"Open hours" and "Open expenses" service line items serve as placeholders to help you get started with time tracking, scheduling, and expense monitoring without delaying project planning.
This means you can log time and expenses against them, as well as schedule people in Resourcing, before defining any financial details for them within your new budget.
If you enable them as an option in Settings > Budget, they will be automatically added to any future budgets you make in Advanced mode.
"Open hours" and "Open expenses" will appear in your budget only if you have created a budget from scratch, without defining financials/services in advance in your sales deal.
Tips and Tricks
"Open hours" and "Open expenses" default services don't have an assigned service type, which can make things a bit tricky down the road. That's why it's important to stay on top of them over time to avoid complications.
Think of service types as your agency's profit centers. They help you see which services are most profitable and in greater demand.
Without a designated service type, analyzing open hours and expenses in reports can be a bit challenging.
As your work progresses and you add more services to the budget, you can either move the tracked time from Open hours to new services or simply adjust the Open hours and expenses by adding details like the service type, quantities, and estimates.
