitHub, Linear, and Basecamp. Designers can track time from the task where work already happens, then keep project hours connected to the same client, task, and phase structure used for delivery.
Use Everhour Reporting to group design time by client, phase, person, budget, and invoice status, then export or schedule reports that support billing and profitability review.
14-day free trial · No credit card · Cancel anytime
