You may occasionally notice a difference of one or two cents between totals across Productive—like between a budget, report, or invoice.
These aren’t bugs. They're expected rounding differences based on how and where the numbers are calculated.
What Causes the Difference?
All values in Productive—whether they come from time entries, budgets, or services—are stored using full precision (several decimal places).
However, most screens and invoices display values rounded to two decimal places, for clarity.
Depending on where and how numbers are grouped, rounded, and displayed, this can result in a small difference in totals.
📌 These cases are rare and typically occur when line items involve discounts or markups with three or more decimal places, e.g., 4.319% discount.
Example
Let’s look at a real-world case from a budget screen where there’s a 1 cent difference between:
The Budget Remaining value at the top (Budget Overview), and
The Budget Remaining value in the list of service line items.
The cause of this small difference is the Junior service, which is priced at $200.19 per hour and has a 4.319% discount applied to 93 hours.
Productive calculates the values using full precision, then rounds the totals for display. This is what can lead to a small visual mismatch.
Detailed explanation below (click to expand 👇)
Detailed explanation below (click to expand 👇)
Here’s how it works behind the scenes for the Junior service line item:
The full discounted rate is calculated as:
(200.19 - 200.19 × 0.04319) × 93 = 1781357.283270 (stored in cents)
👉 On the screen, we show this as $17,813.57 for the Budget TotalSomeone tracks 4.35h on the Junior service:
(200.19 - 200.19 × 0.04319) × 4.35 = 83321.550346 (stored in cents)
👉 On the screen, we show this as $833.22 for the Budget Used
So when we look at the interface:
Budget total (displayed): $17,813.57
Used (displayed): $833.22
Remaining (displayed calculation): 17,813.57 - 833.22 = $16,980.35
👉 But the remaining value shown on the screen is $16,980.36
Why the mismatch?
Because the actual calculation uses full precision:
1781357.283270 - 83321.550346 = 1698035.732924 (in cents)
👉 Rounded for display: $16,980.36
Where This Happens
This kind of difference can appear:
Between the total shown in the Budget overview and the sum of individual service lines
Between invoices, reports, and budget screens
When using precise discount/markup rates with 3 or more decimals
In all these cases, Productive uses full precision for calculations but rounds for display.
What About Taxes?
Some users might notice a discrepancy in the total tax amount on invoices. This happens because Productive applies tax at the line-item level, rounds each tax amount to two decimals, and then sums them up.
📌 This means each line is taxed individually before adding up, rather than applying tax once to the full total.
That total might not match the tax you’d get if you:
Calculate the subtotal first
Then apply the tax rate to that subtotal
This isn't a bug, it's just one of two common accounting conventions:
Systems like Xero and Exact calculate tax per line item (as Productive does)
Systems like QuickBooks calculate tax on the subtotal
There’s no single “correct” way: it depends on the accounting approach. Since we can’t support both methods in parallel, it's important to know that Productive calculates tax per line item.
What About "Left for Invoicing" Amounts?
You might see small amounts like $0.01 left for invoicing. This is also caused by rounding and is a known behavior.
You can manually mark the budget as fully invoiced if needed. Learn how here.
What Does This Mean for You?
These rounding differences are standard and don’t affect the accuracy of your data
They typically appear only in edge cases involving high-precision discounts or markups (like the 4.319% discount on the Junior service)
Your reports and totals still reflect correct values based on precise calculations
Still unsure? Reach out anytime, we’re happy to review your numbers with you ☎️