Emily's dashboard

Emily replied on April 15, 2009 14:49 to the idea "More info for the summary line on the main page" in Snooty Monkey:

on #1, now that I understand what Qrystal is talking about here - multitasking - then my answer is different because I don't believe in using bubbletimer for multitasking! what you say @sean makes sense, to have "in X hours" be total since you started tracking time, but then that should equal my Daily total anyway, so I don't need it (unless it were to indicate how much time I had forgotten to track since I started, but I can see that by the red dots).

I strongly disagree with this whole multi-tasking usage that @Qrystal is suggesting. You have to decided what you are trying to achieve with tracking your time and stick to it. So in my case I want to see that I am productive towards developing my business, so that if, while I am listening to a valuable podcast, I get the washing up done (as a personal bonus), I will track that time as Research/Reading instead of housekeeping. I don't give myself any points for housekeeping so I don't need to track it.

In terms of multi-tasking I think you need to consider which is the task you are doing that contributes to your end goal and choose to track that one.

A comment on the question "How to track time which will not be invoiced?" in FreeAgent Central:

hmm, point taken. so if you can provide tracking of 35 x 35 hour-weeks you start to get some tax benefits? Lucky Netherlanders! – Emily, on April 15, 2009 11:59

A comment on the idea "Design feedback needed on Notes feature." in Snooty Monkey:

Hi j0rdan, it sounds to me like you might be better off sticking to the paper forms given how you describe your use of Bubbletimer. The only reason I've switched from paper is so that I can use the summaries/reports - to look back over time, as it were. For that daily accountability you talk about, I actually miss the paper Emergent Task Timer forms, I can't see a better format for that type of usage. – Emily, on April 15, 2009 11:55

A comment on the idea "'To Be Invoiced' should show total budget less amount invoiced" in FreeAgent Central:

Crikey Joshua, that is a really good point - something I have been wanting to but had not thought to mention it. In fact when I first discovered rebilling expenses to projects, I thought I could use this to calculate the profitability of the project, so that I could see how much I spent on expenses and subcontractors out of the total fixed price. However, I had to stop doing this because at the moment, rebilling to a project only makes sense if you are rebilling that expense as an itemised amount to the client (as opposed to it being bundled into the fixed price) - if you don't add it to an invoice it gets left as an outstanding/unbilled amount.

So it would be great if you could rebill an expense to a project, but then either add to an invoice OR write it off as part of the fixed price.

This also seems to be an appropriate juncture to bring in newoceans comment elsewhere about tracking time that will not be billed for, essentially, the time you spend working on a fixed rate project, again so that you can see how profitable you have been or whether you have kept to the time you estimated the project would take. – Emily, on April 15, 2009 11:04

Emily replied on April 15, 2009 10:59 to the question "How can I mark a timeslip as not available for invoicing/already invoiced?" in FreeAgent Central:

If you are going to issue another invoice for that project then I would suggest, just as a work-around, that you bundle those timeslips into a single line item that actually represents something else. Sorry if I'm stating the obvious here!

Emily replied on April 15, 2009 10:44 to the question "How to track time which will not be invoiced?" in FreeAgent Central:

Hi newoceans, to track the time I spend working for my company which isn't billable to a specific client/project, I use Bubbletimer which is an online time tracking service, and can be used to produces reports and charts on time spent of various activities over your chosen time period. I don't feel the need to track this time in Freeagent as it has no associated projects, clients or banking (directly) and I don't need to invoice for it. I'd strongly recommend you try Bubbletimer out

Emily marked one of Joshua March's replies in FreeAgent Central as useful. Joshua March replied to the idea "'To Be Invoiced' should show total budget less amount invoiced".

A comment on the idea "'To Be Invoiced' should show total budget less amount invoiced" in FreeAgent Central:

Thanks for considering this Olly.
I see how it makes sense that it reflects unbilled time for those who charge by the hour, but most of my projects (and I imagine many of your other 'service-industry' users) are charged on a pre-agreed quote. The budget field at the moment feels like a bit of a tease, as it doesn't seem to serve any function, like the one I already described here. – Emily, on April 08, 2009 11:05

Emily shared an idea in FreeAgent Central on April 07, 2009 16:36:

'To Be Invoiced' should show total budget less amount invoiced

You pointed out that in today's release "The Projects list table now displays totals for Amount Invoiced and To Be Invoiced." I suppose this is helpful (though I'm sure this was being displayed somewhere else already) but I would expect that if I've entered a budget for a project, that this amount "to be invoiced" would show the amount to be invoiced, less the amount "already invoiced" - this is currently not the case!

