Time tracking for MSPs: support, maintenance and projects
Remote support, on-site visit, patching, a password reset: with time cockpit, your technicians book every job on client, project and task, and via the Web API on tickets from your ticket system.
For maintenance contracts you see at any time how much of the hour quota is used. At month end, the flat fee, hours over the quota, travel costs and surcharges go onto the same invoice.
For managed service providers and IT system houses that bill support, maintenance contracts and projects to their clients.
- Maintenance flat fee July €1,800.00
- Hours over quota 3.5 h
- Travel costs 84 km
- Saturday surcharge 4.0 h
Time tracking and billing for managed services and projects
An MSP rarely loses revenue on big projects. It loses it on many small jobs: the call nobody books, the hours beyond the quota nobody bills, the trip that never shows up on an invoice.
Time tracking for MSPs and IT system houses assigns support jobs, maintenance work and project hours to a client, a project and a task and shows how much of it is billable. time cockpit is a customizable time tracking solution from Austria: hour quotas, flat fees, surcharges and travel costs go onto the same invoice as the booked hours, and the technicians’ working time and absences run in the same system.
An MSP lives on recurring services: maintenance contracts with an hour quota, managed services for a monthly flat fee, support tickets billed by effort. In between run projects such as server migrations or rollouts. All of it needs time tracking that records which client and which contract a job belongs to, even if it only took ten minutes.
time cockpit combines project time tracking, project invoicing and employee time tracking in one solution. Every booked hour counts against the quota right away and lands on the next monthly invoice, without exporting to a spreadsheet.
- Track service time every job on client, project and task
- Watch contracts
- Bill monthly flat fee, hours, travel and surcharges on one invoice
Where MSPs lose revenue
Rarely in the work itself, but between the ticket system, time tracking and the invoice.
Hour quotas run out unnoticed
The maintenance contract includes 20 hours a month, the team worked 23.5. Without an ongoing view of the quota, this only shows up at billing time, and the hours beyond it often go unbilled.
Small jobs never get booked
The quick call, the remote session in between, the password for accounting: whoever books in the evening forgets some of them. Exactly these quarter hours are missing from the invoice at month end.
Tickets, time and invoices do not match
The tickets are in the ticket system, the time in a list, the invoices in the ERP. Monthly billing turns into manual reconciliation, and flat fees, travel and surcharges come on top.
How MSPs and IT system houses work with time cockpit
Book every job, including tickets
Time is booked in the weekly calendar in the browser, on client, project and task, with your own tasks for remote support, on-site visits or patching, for example. If your teams work in a ticket system such as Freshdesk or Zendesk, it creates the tickets as tasks in time cockpit via the Web API and reads the bookings back. We build these connections individually; they are not ready-made standard connectors.
So that the ten minutes in between also make it onto the invoice, sidekick, the optional automatic time tracking for Windows and macOS, records what was worked on at the computer, visible only to the person themselves, who then creates their bookings from it in the calendar.
Maintenance contracts with an hour quota
Enter the hour quota agreed in the maintenance contract and see at any time how much of it is used. You can talk to the client about adjusting the contract before the quota runs out, and bill the hours beyond it by effort instead of quietly giving them away.
Work the contract does not cover is booked on separate tasks with their own hourly rate. Mark goodwill as non-billable: it stays visible in the reports instead of disappearing in billing.
Learn more: Key KPIs from project time tracking data.
Monthly billing: flat fee, hours, travel and surcharges
At month end, time cockpit creates the invoice from the bookings: hours per task at the hourly rate of the client, project or task, and the kilometers driven to the client as a separate travel costs line. The monthly flat fee for managed services or maintenance goes onto the same invoice as an article. Surcharges, for example for jobs in the evening or at the weekend, are defined in the standard product.
The hourly rate at the time of booking is stored, and on request a service report with all jobs goes to the client.
Learn more: Project invoicing.
Freshdesk, flexitime and ERP: the IMC example
IT system house IMC in Lower Austria has a team of 14 who spend much of their time on site with clients. Working time rules and billing used to run on Excel and an older time tracking system; today they run on time cockpit:
- Freshdesk Tickets from Freshdesk are synchronized via API, and technicians book time per ticket.
