Disclosure: we make Time Tracking for Trello (listed in the Trello Power-Up directory as just another Time Tracker), and the examples below use it. Most of the steps work with any tracker. Where we compare invoicing tools, prices come from each vendor's own page as of September 2026, and we say plainly where another tool is the better fit.
Trello doesn't record time. An Atlassian team member confirmed in a May 2025 community answer that Trello has no native time-tracking features, so the hours have to come from a Power-Up or an outside tracker. Our guide to logging hours in Trello covers that choice. This post picks up from there and follows the week of an agency or small firm that bills by the hour.
What a timesheet needs to contain
In a 2021 community thread, someone asked for a date, task and hours log that could become “an hours log for payroll or invoicing clients”. For billing, each line needs a few more fields than that.
| Field | Why you need it | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Date | Invoices and payroll cover a period | The day the time was logged |
| Person | Payroll, and spotting odd weeks | The Trello member who tracked it |
| Card and list | The client will ask what the hours were for | The card the time was logged on |
| Client | Decides who gets billed | The board, or the card on a mixed board |
| Duration | The quantity on the invoice | A timer or a manual entry |
| Billable flag | Internal work stays off the invoice | A default, corrected by an admin |
| Rate at the time | Amount = hours × the rate that applied then | Stored on the entry when it's logged |
| Comment | Answers questions later | Typed by the person |
Trello's own export can't supply this. Board CSV export needs a Premium workspace, and a card has no hours on it to export anyway.
Setting up boards so hours land on the right client
Billing is most reliable when the client follows from where a card lives, so nobody has to tag each entry. Three layouts cover most agencies.
One board per client
This is the simplest layout. In Time Tracking for Trello, a board admin adds the client to the workspace client list with an hourly rate and assigns it to the board. New time on any card there is then billable at that rate. If deals arrive through a pipeline board, set the client and rate when you create the board for a won deal.
One board shared by several clients
Support boards and "small jobs" boards often mix clients. Assign the client on each card instead. A card's client overrides the board's, so a board can also have a default client with a few cards pointed elsewhere.
Internal boards
Leave the client empty on boards for hiring, sales or your own website. Time on a card without a client is saved as non-billable. That also applies to a new client board before its client is set, so assign the client before work starts, or an admin will have to switch those entries over.
If your tracker has no client list
Use one label per client and group the report by label. Across boards, the label must be spelled the same everywhere, or "Acme" and "ACME Ltd" become two groups; our post on keeping labels identical across boards covers the options. Give each card a single client label, because a card with two labels is counted in both groups. A Custom Field works too, but Custom Fields need Standard or higher.
One caveat about moving cards between client boards: in Time Tracking for Trello the card itself still shows its full history, but badges, reports and exports on the new board only include time logged after the move.
The weekly timesheet: per person, then per card
A weekly timesheet answers two questions in order: whether each person logged a believable week, and which cards the hours went into. Ours is a week grid (starting Monday or Sunday, a workspace setting) with one row per person, their cards underneath, and a total under every column.
Without a tracker, people try to rebuild the month from the cards. One poster described “a created:month search and ctrl+clicking each card” and found “it's hard to be accurate that way” (April 2021 thread). Counting finished cards doesn't tell you the hours.
A weekly routine that keeps the numbers usable:
- Friday, everyone: check your own week. Add forgotten work as a manual entry (the field reads 1h 30m, 90m or 1.5). A timer left running stops by itself at the workspace limit of 4, 8, 12 or 24 hours and records that limit, so correct it to what you worked.
- Monday, the board admin: open last week's timesheet across the client boards and look for empty days and entries longer than a working day.
- Monday, the board admin: open the report for the same week, group it by client, and check the non-billable time for anything that should be billed.
- Save those filters as a view so next Monday takes one click. Saved views are private to whoever saves them.
Two details affect the invoice. Our timer doesn't round: clicks under 5 seconds are discarded, anything from 5 seconds counts as at least a minute, and longer entries are kept exactly. If a contract bills in 15-minute blocks, apply that in your invoicing tool. And board admins can edit, delete or change the billable flag on anyone's entries on boards they administer, but they can't add an entry for someone else. The person who did the work logs it.
