Forgot Your Timesheet Again? nex-track Drafts It Automatically

Forgot your timesheet again? You are not alone. Hours you forget to log are hours you never bill.

Most timesheet software waits for you to remember your week and type it in. nex-track drafts it automatically: the tasks you create in nex-orbit and the meetings you host in nex-cal become your week before you open it. Automatic timesheets, and you still decide what is submitted.

The solution: timesheets that draft themselves

• The tasks you create in nex-orbit draft your timesheet automatically, and so do the meetings you host in nex-cal. You check the week in a couple of minutes.
• It never makes up hours. One tap fills your week. A meeting you hosted is certain, time on a task comes with its hours and where they came from, and anything else stays blank. Nothing counts until you submit it.
• Or just say it: "three hours to wireframes on Monday", and the hours land in their cell.
• Your timesheet tells you first. Before you submit, it says what ran over and what changed on the task: "Logo options has now taken 6 hours against its 3-hour estimate", blocked for two days, sent back from Review. One tap tells your manager upfront, in your own words, if you want to.
• Your manager gets insights, not just numbers. Approvals read as sentences, approved hours land on the job at the right rate, and the invoice is ready the same day.
• And many more ways to draft your timesheet automatically, so you never miss it: every morning your standup has yesterday's time drafted and waiting, and a one-click timer checks back instead of running away.

This post introduces nex-track, Nexcubator's time, costs and billing app. For the whole picture, read What Is Nexcubator?

About the visuals: the diagrams, the concept video and the animated loops are illustrations that explain the ideas, not product screens, because the screens keep improving and the ideas do not change. The two short videos show nex-track at the time of writing. The company, the people and the figures in all of them are invented.

Why timesheets fail, and the billable hours it costs

It is Friday at five. Somebody opens the timesheet and tries to remember what they did on Tuesday. They guess. The week goes to a manager as one email among sixty and sits there for four days. Then somebody exports it into a spreadsheet, rebuilds the bill at last year's rate, forgets the extra work agreed on a call, and the invoice goes out eleven days after the work was finished.

Nobody did anything wrong. The work just passed through five hands and three tools, and each one waited on the one before. That delay shows up in three places:

The people and figures in our examples are made up. The eleven days are not unusual.

A week at Harbour Works: an illustrative case study

Harbour Works is an invented design agency. Nora Byrne and Liam Farrell are invented people.

It is Friday. Nora's week of 5 to 11 October is empty: nothing booked, 37.5 contracted hours to account for.

She presses Draft my week. A panel lists what nex-track found in her own week, grouped by how sure it is: the task she created in nex-orbit on Friday, App screenshots, and the meetings she hosted in nex-cal, from the Northwind call on Monday to the Team retro on Friday. Nine meetings she hosted with others are certain, each with its evidence, like "Design review, Tue 10:00 (you hosted it)". Her work on five tasks arrives with its hours already in, worth a glance: the focus time she booked for Logo options on Tuesday, 9:00 to 11:00, and her first and last action on each of the others, less the meetings in between. Each number says where it came from. An invitation she never answered is a guess, and starts unticked.

She reviews them at a glance and confirms. Where a day still has hours nobody can account for, she can press Spread the rest over these tasks, her choice, never automatic. The foot of the panel says what is left: "26.5 h not accounted for of your 37.5 h, left blank, never invented." She presses Put these in my week, and the week fills.

She remembers Monday morning on the wireframes, and types it in the Say it box: "three hours to wireframes on Monday". The cell fills, and the meter shows 36.25 h of 37.5 h.

Before she submits, the week tells her something first. Under Worth knowing before you submit: "Logo options has now taken 6 hours against its 3-hour estimate, 3 hours more than planned." Below it, what changed on the task, read from the task itself: it was blocked for two days waiting on the client's sign-off, it moved back from Review to Doing on Wednesday, and two subtasks were added after it was estimated. Nora knows why. She presses Tell Liam now, adds "the client asked for two more rounds", and sends it. Liam hears it from her, in her words, before the week lands on his desk. Then she presses Submit this week.