Emily replied on April 07, 2009 16:22 to the idea "quotation functionallity" in FreeAgent Central:

It is great to see that you've introduced the Estimate/Quotations and I've just tried it out for the first time. This is my feedback:

1. In order to use the built in Email to client functionality of Freeagent, I would need to be able to upload and attach my Terms and Conditions PDF to the Quote document.

2. Once the Estimate has been approved and I want to convert it into an invoice, I want the option to be able to 'include all uninvoiced estimates' all in one item. Because when I've had a quote agreed, I then go on to invoice a number of part-payments (percentages) throughout the project and so the separate items I quoted for don't get listed each time.

At the moment I can't really convert an estimate to invoice, or if I did, I'd have to delete all the line items which is WAY too much work :S

One other detail which comes up here (I'm sure I've requested this elsewhere, but just to give you a little nudge!), is the part-payment process, which it would be so helpful to have built into Freeagent.

Thanks for all your hardwork on the frequently released feature additions!

Emily replied on April 04, 2009 16:34 to the idea "Design feedback needed on Notes feature." in Snooty Monkey:

@j0dan no, I don't need to see the notes all the time - I only add them for reference later, so that I see them on the Reports which I print at the end of each week.

Emily replied on April 03, 2009 16:15 to the idea "Include a notes/diary section." in Snooty Monkey:

I'm loving the notes so far! The simple implimentation (one note per task) is enough for me. The note per day is a little bonus. The way they appear on the report is good too.

BTW I saw the notes appear yesterday afternoon sometime and was like 'what? how long have these notes been here? did I miss the announcement?!' still, I started using them right away because it was so obvious how to use them :-)

Emily replied on April 02, 2009 14:58 to the idea "More info for the summary line on the main page" in Snooty Monkey:

re 2) hmm. this had me really confused for a while until I realised you are talking about multi-tasking. This makes me very trepidatious... isn't the golden rule about GTD that there is no multi-tasking? What 2 things might you want to log as being done at the same time? This could get really confusing when looking at totals for the time you've spent working too. The only reason I can see needing to fill two bubbles at one time would be better solved by having Categories/sub tasks (which I believe is coming) - so then I could log that I was in a phone meeting, but also which client that meeting was with.

re 1) I like this idea, but I'd need to be able to set the total time I want the hours counted out of (I'd rather it set to 10 hours a day, instead of 24 hours)

A comment on the idea "Design feedback needed on Notes feature." in Snooty Monkey:

Well I went looking in My Account for something like the print out - I ended up in Export and was disappointed by the lack of a summary table in the excel tables. So maybe it could be linked to from there as well? – Emily, on March 09, 2009 17:27

A comment on the problem "Custom payment terms don't change due date for invoice" in FreeAgent Central:

My invoice will be due by all accounts by then :) but I'm glad there'll be a fix for next time! – Emily, on March 09, 2009 15:22

Emily marked one of Olly's replies in FreeAgent Central as useful. Olly replied to the problem "Custom payment terms don't change due date for invoice".

A comment on the idea "Daily total of working/billable hours only" in Snooty Monkey:

All sounds very promising! Will we be able to create our own categories? – Emily, on March 03, 2009 13:57

A comment on the idea "Sub-activities" in Snooty Monkey:

Ooh good news! Thanks! – Emily, on March 03, 2009 13:56

Emily replied on March 03, 2009 13:50 to the idea "Design feedback needed on Notes feature." in Snooty Monkey:

I was talking about the spreadsheet. But whether it is the spreadsheet or print out, I'd like to see the notes included in it please.

BTW - I've only just discovered the print out, its excellent!!!! The print out is exactly what I've been looking for - the totals of activities table doesn't seem to be included in the spreadsheet but that is what I was most interested in. I think you are downplaying the printout but just having the little printer icon - i presumed that was just a print page button, had no idea it created a nicely laid out report like that.

Emily replied on March 02, 2009 20:29 to the idea "Daily total of working/billable hours only" in Snooty Monkey:

I've just found the Idea about sub-categories, which I think would meet the needs of my idea here, but I'll leave this in incase someone else is thinking of it too.

Getting more excited about Bubble Timer now that I see Categories and Notes might be coming soon, as these are essentials to me, which I feel like I'd need before committing to the year's service deal.

Thanks for all your work so far!