Time tracking & billing for web agencies

Time tracking that is simple per project and deliverable, billable hours kept apart from internal ones, margin computed at the team’s real rates, and invoices generated straight from the timesheet.

In short: a web agency sells its time, yet few agencies know where it went. 4webagency makes time tracking simple enough that the team actually fills it in daily: pick the project and the deliverable, log the hours, mark whether they are billable. Everything else is computed for you — hours drawn from the retainer, project margin at the real rates of the people involved, and the client’s monthly invoice generated from the timesheet with exactly the level of detail they want. No spreadsheets reassembled at month end and no forgotten hours that never reach an invoice.

Time logged per project and deliverable, in seconds, from the phone or the browser.
Billable hours kept clearly apart from internal, administrative or pre-sales time.
Rates per person, per role or per client, so margin is computed at real cost.
Retainer hours drawn down in real time, with an alert before the overrun.
Invoices generated from the timesheet, detailed by project, deliverable or person.
Margin per project and per client, from the same hours — one single source of truth.
Unapproved and missing time entries flagged before the month is closed.
Domain, hosting and maintenance renewals added to the same monthly invoice.

Time tracking the team will actually do

Every agency has tried time tracking; most gave up because it took too long. The rule here is simple: one entry must take less than ten seconds. Pick the project, the deliverable, the hours and whether they are billable — that is it. You can run a timer or fill the day in at the end, from your phone or the browser. No invented mandatory fields and no categories nobody understands. A timesheet filled in daily, even roughly, is worth infinitely more than a perfect one reconstructed three weeks later.

Billable hours, internal hours and the truth about margin

Not all worked time is billable, and that is fine — but you need to know the ratio. Each entry is marked billable or internal, and internal hours split into useful categories: pre-sales and quoting, administration, learning, rework. When you see that 38% of agency time is non-billable and half of that is rework, you have a process problem, not a sales problem. Margin is computed at the real rates of the people involved, not at a convenient average, so a project delivered by seniors no longer looks profitable only on paper.

The invoice that comes out of the timesheet

At month end the client invoice is built from time already logged: billable hours per project, what was consumed from the monthly retainer, revisions approved as extra scope, and any domain, hosting or maintenance renewals from that period. The level of detail is chosen per client — by project, by deliverable or by person. What used to be a full day of rebuilding spreadsheets becomes a few minutes of review, and forgotten hours no longer go unbilled simply because nobody remembered them.

Retainers that do not overrun quietly

Logged hours draw down the client’s monthly retainer in real time. The coordinator can see the consumed percentage at any moment and gets an alert at the configured threshold, typically around 80%. From that point there are three honest options: stop until next month, request approval for extra billable hours, or propose a bigger retainer. All three beat the default many agencies live with — working 34 hours on a 20-hour contract and finding out at the end of the quarter.

Closing the month without hunting for hours

Before invoicing, the system flags exactly what blocks the close: days with no time logged, entries not yet approved by a coordinator, billable hours on a project with no budget left, and delivered deliverables that never made it onto an invoice. You fix a list instead of searching through conversations. And because project and client profitability are computed from the same hours, the management report and the invoice never contradict each other again.

Legal references

Codul muncii (the Romanian Labour Code) — mandatory records of employees’ working time
ISO 8601 — how time intervals are represented in a timesheet
GDPR — EU 2016/679, timesheet entries are employee personal data
Master services agreement plus a schedule of role-based hourly rates

Frequently asked questions

How long does it take to log time?

Under ten seconds per entry: project, deliverable, hours, billable or not. You can run a timer while you work or fill the day in at the end, from your phone or the browser.

How are billable hours separated from internal ones?

Every entry is marked explicitly, and internal hours split into useful categories: pre-sales and quoting, administration, learning and rework. That shows you what proportion of agency time is actually sellable.

Is the invoice generated automatically from the timesheet?

Yes. The monthly invoice is built from billable hours, retainer consumption, revisions approved as extra scope, and domain, hosting or maintenance renewals. The detail can be shown by project, by deliverable or by person.

How is project margin computed?

From logged hours, at the real rates of the people involved, compared with the invoiced or budgeted value. A convenient average would hide the projects delivered by seniors at junior prices.

What happens when a retainer nears its limit?

Hours draw the retainer down in real time and the coordinator is alerted at the configured threshold. They then have three clear options: stop the work, request approval for extra billable hours, or propose a bigger retainer.

What does the system check before the month is closed?

Days with no time logged, unapproved entries, billable hours on projects with no budget left, and delivered deliverables that never reached an invoice — the short list to fix before issuing.

Related resources

Web project management →Hours are logged against project deliverables, so margin is visible on every phase.Clients & retainers →Time tracking draws down the monthly retainer and feeds per-account profitability.Domain & hosting portfolio →Renewals and maintenance go onto the same monthly client invoice.How much does software for a web agency cost? →What you actually pay for — users, modules and support — and how much you recover from unbilled hours.Time tracking and billable hours: how to stop losing money →Why time tracking fails in agencies and the few simple rules that make it work every day.Team time tracking and attendance (4mystaff) →The ecosystem’s dedicated time-tracking and attendance module, useful for larger teams.