- Flexitime account with checks of maximum working hours, breaks and weekly hours.
- Monthly billing runs 100 percent digitally.
- The checked times go to the ERP system, and the time logs from time cockpit are attached to the invoices.
“Before time cockpit that was a very paper-heavy process. Today it runs 100 percent digitally,” says managing director Thomas Knapp. The Freshdesk and ERP connections were built for IMC on top of the Web API and the customizability of time cockpit; they are not a ready-made standard connector.
The full story: IMC case study.
Flexitime, working time rules and absences
Whoever restarts a server in the evening or installs an update on Saturday builds up overtime. time cockpit calculates flexitime and overtime from the same bookings and checks working time limits such as maximum hours per day or week and breaks. The statutory limits for Austria and Germany are included, and you can add your own rules.
Vacation and absences are managed in the same system, so whoever plans the jobs sees who is available in the coming weeks.
Learn more: Employee time tracking and Time tracking in Austria.
What does time cockpit cost for an MSP?
time cockpit costs €10.85 per user per month on the Business plan, billed by the day and cancellable daily. An MSP with 15 users pays €162.75 per month. Teams of up to 10 users pay a one-time €29.90 for the first year on the Starter plan. We build connections to your ticket system or ERP like IMC’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 MSPs and IT system houses is time cockpit suited for?
For companies that deliver support, maintenance and projects to their clients and want to bill every job.
Typical companies
- IT system houses with maintenance contracts and hour quotas
- Managed service providers with a monthly flat fee
- MSPs with technicians on site and in remote support
- Teams that work in a ticket system and still need to bill their time
- IT system houses that run projects such as migrations and rollouts alongside their services
Typical tasks
- Checking hour quotas as you go
- Billing flat fee, hours, travel and surcharges monthly
- Recording short jobs without gaps
- Keeping technicians within flexitime and working time limits
- Sending a service report with every invoice
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)
Jobs, quotas and invoices on one basis
Try time cockpit for 30 days with your own clients and contracts, or let us show you how other IT system houses bill with it.
FAQ: time tracking for MSPs and IT system houses
How do I set up maintenance contracts with an hour quota in time cockpit?
You enter the agreed hour quota and book the jobs for the client against it. time cockpit shows at any time how much of the quota is used. Hours beyond the quota are billed by effort, and work outside the contract is booked on separate tasks with their own hourly rate.
Do flat fees and booked hours go onto the same invoice?
Yes. time cockpit creates the invoice lines from the time bookings, and the monthly flat fee for maintenance or managed services goes onto the same invoice as an article. Kilometers driven appear as a separate travel costs line, and on request a service report with all jobs is attached to the invoice.
Can time cockpit calculate surcharges for jobs in the evening or at the weekend?
Yes. Surcharges, for example for jobs outside normal working hours or at the weekend, are defined in the standard product. They are included in the billing of the jobs concerned.
Can I book time on tickets from Freshdesk, Zendesk or another ticket system?
Yes, if the tickets exist as tasks in time cockpit. Via the Web API, the ticket system creates tasks and reads the bookings back. We build these connections individually; IT system house IMC, for example, synchronizes its Freshdesk tickets this way. There are no ready-made standard connectors for this.
How do I bill travel to on-site jobs?
If you enter the kilometers driven on a booking, time cockpit treats it as travel. When the invoice is created, it sums up the kilometers of the selected bookings into a separate travel costs line, apart from the working time at the client.
Does time cockpit support flexitime and working time laws?
Yes. time cockpit calculates flexitime and overtime from the same bookings the invoice is created from, and checks working time limits such as maximum hours per day or week and breaks. The statutory limits for Austria and Germany are included, and you can add your own rules.
Is time cockpit a PSA tool for managed service providers?
No. time cockpit has no ticketing, no monitoring and no remote access. It handles time tracking, hour quotas, working time, absences and billing, and complements the ticket system your team already works with.
What does time cockpit cost for an MSP?
On the Business plan €10.85 per user per month, billed by the day and cancellable daily. An MSP with 15 users pays €162.75 per month; teams of up to 10 users pay a one-time €29.90 for the first year on the Starter plan. There is no setup fee; customizations and interfaces cost €150 per hour.
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