Estimates help you plan and monitor the work associated with each service in a budget or deal.
By defining how much time a service is expected to take, you can set budget totals, track progress, and optimize resource allocation in the Resource Planner.
Important: Productive is rolling out a new Services overview, currently in Beta. If your services don’t look like the examples in this article, you might still be using the old services overview. Some fields and layouts described here may not yet appear in your account, but the functionality remains the same.
How Estimates Work
The Estimate column lets you input an approximation of hours for a service.
Estimates affect Resource Planner bookings, helping managers plan workloads and capacity.
They are a planning tool only and do not directly affect the invoiced amount.
Depending on your time tracking settings, all users in your organization may see estimates when logging time (Settings > Time Tracking > Show Estimates).
Clients never see estimates, whether they access projects through a client profile or via exported reports.
Fixed vs. Time and Materials Services
Fixed billing type services allow you to manually input the estimated amount, which can be lower or higher than the total hours negotiated with your client.
Conversely, Time and Materials services have automatically filled and non-editable estimates that always match the quantity.
Fixed Piece Services
You can add an estimate in hours even if the service is tracked in pieces.
This helps plan workloads (e.g., if multiple people work on one deliverable), but revenue recognition is still tied to pieces or expenses, not hours.
📌 In practice, teams don’t often plan resources on fixed piece services. When they do, they plan in hours, not pieces.
📌 Tip: If you can't see the Estimate column in the budget editor, enable it via the Fields dropdown icon next to your service section.
Visibility of Time Estimates
Admins can enable estimates to be visible to other teammates in your organization when they track time.
To enable this, go to Settings > Time Tracking Estimate and toggle the setting on.
Impact on Resourcing
Resource Planner bookings are based on the estimated hours, not the sold quantity.
Estimates in Time Tracking
Once enabled, estimates are visible to teammates with time access (e.g., Staff with time access, Coordinators) when they log time in My Time.
Client Visibility
Clients never see estimates in Productive:
Estimates are hidden for client users
They are not included in exported reports.
📌 The only exception is if you explicitly include the estimates in a proposal document you send to the client.