You can log time in Productive manually, using the timer, or automatically via the Resource Planner. This article covers manual time entry.
Accessing My Time
Use the arrows to navigate between weeks, or click the dot in the middle to return to the current week. You can also pick a specific date from the date picker.
Adding a Time Entry
Time in Productive is always tracked against a budget or deal and a service. Select the client, project, budget or deal, and service from the dropdown on the left.
Enter the duration: as a total, a time range, or both.
Add a note describing what you worked on.
Click Save.
📌 Make sure you select the right budget or deal and service before saving to ensure accurate reporting.
Duration formats:
8,8h, or8 hours→ 8 hours30,30 min, or0.5→ 30 minutes5 minor5m→ 5 minutes145 min→ converted to 2h 25min
Time Tracking Suggestions
The suggestions panel shows options based on:
Pinned: services you've manually pinned for quick access.
Scheduled: services you're scheduled on in the Resource Planner.
Recent: services you've recently tracked time against.
Clicking a suggestion creates an editable time entry with the budget or deal and service pre-filled. Calendar events require you to assign a service before saving.
📌 If a service is already pinned, it won't appear in Scheduled or Recent to avoid duplication. Calendar events appear in a separate section and are not affected by pinning rules.
Pinning a service: hover over any service name and click the pin icon to move it to your Pinned section.
Managing Time Entries
Select the three-dot menu to the right of any time entry to edit, duplicate, pin the service, view timer logs, or delete it. You can also edit details directly by typing in any available field.
To link a time entry to a specific task, click Assign to task.
👉 Find out more: Tracking Time on Tasks.
Using the Timer
The timer can only be used to track time for the current day. For past dates, use manual entry.
You can start the timer from the top right corner of the app: click the clock icon, select a service, and press the play button.
You can also start the timer directly from any time entry or suggestion in the left panel: click the Start button next to the service.
📌 If the entry already has a duration set (e.g. 2 hours), the timer starts from that amount and counts up. If there's no duration, it starts from zero.
Greyed-Out Dates
Dates in the header section might appear greyed out for the following reasons:
No capacity set: no cost rate defined for that person.
Public holiday: marked with blue and red triangle flags.
Weekend: shown in a darker grey. You can hide weekends via the gear icon (⚙️).
Absence: an absence booking exists for that date.
Troubleshooting
If you can't track time against a service in a budget or deal, it may be because:
No budget exists, or it has no services added.
You haven't been added to the budget.
The budget's date range doesn't include the date you're logging for.
Your cost rate hasn't been defined.
The budget has already been delivered.
The budget owner has disabled time tracking for that budget.
Time tracking has been restricted to certain people only.
👉 For more details, refer to our article on Can't Track Time Against a Budget.
Audit Log
Creating, editing, approving, and unapproving a time entry is recorded in the Audit Log, including which fields changed and their previous and new values.
