Time tracking for IT service providers with project controlling
Whether implementation, consulting or software development for clients: with time cockpit, your teams book time on clients, projects and tasks, and, via the Web API, on tickets from Jira or Azure DevOps. Invoices are created directly from the bookings.
On fixed-price projects you see at any time how much of the budget is used, and change requests stay visible as separate effort instead of disappearing into the project.
For IT service providers, software companies and IT consultancies that deliver client projects on a time-and-material or fixed-price basis.
Time tracking and project controlling for IT projects
In IT project business, margin is not decided when you send the quote but in the weeks after: through extra effort, change requests and hours nobody bills.
Time tracking for IT service providers assigns every hour to a client, a project and a task and separates billable from internal hours. time cockpit is such a time tracking solution from Austria: projects and tasks carry budgets in hours and euros, and the budget vs. actual comparison, service report and invoice come from the same bookings, whether you bill by effort or at a fixed price.
An IT service provider rarely works on just one kind of engagement. Fixed-price rollouts, consulting by effort, ongoing development on a retainer, presales and internal technical work run in parallel. All of them need time tracking that records which engagement and which service an hour belongs to.
time cockpit combines project time tracking, project controlling and project invoicing in one solution. Every booked hour updates budget consumption, billing rate and post-calculation, without exporting to a spreadsheet.
- Project time tracking every hour on client, project and task
- Project controlling
- Project invoicing service report and invoice from the same bookings
Where IT projects lose margin
Rarely when booking time, but where project management, billing and management work with different numbers.
Fixed-price projects run over budget unnoticed
Without an ongoing budget vs. actual comparison, only the post-calculation reveals that a rollout took twice as long as planned. By then you can neither change course nor talk to the client about extra effort.
Change requests get lost in project effort
Additional wishes are "quickly done along the way" and booked on the existing project. In the end, the hours that would justify a change order are missing.
Tickets, time and invoices live in three systems
The work is in Jira or Azure DevOps, the time in a list, the invoice in the ERP. Whoever wants to bill copies data by hand and reconciles at month end.
Ticket system or project time tracking?
The ticket system steers the work; time tracking shows what it costs and how much of it is billable.
How IT service providers work with time cockpit
Time on client, project and task, including tickets
Time is booked in the weekly calendar in the browser, on client, project and task. For teams working in Jira or Azure DevOps, tickets and backlog items can be created as tasks in time cockpit: via the Web API, the ticket system creates projects and tasks and reads the bookings back. We build individual interfaces to Jira or Azure DevOps on request.
If you would rather not reconstruct your working day from memory, add the optional automatic time tracking with sidekick. More for development teams: Time tracking for developers.
Fixed price, time and material, and change requests
If you bill by effort, time cockpit creates the invoice directly from the bookings, with hourly rates per client, project or task. The hourly rate at the time of booking is stored, and on request a service report with all times goes to the client.
For fixed-price projects, you enter the agreed price as a budget in euros or hours and see at any time how much of it is used. Create change requests as a separate task with its own budget: the extra effort stays visible on its own and can be billed by effort or used to justify a change order.
Budget, post-calculation and utilization
Every booking updates the budget vs. actual comparison per project and task. Dashboards summarize it for project management, as in the picture with budget consumption, remaining budget, unbilled revenue and the billing rate, the share of revenue already invoiced. Risk alerts flag a tight remaining budget or, as here, a low billing rate. So you talk to the client about extra effort while there is still budget left, and invoice work before it piles up.
After the project, the post-calculation compares planned and actual effort per task. That gives you historical data for the next quote instead of gut-feeling estimates.
Learn more: Key KPIs from project time tracking data and Project post-calculation.
Integration with ERP, DevOps and support: the Solvion example
IT service provider Solvion replaced its in-house time tracking with time cockpit and connected it to its systems:
- Business Central Clients are synced from Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.
- Azure DevOps Backlog items from Azure DevOps are available as tasks.
- Zendesk Support time comes in through a Zendesk integration.
- time cockpit calculates surcharges outside normal working hours automatically.
- An approval process checks the bookings before invoicing.
These connections were built for Solvion on top of the Web API and the customizability of time cockpit; they are not ready-made standard connectors. Project data can also be queried in AI assistants such as Claude, ChatGPT or Copilot via the MCP server.
The full story: Solvion case study.
Working time and absences in the same system
Vacation, absences, part-time models and working time rules are managed in time cockpit as well, instead of in a separate HR tool. Project management sees who is available in the coming weeks, and the working time record comes from the same bookings.
Learn more: Employee time tracking.
What does time cockpit cost for IT service providers?
time cockpit costs €10.85 per user per month on the Business plan, billed by the day and cancellable daily. A team of 25 users pays €271.25 per month. Teams of up to 10 users pay a one-time €29.90 for the first year on the Starter plan. We build customizations and interfaces like Solvion’s at €150 per hour.
