There are two ways to track time, and both produce exactly the same entry: the timer, for work happening right now, and manual entry, for what you remembered later. Most lost hours disappear because neither was used on the right day — so the practical rule is to record before switching tasks.
The timer
It sits in the header and follows you on every screen, including inside Reports or Customers. Pick the project and click Start; click Stop to end and save it.
Two details that save time every day:
The project comes pre-filled with the last one you used. If you spent the morning on Soap Factory's Rebranding, picking it back up after lunch is a single click.
Alt+S starts and stops without leaving the keyboard.
There is only one timer per person. If you start another one while one is running, the previous is closed — including when the two were started on different devices. That's deliberate: two simultaneous counts would produce more hours than the day has.
While the timer runs, the entry already shows in the day's list flagged as Timer running. It has no closed duration yet — so it doesn't count in the totals as completed time.
Manual entry
Go to My time › Today and click Log hours. The fields:
Project — the only required one, along with duration.
Task — optional, and the list changes with the project you pick.
Date — you can log on an earlier day. If that period was already approved, the system refuses and explains why (see Approving hours).
Duration — accepts 1:30, 1h30, 90m or 1.5.
Description — optional, but it's what saves the conversation when the client asks what those 6 hours on Tuesday were.
Billable — comes set according to the project, and you can change it case by case.
Billable or not: why it matters
Not every hour worked is an hour charged. Internal meetings, rework and goodwill happen and still cost money. Marking an hour as non-billable keeps it on the record without putting it on the client's bill — and that difference is exactly what the Profitability screen uses to calculate the project's efficiency.
Deleting a non-billable hour instead of flagging it is the most expensive mistake made here: it removes from the report the very time that explains why the margin shrank.
Fixing what went wrong
The Today tab is the correction screen. It lists the day's entries with project, person, description, whether it's billable, duration and — for those allowed to see amounts — the rate applied. From each row's action menu you edit or delete, and you can stop a timer that was left running.
If you don't see the edit or delete action on a row, the reason is one of two: that entry belongs to someone else and your role doesn't allow changing it, or the period has already been submitted or approved.
At the top sit the Day total and the Billable total — the pair of numbers that shows, at a glance, whether the day paid off.
Where the hours show up afterwards
Each entry immediately feeds three places: the weekly timesheet, the Reports and the project's Profitability. There's no "send" or "sync" step for that to happen — submission only exists in the optional approval flow.
Where to go next
The weekly timesheet — the grid that fills in what escaped.
When the internet drops — what happens to hours tracked offline.
Customers, projects and tasks — what must exist before tracking.
Approving hours — why a day may refuse edits.
Chrome extension — the timer without opening the app.
In short: use the header timer (or Alt+S) for work in progress and manual entry for what escaped; flag billable correctly; fix things on the Today tab. One timer per person, and nothing needs to be sent for the hours to count.