ictime is not an accounting software, so you can't create real invoices to send physically or as file to your customers. However, you can

create export files of work logs to use or import them to another software as base for invoicing (this is not described here, please refer to Reports: Work Log Details and Reports: Financial Summary)
charge work logs and create "pro forma" invoices.

Apart from the accounting aspect, charging work logs simply helps you to keep work logs organised. Everything that has been charged once can't be edited or deleted any longer and usually all default settings in reports and timesheets do not include work logs that have been charged.

You can also charge work logs that have been created before you have installed ictime, even though such work logs originally do not contain the extended information provided by ictime. When doing this, ictime will automatically add data and will also set a flag in the database that shows that these work logs have been automatically extended with ictime data during the invoicing process. Price list relation and activity type for such entries will always be NULL.

Charge Work Logs

Setting work logs to "charged" (creating an "invoice") is done as follows:

Create report that includes the work logs you want to include in your "invoice".
Exclude (de-select) single work log entries that you don't want to charge from the report (optional).
Fill in data to identify the invoice and charge (create the "invoice").

Step1: Create Report

Go to

ictime - Reporting & Accounting - Reporting

and create the report you need with the option "Prepare charging work logs" checked.

The option "Prepare charging work logs" will only be able if the following is considered (otherwise it will be deactivated):

You can only create an invoice for one project at a time. If you choose all or multiple projects, you won't get the option to charge the work logs.
You need to select "not charged" as "Work Log Status" for the report. If you choose "all" or "charged", you won't get the option to charge the work logs.

For further details regarding report configuration, see Create Reports.

Step 2: Exclude Work Logs (Optional)

You can de-select (exclude) single work log entries from your report by clicking the respective checkbox in the left column of the list view or structured view. They won't be included in the "invoice" and will remain with the status "not charged". This feature is useful if it is not possible to get exactly the results you need to invoice with the filter/search options of reports.

To exclude an entry, click the respective checkbox in the "Exclude" column of the report work log details. The column/checkbox only appears if you have chosen "Prepare charging work logs" as option for the report.

If you are excluding work logs in the structured view, you first have to click on the respective issue.

When working in the structured view mode of the work log details, you can also exclude all work logs of one issue by checking the checkbox in the issue row. All work logs of the issue will be checked.

You can exclude as many entries as you need (this also works when navigating to following pages). The number of work logs excluded is displayed below the list.

If you want to undo your complete selection, please click on the button "Clear" below the list. All checkboxes (on all pages, if applicable) will be un-checked and page will be re-loaded.

In order to see the (financial) results of excluding an entry, please click the refresh icon in the report summary:

Please note that entries you have excluded do not appear in the work log .xls export (change in version 3.1). For versions prior to 3.1., they would still appear in the export. In this case, if you require an export of the work log details for internal accounting or for your customer, you could do this export after having created the invoice by going to the detail view of the invoice and choosing the export option (see Accounting - Invoice List). This export won't contain work logs you have excluded.

Step 3: Create Invoice

When you create an invoice in ictime, you are not really creating a physical invoice, but you are performing an action that represents creating an invoice in another software system (your accouting or ERM software) and in addition you can generate a download file that contains data you might directly use for importing into such a software system (if you want to download the report details and financial summary, you can either do this before creating the invoice, or you can do it later from the list of invoices). Creating an "invoice" in ictime basically means that all selected work logs get a manual reference to a real "invoice" and the ictime status of all work logs included in the invoice changes to "charged". The status transition is important, as these work logs - by default - disappear from reports and you can't modify or delete them any longer.

To create the invoice, click the respective "Accounting - Charge Work Logs" button above or below the report's financial summary:

There are a few cases where this button won't be displayed:

If approval is enabled and set to manadatory (see Global Add-on Configuration and Approval) and your report contains work logs that are not approved, you will see a message here and the button is not displayed.
If your report contains work logs with warnings (see Fix Work Logs (Warnings Tab)) you will see a message here and the button is not displayed.

The message could look like follows:

If conditions described above are met, the following mask will be displayed:

Field	Description	Remarks
Name	A name that helps you to identify this invoice.	Pre-populated with the project name.
Date	Invoice date. You can set any date in the future or past, too.	Pre-populated with the current date.
Invoice No.	Invoice no.	Either a dummy number or the real invoice number (you might first enter a placeholder and later on replace it by the real invoice number).
Billed Sum	Sum you have charged (might not be the same like the sum from *ictime*)	optional
Text	Text with further information for this invoice.	optional
Comment	Additional comment (e.g. to explain why there is a difference between the result from *ictime* and the billed sum)	optional

Purpose of most fields is to provide a reference to the real invoice that helps you to easily identify which ictime invoice belongs to which real invoice. You can edit all data later on (see Accounting - Invoice List).

Below these fields, the financial summary belonging to the report (without excluded entries) is displayed for informational purposes.

Click on "Save" and the invoice will be created.

Before the invoice is created, the system will do a check - based on timestamps of work logs and the report itself - to ensure that none of the entries of your report has been modified in the meantime. If this is the case - e.g. because you have made changes in a second browser window and did not refresh the report - you will get an error message and have to refresh the report before trying again.

If for any reason, ictime fails to set a work log entry to status charged in the process of invoicing, the invoice will be created with the other entries and you get a message that some work logs could not be included. In this case, run your report again to identify the positions that could not be included (they will still have the "non charged" status).

After sucessfully creating an invoice, you will be redirecetd to the invoice list; see Accounting - Invoice List.

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