When Entering in your Time, you may select to enter the Time Entry as a New Item in the Project or you may choose to Join to Existing Item depending on how you and your client prefer to see the Time being billed on the Client Invoice.
If each Time Entry is selected to be a New Item, an individual Item will be created in the Project for the Time Entry and each will be listed separately on the Client Invoice. If the Join to Item option is used, each Time Entry will be joined or attached to a parent Time Item in order to have single Item be displayed on the Client Invoice represent the total of all joined Time Entries.
These can be set as a Company-wide setting so all Projects will be configured as desired. To do so, go to File --> Company Information and Settings. On the Company Window, click the Advanced button then go to the Time Tab on the Company Advanced Options Window as shown below.
The Create Item Options determine how the Time Entries will be created. New Item forces the Time Entry to create a separate Item in the Project. Join to Time Item makes the user attach the Time Entry to an existing Item so a single Item representing all the Time Entries is displayed on the Invoice. The User Can Choose option allows each user select whether to make a New Item or Join to an Item for each Time Entry created.
Let's review how each option ultimately appears on the Client Invoice beginning with the New Item option. When the user adds Time Entries using the New Item option, an Item is created in the Project for each Time Entry as mentioned previously.
As such, when the Invoice is created, each Item representing the Time Entry is listed separately.
When using the Join to Item option, the user will attach each Time Entry to an Item so a single Item for the desired time period is included on the Invoice.
For this method, a Time Item must be created initially so Time Entries can be joined. To do so, add an Item through Specifications and use the Time Budget option. Once the Time Budget option is selected, you can enter the appropriate Description for the Time Item and the desired time period in the Record Time From date range.
Pro Cloud can also be configured to create a monthly Time Item for your Project using the Automatically Create Monthly Item option on the Project Advanced Options Window - Time Tab.
When adding Time Entries using the Join to Item method, the Time Entries will accumulate under the desired Time Item.
When invoiced to the client, the Item Description and total price to the client will be displayed rather than each individual Time Entry.