You can try time cockpit free for 30 days without a credit card. All plans and cost examples: Pricing.
Try for freeWhich IT service providers is time cockpit suited for?
For companies that deliver client projects and want to base effort, billing and margin on the same numbers.
Typical companies
- IT service providers with implementation and rollout projects
- Software companies doing custom development for clients
- IT consultancies that bill by effort
- Companies running fixed-price and time-and-material projects side by side
- Teams that work in Jira or Azure DevOps and still need to bill their time
Typical tasks
- Checking fixed-price projects against the budget as you go
- Recording and billing change requests separately
- Creating invoices and service reports from the bookings
- Making presales and internal technical work visible
- Pricing quotes with historical data from post-calculation
time cockpit at a Glance
- Product
- time cockpit, project and employee time tracking as software-as-a-service
- Vendor
- software architects gmbh, Leonding (Austria), time cockpit since 2010
- Hosting
- Microsoft Azure, data centers in the EU (Amsterdam and Dublin), dedicated database per customer, 35-day point-in-time recovery
- Price
- €10.85 per user per month; Freelancer plan free in the first year; Starter €29.90 in the first year for up to 10 users
- Trial
- 30 days free, no credit card, cancel any day afterwards
- Master data
- Unlimited clients, projects, tasks and invoices
- Platforms
- Browser on PC, Mac, Android and iOS; automatic time tracking with sidekick for Windows and macOS (early preview)
- Integrations
- Web API (REST, OData, TCQL) with personal access tokens, MCP server for AI assistants, Excel import and export, Office 365 appointments in the calendar
- Single sign-on
- Microsoft Entra ID (Azure AD)
Project time, budget and invoice on one basis
Try time cockpit for 30 days with your own projects, or let us show you how other IT service providers work with it.
FAQ: time tracking for IT service providers
What is the difference between project time tracking and employee time tracking?
Employee time tracking records when and how long someone works, for example for working time law, flexitime and overtime. Project time tracking assigns the same hours to a client, a project and a task and makes them billable. IT service providers need both: in time cockpit, the working time record, project analysis and invoice come from the same bookings.
Which project time tracking suits IT service providers with complex client projects and billing by the hour?
Project time tracking that knows hourly rates per client, project and task and creates invoices directly from the bookings. time cockpit supports multi-level project structures, stores the hourly rate at the time of booking and, on request, attaches a service report with all times to the invoice.
How do I track fixed-price projects against the budget with time cockpit?
You enter the agreed price as a budget in euros or hours, per project or per task. Every booking updates the budget vs. actual comparison, so you see the remaining budget before the project tips over. Create change requests as a separate task so the extra effort stays visible on its own.
Can I book time on Jira or Azure DevOps tickets?
Yes, if the tickets exist as projects or tasks in time cockpit. Via the Web API, ticket systems can create projects and tasks and read bookings back. We build individual interfaces to Jira or Azure DevOps on request.
Which KPIs does time cockpit show for project controlling?
Every booking flows straight into the figures per project: budget consumption, remaining budget, hours worked and billable hours, revenue and profit margin according to time sheets, unbilled revenue and the billing rate, the share of revenue already invoiced. The project manager dashboard sums these up and warns, for example, when the remaining budget gets tight or the billing rate is low.
How does time tracking help IT service providers better understand the profitability of their projects?
By assigning every hour to a client, project and task and giving it an hourly rate. From this, time cockpit calculates the revenue, the effort and the share of non-billable hours per project. IT service providers can see which projects and clients bring in margin and where effort arises without return.
Which time tracking software distinguishes between billable and non-billable time?
time cockpit marks projects and tasks as billable or non-billable and analyzes both shares separately. Non-billable time such as support, sales or internal projects stays visible instead of disappearing in billing.
How well can the solution be adapted to existing processes?
The data model, forms, lists, permissions and reports can be adapted: your own fields and tables, your own lists and reports, and business logic such as approvals or surcharges in IronPython scripts. Customizations exist as code and can be tested in a sandbox before they go to production. You build them yourself in OnCockpitAdmin or commission us at €150 per hour.
Are there costs beyond the license?
Only for customizations and interfaces you commission yourself, at €150 per hour. There is no setup fee, you need no hardware, and support for the standard product costs nothing extra. For large teams the price per user drops: by 10% from the 101st user, by 20% from the 201st and so on, up to 50%.
Does time cockpit fit your process, from time tracking to invoicing?
In 30 minutes you will know whether time cockpit covers your project hours, project controlling and invoicing.
- What we cover
- You tell us how you track and bill time today. We show you live how that works in time cockpit and what switching involves.
- Who you talk to
- Someone from the team that builds time cockpit and rolls it out for customers, for example Alexander or Michael.
- How
- 30 minutes online via Microsoft Teams, free and without obligation.
You pick a free slot in Microsoft Bookings (opens in a new tab) and receive the confirmation with the Teams link by email. Prefer to write? support@timecockpit.com