About billing category listings
TimeCache uses billing categories to track the type of work you do, and what types of billable expenses you incur. You create and edit billing category listings in the Category Info dialog which appears when you choose the appropriate options from the List Manager, or type a new category name in the Daily Log and tell TimeCache to create a listing based on that name.


Every billing category must have a unique name. If you want to have different rates for the same category (e.g. so that you can charge different clients different rates), you need to create listings with different names. For example, you might have listings for Design 80, Design 90 and Design 100, that reflect the rate in the name, or listings for Ajax Design, Acme Design, and Whosits Design that reflect the client in the name. If you want the name to appear differently in reports and invoices (e.g. simply Design, so that your clients don't wonder about your naming scheme), enter that as the Report alias in the Billing Category dialog.

Time-based billing categories, or Activities, must have billing rates assigned to them (although the rate can be 0 if you don't want to bill for a particular activity).

You can also assign a unique Calendar shortcut for use when adding entries in iCal. This can make it easy to track time and expenses on an Apple mobile device.

Tracking expenses
Expense-based billing categories can be per-unit listings which have a billing rate. These can be useful for tracking items with per-unit costs, such as photocopies or mileage. To create a per-unit expense billing category, you click the Expense button and check the Per-unit expense checkbox that appears for Expense categories, then fill in a per-unit billing rate.

Other expense-based billing categories can be created for use with expenses that need to be billed at whatever amount you paid, such as art supplies, parking, etc. You can also use expense-based categories for some time-based billing situations such as day rates.

Adding markups
Any billing category can be set to use a markup amount by default, and up to three tax amounts by default. Before you can apply a markup or taxes, you need to define them as Markup listings in the List Manager, or as tax rates in the Taxes panel of TimeCache Preferences. If you set a billing category to use a default markup or tax percentage, any entries you make using that billing category will automatically add the markup and/or tax percentage. You can override those automatically added amounts on an individual basis. See How to change Daily Log entries in the Daily Log section and How to change Job Sheet entries in the Job Sheets section of TimeCache Help for more information.

Changing rates
Be careful when editing billing category rates. If you change a rate and then later make any change to a saved entry that includes that billing category, the charges for that entry will change to reflect the new rate. Changes to entry charges only occur when you change entries in some way.

Billing options
TimeCache also offers billing options if you bill clients the same rate for all work you do for them, or the same rate for all work on individual projects/matters. And there is another type of billing category which can be useful if you have a retainer agreement with clients.