Productive lets you set required fields for time entries at the budget or deal level.

You can make Task and/or Note mandatory, so anyone logging time against that budget or deal must fill them in before saving; otherwise, the entry is blocked with an inline error.

📌 Requirements are set per budget or deal, not per project or organization. Different budgets within the same project can have different rules.

When to Use Required Fields

Use Note required when you need a record of what was worked on: especially useful for client-facing projects, time-and-materials billing, or external contractors whose time feeds directly into invoices.

Use Task required when you want time broken down by task: useful when clients review hours per deliverable, or on larger projects where task-level reporting matters.

For internal projects or fixed-price budgets, you may not need either requirement. The flexibility is intentional.

📌 Example: A design agency has two types of budgets — client T&M engagements and internal overhead. They enable both Task required and Note required on client budgets, and leave internal budgets unrestricted.

Enabling Required Fields on a Budget or Deal

You can set required fields when editing a budget or deal.

Open the budget or deal sidebar and navigate to the Settings tab (⚙️).
Under Required time entry fields, toggle on the fields you want to make mandatory:
- Time entry note: the person logging time must enter a note before saving.
- Task: the person logging time must select a task before saving.
The settings save automatically.

If the budget or deal is not linked to a project, only the Time entry note toggle is available. Task selection requires a project context.

How It Works for the Person Logging Time

When someone tries to save a time entry on a budget or deal with required fields:

If a required field is empty, the entry does not save.
An inline error highlights the missing field.
The entry saves normally once all required fields are filled in.

This applies regardless of where the time entry is created: from a task, the Time tab, or a timer.

Importing Time Entries

Required field rules are enforced on CSV imports, too. If a budget or deal requires adding a note or task, your import file must include the relevant columns; otherwise you'll see error messages for the affected rows.

📌 The Task column expects the task number, not the task title.

Automatic Time Tracking

Time entries created automatically from bookings are not subject to required field rules: they will not include a note or task even if the budget/deal requires them.

👉 Learn about automatic time tracking

Setting Requirements Across Multiple Budgets or Deals

You can update required fields on several budgets or deals at once using bulk editing.

Go to the Budgets or Deals table view.
Select the budgets or deals you want to update.
Open the three-dot menu and select Time requirement.
Set Task and/or Note as needed.

You can also add the Time requirement field to your view and add the Task and/or Note inline.

Reports

The Time requirement field is available in both the Budgets/Deals and Time Entries data sources, so you can audit configuration and check compliance in one place.

📌 Use the Budgets or Deals data source to audit which budgets and deals have Note and/or Task set as required. Add Time requirement as a column or filter to confirm which budgets have been configured correctly.

📌 When you enable requirements on a budget/deal, existing entries logged before that change aren't retroactively blocked. Open the Time Entries report, filter by the relevant budgets or deals, and add the Note and Task columns to surface any entries that may need to be corrected before billing.

Related Settings

Time tracking policies

Define rules for when employees can track time: on working days, non-working days, holidays, and during absences. Use alongside required fields to control both when and what employees log.

👉 Learn about time tracking policies