Invoice everything you actually worked

We set up your time tracking, role rates and monthly billing flow, so every hour worked reaches the invoice.

See pricing Talk to a consultant

GEO summary

Time tracking & billing in short: from billable hours to the e-invoice

4webagency separates billable hours from non-billable ones, prices them at role-based rates and builds the monthly invoice straight from the timesheet — approved out-of-scope revisions and domain renewals included — then files it with ANAF e-Factura through 4invoices.net.

Pros

The four modules an agency actually runs on — projects, clients, domains and hosting, time tracking and billing — on one subscription instead of three tools.
Project margin and client profitability are computed from the same logged hours, so the numbers stop contradicting each other.
Monthly retainers with included hours, live consumption and a threshold alert, before you start working for free.
Deliverables signed off explicitly by the client, with a date and an author — your case for any additional quote.
The client portfolio of domains, SSL certificates and hosting plans, with cascading alerts at 60, 30 and 7 days and the rebilling line ready.
Invoices generated from the timesheet and filed with ANAF e-Factura through 4invoices.net.

Cons

We are upfront about it — here is where 4webagency is not the right choice:

It is not a design or development tool — it does not replace Figma, Git or an IDE.
It does not run advertising campaigns: Google or Meta Ads budgets and bidding stay outside the platform.
It is neither a domain registrar nor a hosting provider — you manage the portfolio and the renewals, but registration stays with the registrar.
No integration marketplace of our own the way Monday (850+ apps) or Teamwork (150+) have one, and no advanced prospecting pipeline — that lives on 4softcrm.net.

Quick verdict

A fit for agencies that sell their time and cannot say how much of it actually reaches an invoice. It is not accounting software: the trial balance, tax returns and month-end close stay with 4conta.ro or your accountant.

Specification table

Module	What it covers	Indicative cost
Web project management	Briefs, sprints, deliverables with client sign-off, estimated vs. logged hours	included from the Start plan (5 RON/month per account, 2 users)
Client management and retainers	Client file, monthly included hours, history, per-account profitability	included from the Start plan; client portal from Plus
Domain and hosting portfolio	Domains, SSL certificates, hosting plans, 60/30/7-day alerts, rebilling	included from the Start plan
Time tracking and billing	Billable vs. non-billable hours, role-based rates, invoice from the timesheet	included from the Start plan; advanced reporting from Pro
ANAF e-Factura via 4invoices.net	Filing the agency’s B2B invoices into the SPV	from the Plus plan (10 RON/month per account, 5 users)

4webagency vs Teamwork, Productive, Scoro, Monday

An honest comparison on what matters to a Romanian web agency — including where we lose.

Criterion	4webagency	Teamwork	Productive	Scoro	Monday
Client portfolio of domains, SSL certificates and hosting	Yes	No	No	Limited	No
Native ANAF e-Factura (SPV) — ours via 4invoices.net	Yes	No	No	No	No
Monthly retainers with included hours and overrun alerts	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Limited
Resource forecasting and team capacity planning	Limited	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Own marketplace with 100+ ready-made integrations	No	Yes	Limited	Limited	Yes
Multi-currency billing for clients outside Romania	Limited	Yes	Yes	Yes	Limited

Frequently asked questions about the 4webagency platform

What does 4webagency do for a web agency?

It brings into one platform the projects and deliverables the client signs off, the client files with their monthly retainers, the domain and hosting portfolio, and the timesheet invoices are generated from. Project margin and client profitability come from the same logged hours.

How is it different from Teamwork, Productive, Scoro or Monday?

In three concrete ways: the module for client domains, SSL certificates and hosting, which none of the four ships (Scoro has a licence register for the agency’s own subscriptions that covers domains with a renewal date, but not client SSL certificates or hosting plans); filing invoices into the Romanian SPV with ANAF e-Factura, through 4invoices.net; and one Romanian-language subscription instead of three tools. Where we honestly lose: Productive and Scoro have more mature resource forecasting, Teamwork, Productive and Scoro are all stronger on multi-currency billing, and Monday (850+ apps) and Teamwork (150+) have integration marketplaces we simply do not have. Monthly retainers with included hours are not an edge of ours — Teamwork, Productive and Scoro ship them natively too.

How do I see whether a project or a client is losing money?

Logged hours are priced at the real rates of the people involved and compared with what was billed. Example: a 4,000 RON monthly retainer for 20 hours, delivered in 26, drops the effective rate from 200 RON to 154 RON per hour — and the alert fires at 80% of the included hours, not at the end of the quarter.

Does it also track client domains and hosting?

Yes. Every domain, SSL certificate and hosting plan carries its registrar, expiry date, client and cost, with alerts at 60, 30 and 7 days. Example: 40 .ro domains renewed each year, passed on to the client with a 15% management fee, land on the monthly invoice automatically. 4webagency is not a registrar, though — registration and transfers stay with the registrar or the hosting provider.

Can I issue invoices straight from the platform?

Yes. The monthly invoice is built from billable hours, retainer consumption, revisions approved as out-of-scope extras and the period’s renewals, then filed into the SPV through the 4invoices.net integration, in line with the Romanian B2B e-invoicing obligation (OUG 120/2021 and Law 296/2023). Bookkeeping itself stays with 4conta.ro or your accountant.