Time Tracking

Log time against tasks to track how long work takes, distinguish billable from non-billable hours, and generate invoices directly from your time entries.

Timer bar

The timer bar sits at the top of every page. It’s the fastest way to start tracking:

Click the input field, a dropdown shows your recent tasks. Type to filter by task or project name.
Press Enter to start the timer on the first matching task, or click a task to select it.
The timer starts immediately, you’ll see the task name and a live elapsed counter.
The input switches to a notes field while the timer runs, describe what you’re working on.
Click the red stop button when you’re done.

The time entry is saved automatically when you stop the timer. Entries under 30 seconds are discarded.

Cross-tab and cross-device sync

The running timer is part of your workspace, not just your browser. If you start a timer on your laptop and then open Kiaro on your phone, the phone shows the same timer running, with the same elapsed counter. Stop it on either device and both update. The timer bar refreshes whenever you switch back to a tab, so a stop from another window is reflected within a second. If you pause the timer (the 6-hour are-you-still-working prompt does this automatically), the paused minutes are excluded from the final time entry — you only ever bill for time you actually worked.

Today’s total

The timer bar shows your total hours logged today next to the elapsed timer, so you always know if you’re on track without checking a report.

Browse button

Click Browse next to the search input for the full task picker with project grouping. If no tasks match your search, you can create a new task directly from the picker.

Timer reminder

If no timer has been running for 30 minutes during work hours (7am–8pm), a gentle amber bar appears: “No timer running. Forgot to start one?” Click the X to dismiss, it won’t appear again for 2 hours.

Replay timer

Each entry in the time list has a play button. Click it to start a new timer for the same task, useful for continuing work from yesterday or earlier in the week.

Manual time logging

If you prefer to log time after the fact, use the Log Time Manually form (click the + button on the timer bar). Enter the task, duration in minutes, optional notes, and toggle billable.

You can also create time entries from the Time → Log Time page with full control over task, start time, duration, notes, and billable status.

The first time you log time against a task that is still in To Do, whether by timer or manual entry, the task moves to In Progress automatically. See Projects and Tasks for the details.

Uninvoiced-value prompt

When you save a time entry on a project with at least $500 of unbilled billable time, Kiaro shows a follow-up notice next to the standard “Saved” confirmation:

You have $X uninvoiced on [Project Name]. Create a draft invoice now? [Create invoice] [Not now]

Create invoice drafts an invoice with every uninvoiced billable entry on the project and takes you straight to the invoice detail page. Not now dismisses the prompt for the rest of your browser session for that project. The prompt fires from any time-save path (timer bar, manual log, weekly timesheet, or a saved template).

The Uninvoiced summary card at the top of the Time page also includes a “Create invoice” link when you have uninvoiced billable time, so you can draft an invoice without saving a time entry first.

If you’ve logged 5+ hours on an hourly project but haven’t set the rate yet, the prompt swaps Create invoice for Set rate and takes you to the project edit page. Drafting an invoice without a rate would produce $0 line items, and adding the rate afterwards doesn’t fix the draft. so the rate has to come first.

Notes on the trigger:

The threshold uses the project’s billing currency. For hourly projects with no rate set, Kiaro falls back to a 5-hour trigger so the prompt still fires for meaningful work.
Fixed-fee projects are excluded; those have their own invoicing flow via milestones.
If you invoiced this project in the last 7 days, Kiaro stays quiet.

Capture before you switch

When you stop a timer on a session of 25 minutes or longer, Kiaro shows an optional bottom sheet with two questions: “What is still open or needs to be picked up next?” and “Was any decision made?” Whatever you enter is saved to your knowledge base as an open question or decision linked to that client and project, so it surfaces automatically in the client brief next time you open the page.

The sheet never blocks the timer from stopping. You can skip it with one click, or choose “Stop asking” to disable it permanently on that device. It only appears on substantial sessions to stay out of your way on quick checks and short tasks.

Editing time entries

Every time entry can be edited, whether it was created by the timer or logged manually. Click the pencil icon on any entry in the time list to open the full edit form where you can change the task, start time, duration, notes, and billable status.

For quick changes without leaving the list, click any of these fields to edit them in place:

Duration, Click the hours value, type a new number, press Enter
Notes, Click the notes text (or the dash if empty), type, press Enter
Billable, Click the $ icon to toggle billable/non-billable

Long-running timer protection

If a timer has been running for more than 6 hours of actual worked time, Kiaro pauses it and asks whether you are still working. You can choose to resume or stop and save the entry.

This protection applies whether or not your browser is open. If you close your tab or your laptop goes to sleep before stopping the timer, Kiaro still pauses it at the 6-hour mark on the server side, so you do not come back the next day to a full overnight of phantom hours. If a timer has been open for 24 hours straight, Kiaro automatically saves it at 6 hours and closes the entry — you will see a clean 6-hour entry on your time list rather than a runaway counter.

Once you have explicitly paused and resumed a timer at least once, Kiaro trusts that you are present and will not re-pause you every 6 hours. The 24-hour hard cap still applies.

