"Open hours" and "Open expenses" service line items act as placeholders, allowing you to start tracking time, scheduling resources, and monitoring expenses without delaying project planning.
This means you can log time and expenses against them and schedule people in the Resource Planner before defining financial details for these items in your new budget.
If you enable this option in Settings > Budget, these line items will be automatically added to any future budgets you create in Advanced mode.
📌 Note: “Open hours” and “Open expenses” appear in your budget only if you create a budget from scratch, without predefining services or financials in your sales deal.
Assign Service Types
By default, Open hours and Open expenses do not have an assigned service type, which can create challenges later.
Service types act like your agency’s profit centers, helping you identify which services are most profitable and in demand. Without a designated service type, analyzing Open hours and Open expenses in reports can be difficult.
📌 Recommendation: As your work progresses, you should adjust Open hours and Open expenses by:
Assigning an appropriate service type.
Adding quantities, estimates, and other relevant details (like renaming the services).
Or moving tracked time from Open hours to newly added services when applicable.
Updating these placeholders ensures your budget remains accurate, reporting is clear, and profitability insights are reliable.