Add description field / billable field to task time-entries-journal

[cdahinten]

What version of Invoice Ninja are you running? ie v4.5 / v5
5.0.53 V5-Stable

**What environment are you running?
Selfhost Raspberry 4 Raspbian OS

Have you searched existing issues/requests?
Disable Seconds in time tracking #1853
[Feature Request] Subtasks #1776
[Feature Request] Mark time entries as not billable #1486

Screenshots
If applicable, add screenshots to help explain your request/question.

Additional context
In my typical design-projects I have about 3–10 tasks with a lot of time-tracking entries e.g.:
– Conception
– Design Phase A
– Design Phase B
– Feedback / Corrections
– Handling / QA

Each task contains a huge number of entries (e.g. 50 min phone call, 3 h apply feedback to layout A+B+C, 45 min update layout with new pictures). As my customers expect me to document my/their times, it is nearly impossible to do it with the current invoiceninja-workflow due to the fact, that the time-journal is not documenting itself. In order to do that I had to "hack" the task-idea and make each small work on a project documented by adding a new task – which is not very efficient in my opinion. So it would be perfect having a description on each logged time for later documentation on invoices/journals.

Additional it would be a huge improvement, if there was an option to set the granulation of the time-entries. I personaly log times with 15-min-precision – offering seconds-precision is a bit strange in my scenario. It could be done like here:
https://www.kimai.org/documentation/timesheet.html#12-hour-ampm-format

As it seem to be an former discussed point it could be a great to have the time-entry preselected as billable / non billable. For psychological reasons it would be great if even non billable items would show up on invoices with zero times – optional.

As I am not a programmer I can not support you with a git pull request – but I really appreciate your work on that greate tool and the senational V5 version!

[hillelcoren]

I don't think it's likely we'll support setting a description per time log however we could add a timesheet view where you could manage multiple tasks, each with its own description.

[LiamKarlMitchell]

Descriptions are super useful for software developers, ideally it would be a feature same with Billable.
Each time entry should be its own line item?
At the moment you add Tasks to an invoice, but the task cannot be added to a 2nd invoice e.g. next months one but time entries could span multiple invoices, and you don't necessarily want to wait until the task is marked as done to invoice it.

Description and billable flags are a necessity.
Non billable tasks would not be shown in invoices, but would still want to be tracked.

[hillelcoren]

If we create a timesheet view it would enable you to easily create multiple tasks each with its own description.

[cdahinten]

I think the Task View is really sufficent and convenient. Right now eacht task has its own description already. I have no need of a timesheet view – I am in the need of documenting the smallest amount of time I use for clients projects. Let's imagine a Project:

Store-Website

with a made up Tasks like …

• Conception
• Design
• Feedback/Corrections
• Implementation
• Handling/QA

Each Task fills up with hundreds of logged times which for now I won't be able to answer my clients controlling questions due to the fact, that there is no option to put a description – or let's call it Comment – to the logged time entry.

I could use the task a other way. Same Project:

Store-Website

and create tagged Tasks for each small portion of time:

1. Meeting. Discussion on Timings, Ideas #Conception – 4 hr
2. Generate Mood Boards / Mockups / researsch #Conception - 2 hr
3. …

This workflow would enable me to invoice single logged times (=tasks) but would lead into a huge amount of items on view and on my invoice.

At the end me and my clients want to know, where the times went month ago.

[danielkoch]

@hillelcoren and @cdahinten: Is there any update on this task or final decision? I think it's important to come to a conclusion and close/get ride of open issues. I personally have the same requirement on my side. Currently waiting/watching this. Till now it looks like that there will be no functionality like this. If that's the case I prefer to make it "final" and close the ticket. So we can see how we can handle this differently.

[cdahinten]

@danielkoch as for me the evaluating process stopped. Creating a flood of tasks as a workaround for propper time-entry description per timeslot is not practical to me. I'll come back later on time when the projects evolves.

For users in German markets it would be neccessary to have task-categories, which hold the tax-rate 7% (creative taks) or 19% (ohters) and assign those to tasks/timesheet-entries. This could be done here only in manual invoice-edit sessions which is not purpose of using software. (also see #5372 (comment))

I have done a workaround with no great fun to use:

• create custom field text in tasks like "Internal Comment"
• Define two types of products: 7% Creative/Design/Concept, 19% Layout
• Manualy chose the product for each task entry when editing the invoice

I hope, one time the workflow is possible here, if those issues get more attenotion or upvotes, @hillelcoren ?

[hillelcoren]

@danielkoch this issue is on our radar, we think we have a solution for it.

@cdahinten I've given the issue an upvote, if it gets more votes over time we'll try to prioritize it.

[turbo124]

@danielkoch

We have the functionality checked into the api to accept descriptions per time entry. @hillelcoren should we also add the billable flag per line item as well?

[hillelcoren]

@turbo124 sure, sounds good!

Please also add a company setting to enable/disable the feature in the UI.

[danielkoch]

Sounds great!
To make it complete I think it would also be very good to have another option to add the comment field to the invoice line, similar to the already existing options:

And take into account the markdown setting:

The rendered HTML could look like:

<div class="task-time-details">
	16/Feb/2023 8:30:00 AM - 9:30:00 AM<br/>
	<div class="task-time-details-comment">- My markdown comment</div>
	16/Feb/2023 9:30:00 AM - 10:30:00 AM<br/>
	<div class="task-time-details-comment">- My markdown comment</div>
</div>

[hillelcoren]

Coming soon...