Bulk actions

Select multiple time entries using the checkboxes, then use the bulk actions bar to:

Mark as billable or non-billable, update all selected entries at once
Delete, remove all selected entries (with confirmation)

A running total of selected hours appears in the toolbar so you see at a glance how many hours you’ve picked. This is useful for month-end cleanup, correcting entries in bulk, or assembling specific sets of time to invoice.

Time entry templates

For recurring work (weekly standups, regular meetings, retainers), create a template on the Time page:

Click Create Template
Set a label, task, duration, and optional notes
The template appears as a clickable pill on the Time page
Click the pill to instantly log that time, one click

Templates are stored locally in your browser. Hover over a template to reveal the delete button.

Weekly timesheet

Go to Time → Timesheet for a spreadsheet-style view of your week. Tasks appear as rows, days of the week as columns.

Click any cell to enter hours as a decimal (e.g., 1.5 for 1 hour 30 minutes)
Daily column totals and weekly row totals update automatically
Navigate between weeks with the Previous / Next buttons
Click Add Task to add a new task row to the timesheet. The row starts blank. Fill in any cells you want, then click Save changes to commit
Hover any row and click the × to remove that task from the week. Removal commits with the rest of your edits when you click Save changes
Filter by project using the dropdown above the grid (appears when you have 2+ projects)

Edits stay client-side until you click Save changes at the bottom of the grid. The grid will warn you if you try to leave the page with unsaved entries, which is handy when you’ve been filling out a week and accidentally close the tab.

This is ideal for entering time in bulk at the end of the day or week.

Timesheet approval (Team plan)

On the Team plan, everyone can submit their weekly timesheet for the workspace owner’s approval.

How to submit:

Go to Time > Weekly Timesheet and log your hours.
When you’re done, click Submit for Approval above the grid.
The workspace owner gets an email. Your timesheet for that week is locked (read-only) until reviewed.
If you need to make changes before review, click Revoke to unlock the week and edit again.

How the owner reviews:

The owner sees pending timesheets in their dashboard’s Needs Attention card and in the email notification.
Clicking through opens Time > Approvals, which lists all submitted timesheets awaiting review.
For each submission, the owner sees a breakdown of hours by task, project, and client.
Approve locks the week permanently and notifies the submitter.
Send back for changes requires a note explaining what needs fixing. The submitter gets an email with the feedback and can revise & resubmit.

Billable vs. non-billable

By default, all time entries are billable. Toggle an entry to non-billable for internal work like admin, learning, or meetings that won’t be invoiced.

The Time page shows summary cards including:

Hours, Total time logged
Billable Hours, Billable portion with a percentage rate
Billable Amount, Calculated from your project hourly rates
Uninvoiced, Billable amount not yet converted to an invoice

The cards reflect the filters applied above the table (date range, client, project, and billable). Set the range to This Week and the first and third cards read “Hours This Week” and “Billable Amount This Week”; filter to a single client and every card recalculates to that client’s totals. With no range filter the cards cover all time, so they always describe the same entries shown in the table below them.

The entry list groups time by day and shows a subtotal of hours and billable hours for each day. The list shows up to 7 days per page, so each page jump moves roughly a week at a time. This makes it easy to scan your time week by week or month by month.

Hourly rates

Set an hourly rate on each project (in Project → Edit). This rate is used to calculate billable amounts across all time views, the budget burn visualization on project pages, and line item amounts when creating invoices from time entries.

Time rounding

Configure automatic rounding in Settings → Goals. Options include:

None (exact minutes)
5 minutes
6 minutes (1/10 of an hour)
10 minutes
15 minutes
30 minutes

When rounding is enabled, timer entries and manual time logs are rounded up to the nearest increment. For example, with 15-minute rounding, 22 minutes becomes 30 minutes.

Creating invoices from time

Go to Time → Create Invoice from Time (or Invoices → From Time Entries) to convert your unbilled time into a draft invoice:

Select a client
Optionally filter by date range
Review the list of uninvoiced billable time entries
Select the entries to include (or select all)
Click Create Invoice

Kiaro groups the selected entries by task, calculates hours multiplied by the project’s hourly rate for each group, and creates a draft invoice with line items. The time entries are marked as invoiced so they won’t appear again.

Estimated vs. logged hours

Each task has an optional estimated hours field. As you log time, the task’s logged hours updates automatically. The task detail page shows both values so you can see whether work is on track.

Searching and filtering

The Time page includes filters for:

Date range, All Time, Today, This Week, This Month
Client, Filter entries by client
Project, Filter entries by project
Billable, Show only billable or non-billable entries
Sort, By date or duration

Active filters appear as removable chips above the time list. Click the X on any chip to clear that filter without opening the filter panel. If you apply filters that result in no entries, an empty state explains what happened and how to adjust your search.

Cross-tab sync

The timer syncs across browser tabs automatically. If you start a timer in one tab, other tabs will reflect the running timer immediately. You can’t accidentally run two timers at once.

Export

Export your time entry data from the time tracking list page. Click Export and choose CSV, Excel (.xlsx), or PDF (a formatted timesheet). The export respects the date range, billable, client, and project filters currently applied.