Start and end times on your timesheet: who worked on what, and when?

Start and end time on a time entry

In TimeViking, a time entry always has a date, a duration, a project (optionally a task) and a description. You can add a start time. The end time is not stored separately: it is the start time plus the duration. An entry that starts at 08:15 and lasts 3:45 therefore ends at 12:00.

Why would a small business want that? A few situations where the start time helps:

• a client wants to see when your team was with them, not just how many hours;
• at the end of the day you want to find out what you did between 10 and 11;
• a manager wants to see whether the hours of a day line up, without gaps or time logged twice.

Don't need any of this? Leave the start time empty. Logging hours per day, or in the week grid, works just as well; such an entry shows as "no time" in your week.

Three ways to capture times

The timer. Each person has at most one running timer. You start it with the T shortcut (or the play button), and your preferences decide whether T picks your last project, asks for the project, or always starts the same one. When you stop the timer, it becomes a time entry whose start time is the moment you started. Starting a new timer while another one runs stops the first one. The timer also works in the mobile app.

Quick entry. In the quick-entry field, type a time range instead of a duration: from 9 to 11, 9am-1pm, from 9am to 1pm or between 2 and 4pm. Several entries at once work too: 9-12 website; 13-17 #support. And 9-17 split over ABC and WEB becomes 9:00–13:00 on one project and 13:00–17:00 on the other.

The week calendar. Every entry with a time is a block with a start and an end, in its project's colour. Drag a block to another time or stretch it: the start time and the duration follow. Entries without a time are stacked from 9:00, so they do not cover each other.

In short, four steps:

1. Start the timer when you begin

   Press T or the play button, also in the mobile app. When you stop it, it becomes a time entry with the timer's start time and the elapsed time as its duration.

2. Or type the time range

   Type in the quick-entry field, for example from 9 to 11 design review or 9am-1pm #support. The entry gets a start and an end time straight away.

3. Move blocks in the week calendar

   Drag a block to another time, or stretch and shrink it. The start time and the duration follow.

4. Check gaps and overlaps

   On working days up to today, the calendar shows a gap of fifteen minutes or more as not filled in, and entries that overlap are flagged.

Gaps, overlaps and your schedule

Once your day has times, TimeViking can see what is missing. On working days up to and including today, the calendar shows a gap of fifteen minutes or more between two entries as "not filled in", with its length. If your schedule has work blocks (for example 8:00–12:00 and 12:30–16:30), only a gap inside those blocks counts, so your lunch break is not flagged.

Two entries that overlap get a marker. The schedule comes from Odoo or is set in the app; the week view shows your hours per day against that schedule.

What goes to Odoo and onto the PDF

Odoo remains your source for projects, tasks and invoicing. For each entry, TimeViking sends the date, duration, description, project, task and employee to the Odoo timesheets; more about the Odoo integration and the Odoo Timesheets sync. The start time does not go along: a standard Odoo timesheet line has no start or end time. Anything entered directly in Odoo appears in TimeViking without a time.

The monthly PDF and the exports do not show times either. The PDF lists the hours per day against the schedule, plus an appendix with date, project, task, hours and description; the Excel and CSV export for Odoo contains date, employee, project, task, description and quantity. Still on paper? Our monthly timesheet template can help.

Project hours, not a time clock: what TimeViking does not do (yet)

To be clear: TimeViking is not a time clock and not a working-time recording system. There is no separate record of the start and end of the working day, no clocking in and out, no break recording and no working-time report. The app records project hours, with start and end times when you enter them.

Whether that is enough for your organisation depends on your situation and where you work. This is not legal advice: ask your adviser whether recording project hours meets your needs.

Try it yourself

Times, the timer and quick entry are included as standard in TimeViking. Have a look at all features or the pricing: free for teams of up to 3 users, then €5 a month for your whole team of up to 20 users. You can start for free and connect your Odoo today.