Learn how to invoice clients for the hours you track in Bonsai, including managing billing statuses, adding timesheets to invoices, and customizing invoice display.
To learn more about our time tracking features, check out our resource on Tracking time internally with Bonsai.
Understanding billing status for time entries
On the Time Tracking page and on a Project's 'Time' tab, each time entry is assigned a billing status.
Each time entry in Bonsai has a billing status that helps track what has been invoiced:
Non-billable: Time that will not be charged to the client.
Unbilled: Billable time that has not yet been invoiced or is on a drafted invoice.
Billed: Billable time that has been invoiced (can be either paid or unpaid).
How to update billing status
Navigate to the Time Tracking page or the Project → Time tab.
In the Billable column, click the dollar sign ($) icon.
Green icon: Billed or unbilled status.
Grey icon: Non-billable status.
Use the toggle to mark entries as billable, unbilled, or non-billable.
Manually record billed time
You can mark unbilled time entries as billable by using the toggle and then selecting 'Mark as Billed' from the additional options.
If a time entry was manually recorded as billed and you need to change it to unbilled, go to the additional options and choose 'Mark as Unbilled':
To view the associated invoice of a billed entry, select 'Edit Entry' from the additional options. A banner linking to the invoice will appear on the pop-up.
Invoicing unbilled hours from a project
Bonsai allows you to create invoices directly from tracked time.
Steps:
Open your Project → Time tab.
Click Invoice Unbilled Hours.
Bonsai will generate a new invoice including all billable hours and a timesheet of tracked entries.
⚠️ If the Invoice Unbilled Hours button is unavailable, no unbilled hours are logged for the project.
Adding timesheets to invoices
Timesheets provide transparency for billed hours.
Steps:
When creating a new invoice, look for the Add Unbilled Time prompt.
Confirm to add hours:
Option to add all unbilled hours.
Option to select a custom date range.
Option to round time entries
Option on how you would like to display time entries
The selected hours are added to the invoice and reflected in totals automatically.
Customize how time entries appear on your invoices
You now have greater control over how your tracked time is grouped and displayed in invoices. Instead of automatically aggregating time by rate, you can choose to present a more detailed breakdown by task, service, role, or date.
How to customize time entry display:
Open the invoice you want to customize.
In the right sidebar, locate Time Entries Display.
Choose a grouping option:
By Task: Groups by task, then rate. Entries without tasks appear under "No task".
By Service: Groups by service, then rate. Entries without services appear under "No service".
By Role: Groups by role, then rate. Entries without roles appear under "No role".
By Date: Groups by the date recorded, then by rate for clarity.
Note: Invoice totals remain the same; only the way time is grouped into line items changes.
Displaying or hiding timesheets
You can adjust how much detail your clients see:
Navigate to Invoices → Settings tab
Choose one of the following:
Show full timesheet below invoices – All hours and comments are visible.
Show link to timesheet on invoices – Clients click a link to view the timesheet.
Hide timesheet – Useful for agencies where collaborators work on projects but the client doesn’t need full visibility.
Customizing Timesheet Columns
Decide which columns (e.g., notes, task, service) are visible if the timesheet is shown.
Editing your timesheet
You can edit hours after adding a timesheet:
Open the invoice → select the timesheet.
Add, edit, or remove time entries.
Invoice totals recalculate automatically.
⚠️ If you've made a mistake, you can always delete the invoice and choose what to do with the associated hours:
Note: Once an invoice is deleted you will not be able to recover it. Any associated payments and income reporting will be removed.