It is the person's choice, every time. The insight is shown to her by default; nothing goes to Liam until she presses Tell. And every sentence is a fact about the task and its estimate, never a score for Nora.

Liam opens Needs approving. He does not decode a grid. He reads the sentences worth reading: Nora's heads-up about Logo options, already in her own words, and "Four hours on a task that was never estimated, so never in the plan: App screenshots." No surprise, no chasing. He approves the week in one tap, and the hours are on the jobs.

Over the quarter, the hours turn into insights, because every hour is tied to a task and a goal in nex-orbit. Where the time went puts each goal's actual hours beside its tasks' estimates and says what is worth a look: "102 hours went to 'Launch the spring range'. It was closed as missed, worth a learning," and Grow Northwind at 114 hours against a 40-hour estimate, with one task that was never estimated. It is about the work and the goals, never a score for a person.

Better still, there is no Friday at all. nex-orbit's intelligent Standup drafts Nora's daily status from her own work each morning, and her time with it: Yesterday's time, drafted for you. The meetings she hosted are there with their hours, and so are the tasks her focus time or her own actions account for, each saying where its number came from. She glances, presses Put it in and shares her update. Because Harbour Works sets a daily minimum of 7.5 hours, Standup asks for the day before first, so it is never skipped. Two minutes, every morning, and the week is never empty on Friday.

Why there are other timesheet tools, and what they miss

There are good reasons people buy what they buy. A timesheet app is simple. An activity tracker promises accuracy. A project tool's timer is right where the work is. A spreadsheet is free and everybody knows it. Each one solves part of the problem, and each one leaves a gap that a person fills by hand:

• A timesheet app gives you a blank grid on Friday. It does not know your tasks or your meetings, so you remember the week, or guess it.
• An activity tracker gets its accuracy by watching people: screenshots, keystrokes, the apps you use. Teams resent it, and it still cannot tell which client a phone call was for.
• A project tool's timer works until somebody forgets to stop it, and the hours stop at the task: no approval, no rate, no invoice.
• At submit, any of them stays silent. A task that ran over is noticed weeks later, by somebody else, as a surprise.
• A spreadsheet and an export means the bill is rebuilt by hand, at last year's rate, eleven days after the work.

nex-track does each of these by default, because it sits on the same tasks, meetings and goals as the rest of Nexcubator: the week is drafted from your own work, nothing watches you, your standup has yesterday ready every morning, your timesheet tells you first what ran over and why, and approved hours are billed the same day.

The rest of this post explains the concepts underneath.

Concept 1: Automatic timesheets, drafted and never tracked

The idea: the week is proposed automatically from what you already did, and nothing counts until you submit it.

People record time in three different moods, so there are three ways in, and all of them end in the same weekly review:

1. As it happens. A timer on the piece of work you are doing. It checks back when the time you said is up, so a forgotten timer never books an afternoon.
2. Afterwards. One line, any time, for the site visit, the phone call or the drive: the work that never touched a keyboard.
3. At the end of the week. nex-track drafts the week from your own diary, your tasks in nex-orbit, Nexcubator's task management app, and the meetings you attended, with the job each one was on.

Two more ways in, so you never miss a day: your daily standup in nex-orbit has yesterday's time drafted and waiting each morning, or just say it: "two hours to hero copy on Tuesday" puts the hours on that row. A sentence it does not understand is refused, never guessed.

Each drafted line says how sure it is and where its hours came from: a meeting you hosted, focus time you booked for the task, or your own first and last action on it. Gaps stay gaps: a day with only three hours accounted for says so, and Nexcubator will not invent the rest. The draft never reads messages, email, documents or anybody else's activity.

Concept 2: Correct it once, and it learns a rule you can read

The idea: a correction should teach the system something, in your words, and you should be able to see and delete what it learned.

