How to Set Up Your First Billable Project in Time-Trak

Start Before You Think You Are Ready

Most freelancers put off setting up time tracking because it feels like admin. It is not. It is the difference between an invoice you can defend and one you have to guess at.

Here is how to get your first billable project running in Time-Trak before the work starts.

Create the Client First

Everything in Time-Trak flows from the client record. Open the app and add your client before you touch anything else. Use their actual company name, not a nickname. You will thank yourself when you are searching logs three months from now.

Add their email address here too. When you generate an invoice later, it pulls from this record automatically.

Add the Project

Under your new client, create a project. Name it something specific. Not "Website" but "Website Redesign Q3." Vague project names create vague invoices, and vague invoices create delayed payments.

Set a project type: hourly or fixed. If you are billing by the hour, you are done here. If it is fixed price, add the total budget. Time-Trak will track your hours against it so you can see when you are approaching the limit before you blow past it.

Set Your Billing Rate

This is where most people rush. Take thirty seconds and do it right.

If this client gets your standard rate, enter it here. If they negotiated something different, enter that. If you do different types of work for them at different rates, you can set those as separate tasks within the project.

Do not leave the rate blank and plan to fill it in later. Later never comes, and you end up doing math at invoice time with a bad memory.

Configure the Timer Widget

Time-Trak sits in the corner of your screen as a floating widget. Before you start your first session, go to preferences and make sure the widget is visible and the project is already selected.

The goal is zero friction when it is time to start working. If you have to dig through menus every morning to find the right project, you will start forgetting to run the timer. Then the tracking falls apart and the invoice suffers.

Pin your most active project to the top of the widget list. One click to start, one click to stop.

Turn On Screenshots

If you are working with a new client, turn on automatic screenshots now. Not because you expect a dispute. Because having a visual record from day one means you never have to scramble to prove anything later.

Time-Trak takes random screenshots at intervals you set. You can review them before sharing anything. They live in your records alongside your time entries, organized by project and date.

Some freelancers skip this on small projects. That is the project where the client eventually asks a question about the hours. Set it up anyway.

Log a Test Entry

Before the real work starts, run the timer for sixty seconds and stop it. Open the time log and confirm the entry shows the right client, project, rate, and timestamp.

Fix anything that looks wrong now. It takes ten seconds. Finding a misconfigured rate after forty hours of logged work takes considerably longer.

Write a Task Description Standard

Decide right now how you will write your time entries. A short phrase that tells the client what you were doing. Not "work" or "coding" but "revised homepage layout per client feedback" or "drafted section three of proposal."

You are going to generate an invoice from these entries. Your client will read them. Write them that way from the start.

You Are Ready

Client created. Project named. Rate set. Widget pinned. Screenshots on. Test entry logged.

That is the whole setup. It takes less than ten minutes, and it means every hour you work from here is accounted for, organized, and ready to bill.

Track your time, bill every minute.

Time-Trak is a native Mac and Windows time tracker with a floating timer, automatic screenshots, and one-click invoicing.

Free during beta.

macOS + Windows · Floating widget · Auto screenshots