Between Mondays, the dashboard shows the current week by day, board, card and member, and can compare it with last week.
Billable and non-billable time, and why each entry keeps its rate
Not every hour on a client board is billable. An internal handover, fixing your own team's bug or the call before a quote is signed often isn't. In Time Tracking for Trello, time on a card that has a client (directly or through its board) is billable by default, and a board admin can switch any single entry either way in the report. Admins' exports show billable time, billable amount and non-billable time in separate columns.
Why the rate must be stored on each entry
Say a client pays €60 an hour through August and you raise the rate to €70 from 1 September. In mid-September you export August for a late invoice. If the tool prices entries at the client's current rate, the 10 August hours now come to €700 instead of the agreed €600. If each entry stores the rate it was logged at, August stays at €600.
We store the rate on the entry, and switching an old entry to billable prices it at that stored rate too. Trackers differ here: Clockify lists “Historical rates” on its Basic plan, described as “Apply new hourly rates to past time entries”. Whatever you use, find out how it behaves before you change a rate.
One rate per client, not per person
Our rates belong to the client, so a senior and a junior on the same client bill at the same rate, and each workspace has one currency. If your contracts price people differently, that is a real gap. Chronos, another Power-Up in the directory, sets hourly rates per member with effective dates.
Keeping rates private on a shared board
Many agencies invite clients onto their boards. In Time Tracking for Trello, roles come straight from Trello board membership, with nothing extra to set up:
- Every board member, observers included, sees everyone's time entries on that board, comments included.
- Only board admins see rates, billable amounts, budgets and clients. The server removes them for everyone else, so they never reach a non-admin's screen.
- Exports follow the same rule. A non-admin's CSV or XLSX has no billing columns, and in a multi-board export amounts are filled in only for boards you administer.
So a client you invite as a member or observer can see the hours on each card and read the entry comments, but not what you charge. Write comments as if the client will read them, and don't make a client a board admin.
Other tools draw the line elsewhere. The Chronos listing says only workspace admins see rates and totals. Everhour's Power-Up documentation says admins and members can both view other members' time entries. Before entering real rates, check what a non-admin account sees.
Exporting hours to Excel without broken columns
The classic complaint is a CSV that opens with everything in column A. Excel splits .csv files on the list separator from the Windows region settings, and the comma is the default for US English, according to Microsoft's troubleshooting article. Microsoft's guide to importing and exporting CSV files adds that a comma decimal separator makes Excel use a semicolon as the list separator. That is why comma-separated files often break in countries that write decimals with a comma, which includes much of continental Europe.
The person opening the file has two fixes:
- Import instead of double-clicking. On the Data tab, in the Get & Transform Data group, choose From Text/CSV and pick the delimiter. The preview shows the columns before you load them.
- Change the list separator in Windows region settings. Microsoft warns this changes it for every application, not only Excel.
It is simpler to send a file that already matches. In Time Tracking for Trello the CSV separator is a workspace setting (comma, semicolon or tab), and the file starts with a byte order mark so Excel reads accented names correctly. XLSX avoids separators altogether; it is capped at 25,000 rows, while CSV has no cap.
Durations: 1h 30m, 1.5 or two columns
The way a duration is written decides whether a spreadsheet can add it up. The export offers three formats:
| Format | Example | Can be summed | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hours and minutes | 1h 30m | No | Reading, or sending to a client as is |
| Decimal hours | 1.5 | Yes | Invoicing tools that expect hours as a quantity |
| Split columns | 1 and 30 | Yes | Any locale; hours = hours + minutes / 60 |
A note for decimal-comma Excel: with a semicolon or tab separator, our CSV writes decimal hours and amounts with a decimal comma (1,5 and 97,50), and with a comma separator it uses a dot. XLSX stores decimal and split durations and all amounts as numbers, so locale doesn't matter there. If the report is grouped, for example by client, the file gets a Group column that a pivot table can total.