When a line is wrong you mark it as not yours, and nex-track asks why in plain words. Pick a reason, such as "Meetings under 15 minutes are not work for me", and it becomes a rule. The rule is written in your words, sits in a list you can read, and has a delete button beside it.

Nothing counts until you submit the week. After that it is locked: a correction is a new entry that points at the old one, so the day a number reaches an invoice or a pay run, you can always see who changed it and what it said before.

Concept 3: Timesheet approval in sentences, not red icons

The idea: a manager should see why a week needs attention, in words, and what it is holding up.

A week that needs attention arrives with a sentence, not a red icon. "12 hours over contracted" and "14 hours on a goal that was closed as missed" are different kinds of problem, and a sentence makes the manager read the difference. Approving is one click. Returning a week needs a reason, and the reason stays on the week, so it does not come back unchanged.

The person filling in the week sees the same kind of sentence first. A task that ran past its estimate is shown with what changed on it, and they can tell their manager upfront, in their own words, before they submit. The manager reads that heads-up beside the week, so the conversation starts before the surprise.

The screen shows facts about work, not judgements about how a person worked.

Concept 4: Approved hours become margin and an invoice the same day

The idea: the moment work is approved, it is costed, billable and visible on the job. Nobody rebuilds it from an export.

The moment a week is approved, the hours are on the job at the right rate, and the job view shows the estimate beside the actual, labour cost, other costs, what is billable now and the margin, before the client sees an invoice.

• Three billing modes on one screen. Time and materials bills the hours. Fixed price bills the agreement and still records the hours, because that is where margin is won or lost. A retainer shows what is left all month.
• Costs follow the same path as hours. Materials, travel and subcontractors are entered, submitted and approved, and rebillable lines go on the invoice.
• Rates stay private. Labour cost is shown as a total. The cost rate behind it is never displayed or exported.

An invoice is built from approved hours and approved costs only; anything not yet approved is shown and held back, so it never carries a number a manager has not seen. nex-track prepares it, your accounting package numbers it, sends it and tracks payment, and nex-track records which lines went on which invoice, so every line is billed exactly once.

Concept 5: Project time tracking against goals, not people

The idea: once a quarter, ask whether the effort went where the goals were, and whether anything was learnt.

One question matters more than productivity: did our effort go where our goals were, and did we learn from the parts that did not? Because you track time on tasks, and every task in nex-orbit serves a goal, the hours roll up on their own. Where the time went puts the actual hours beside the estimate for every goal, and a goal closed as missed or abandoned says it is worth a learning.

"36 hours on a goal closed as missed, and no learning written" is the most useful sentence this screen produces.

The principle underneath: time tracking without surveillance

Most time tracking software earns its accuracy by watching people: screenshots, keystrokes, app usage. nex-track does the opposite.

• Drafted automatically, never submitted automatically. Every way in produces a draft, and only a person's submit makes it count.
• It reads your diary, your tasks and the meetings you attended, and nothing else. Never messages, email, documents or other people's activity.
• Approvals show facts about work, such as hours over contract or time on a closed goal, never a judgement about how someone worked.

It is the difference between a system that watches you and one that saves you the typing. Most weeks it is a couple of minutes. You can see the full picture on the time, costs and billing page and how it fits the rest of Nexcubator in How it works.

Frequently asked questions

Related reading

• What Is Nexcubator?: the ideas behind Nexcubator and all its apps.
• Time, costs and billing: the nex-track feature page.
• The Nexcubator AI assistant: how it chases the timesheet that is holding up a bill.
• Your Business Runs on Twelve Apps: what separate time, billing and HR tools really cost.
• Your Company Keeps Learning the Same Lesson: why effort against goals matters.

Where it stands

nex-track is Nexcubator's time, costs and billing app, and is available in the beta now, alongside nex-cal and the meetings it drafts from.

If your hours are written on a Friday and billed a fortnight later, start with the part that hurts most. That is exactly the conversation we want to have.

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Nexcubator is business software by Aitina Tech. Request early access and tell us how your time gets from the work to the invoice.