From hours to invoice: which tools write the invoice
Time Tracking for Trello does not create, number or send invoices. It suits teams that already have invoicing or accounting software: export a client's hours and amounts, then bill from there. If you want the invoice generated from the time data, these tools do it (prices from each vendor's page, as of September 2026):
| Tool | How it works with Trello | Creates invoices | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Harvest | Power-Up button starts a timer; reports in Harvest | Yes, on every plan including Free (1 seat, 2 projects); Teams connects to QuickBooks Online, Xero and Stripe | Teams $9/seat/month billed annually, $11 monthly, plus usage fees for extra invoices, projects, clients and tasks |
| Clockify Standard | Browser extension adds a timer button to cards; reports in Clockify | Yes, PDF invoices from time and expenses, recurring invoices | $5.49/seat/month billed annually, $6.99 monthly; every active or invited user is a seat |
| Chronos | Power-Up; timer and reports inside Trello | Yes, invoice PDF for any period; download needs the trial or Team plan | €5/member/month (EU), $6 (US) |
| Everhour app (not its Power-Up) | Browser extension; reports in Everhour | Yes, with export to QuickBooks or Xero | Team $8.50/seat/month billed yearly, $10 monthly, minimum 5 seats; Free has no integrations |
| Time Tracking for Trello (us) | Power-Up; timer and reports inside Trello | No; CSV or XLSX with hours and amounts | €5/workspace/month or €50/year |
Price matters to small firms. A 2018 thread asking for a time tracking and invoicing setup for Trello said it directly: “On a budget so pricing is very important.” Here is how we would choose:
- No invoicing software yet, a few clients: Harvest or Clockify Standard handle everything from timer to sent invoice. A solo freelancer can start on Harvest Free.
- Invoices inside Trello, or different rates per person: Chronos.
- Already on QuickBooks or Xero, and tracking work outside Trello too: the Everhour app or Harvest.
- Invoicing software in place, and the work lives in Trello: a flat-priced Power-Up plus an export. Ten people on Clockify Standard cost $54.90 a month billed annually; a workspace plan like ours stays at €5. Our Power-Up comparison has costs for teams of 3, 10 and 25, and the product page shows how clients and budgets work.
A timer on every Trello card
Time Tracking for Trello puts a start/stop timer on the card and a live badge on the board, with estimates, client rates and reports across boards.
Add to Trello€5 per month for the whole workspace · 5-day free trial · No card needed
Frequently asked questions
Can Trello produce an hours log for payroll or invoicing clients?
Not by itself. Trello has no built-in time tracking, and its board CSV export (Premium only) contains no hours. Add a time tracking Power-Up or an outside tracker, then filter the report by person for payroll or group it by client for invoicing, and export CSV or XLSX.
How do I report hours per client for a month?
Assign each client to its board, or to single cards on mixed boards. Open the report, pick the client boards, choose Last month, group by client and export. Without a client list, use one label per client, spelled the same on every board, and group by label.
Can clients on my board see our rates?
Not in Time Tracking for Trello, unless you make them a board admin. The server leaves out rates, amounts, budgets and clients for non-admins, including in their exports. Clients who are board members or observers can still see time entries and their comments.
Why does my CSV open in one column in Excel?
Excel splits a CSV on the list separator from your Windows region settings, which is usually a semicolon where decimals use a comma. Import the file through Data, From Text/CSV and pick the delimiter, export with a semicolon separator, or use XLSX.
Does Time Tracking for Trello create invoices?
No. It stores client rates and billable amounts and puts them in CSV and XLSX exports, but it doesn't write, number or send invoices. Harvest, Clockify Standard, Chronos and the Everhour app do.
Can an admin log hours for a teammate who forgot?
Not in Time Tracking for Trello. Board admins can edit, delete or change the billable flag on anyone's entries on their boards, but each person adds their own time. Everhour's Power-Up (on its Pro plan) and Clockify's Basic plan let a manager add time for others.