Time Tracking for Agencies
Your team spends valuable hours on client projects — yet hours get lost every month. Because someone forgot to start the timer, because the timesheet is missing, because nobody knew the fixed-price budget was already at 90%. Creative, marketing, design and digital agencies all know it: pitch hours go unbilled, retainers run without oversight, and team utilization stays a guess. Temporalis EMS brings time tracking that's built for agencies — project-based, multi-tenant, with budget alerts for fixed-price projects and automatic retainer tracking. No more Excel timesheets, no more manually piecing together project hours before invoicing. Everything in one system, from the first timer click to the billing export.
The Agency Reality
Four pain points that almost every creative, marketing and digital agency faces — and that end with the right time tracking.
Research shows: in agencies without digital time tracking, up to 30% of actual hours worked never get billed — forgotten timers, incomplete timesheets, hours that somehow disappear. At €2M annual revenue that's up to €600,000 in unbilled work.
Up to 30% of hours go unbilled
Fixed-price projects are a blind flight without real-time tracking. By the time you realise the budget is at 120%, the project is long delivered. Without budget alerts at 80% and 100% you miss the critical moment to course-correct or communicate transparently with the client.
Fixed-price overruns: often only visible after project delivery
Without a team utilisation dashboard, agencies plan blindly. Senior concepter at 120% load, junior at 40% — nobody knows in time. Projects overrun because resources are double-booked or bottlenecks are spotted too late. That costs quality, client satisfaction and ultimately revenue.
Resource bottlenecks often only surface when a project is already delayed
Same story every month: copy hours from different tools, sum them manually, calculate rollovers, build the client report. Retainer models are great for predictable revenue — but the admin overhead eats exactly the time the model is supposed to save. With digital retainer tracking, the monthly report is ready in two minutes.
Retainer reporting without software often takes 2–4 hours per client per month
The Solution
Temporalis EMS is not another generic time tracking app. It is agency software that understands how project hours, timesheets, fixed-price budgets and retainers work together in your daily operations.
Hours don't land just anywhere — they land on the right project, the right task, the right client. Your team starts the timer directly from within the task. Subtasks, checklists and attachments are integrated. Agency time tracking knows every context — and every hour is documented in seconds.
Every project gets an hour budget or cost budget. Once 80% is consumed, project managers receive an automatic alert — time to talk to the client before the budget is exceeded. At 100% there's a second alert. No more fixed-price surprises, no more project hours in the dark.
Retainer projects get a monthly hour quota. You can see live how many hours are still available. Rollover — whether remaining hours carry over to the next month or expire — is configurable per project. The monthly client report is exportable as PDF or CSV in one click. No Excel, no manual merging.
The utilisation dashboard shows for every team member how many hours are planned, booked and contracted — in a single view. Overload is immediately visible (red bars), free capacity is clear. Agencies can plan ahead instead of reacting. Weekly view for operational planning, monthly view for strategic staffing.
Timesheets per client, per project, per employee — filtered by date range and exported as a professionally designed PDF or structured CSV for DATEV workflows. Hourly rates are applied automatically, totals calculated. The path from time entry to completed billing document takes minutes, not hours.
Client meeting, photo shoot, on-site workshop — project hours don't only happen at a desk. The Temporalis mobile app for iOS and Android enables time tracking on the go, with offline capability and automatic sync. Holiday requests and absences are manageable on mobile too. Fill in timesheets on the train back to the office: done.
Agency KPIs
The agency KPI dashboard calculates your most important metrics in real time from tracked project hours. Billable rate, team utilisation, contribution margin per project and revenue per employee are not only known at month-end — they're available at any time, for every project manager, at a glance. Instead of hours of Excel consolidation at quarter-end, you have real agency controlling from day one.
Share of billable hours in all tracked hours — the most important agency health indicator.
Booked hours vs. contracted hours per person per week — overload and free capacity immediately visible.
Revenue minus personnel costs per project — calculated directly from hourly rates and booked hours, no manual input.
Monthly and annualised revenue per head — benchmark for growth decisions and workforce planning.
ROI calculation
A 15-person agency with €2M annual revenue loses on average 8% of revenue through forgotten hours, poor retainer control and missing fixed-price alerts — that's €160,000 per year that could have been billed but wasn't. With consistent digital time tracking that loss drops below 2%. The difference: €120,000 in recovered revenue. Annual software cost for 15 people on the Temporalis standard plan: approx. €2,520 per year. Return on investment: 47x — in the first year.
−€160,000
Revenue loss from unbilled hours (8% of €2M)
+€120,000
Recovered revenue through digital time tracking (from 8% to <2% loss)
approx. €2,520
Annual software investment (15 users × €14 × 12 months)
ROI in year one: 47x the software investment. No hidden costs, no implementation project. Setup in one day.
Integrations
Temporalis EMS fits into your existing tool landscape — rather than replacing it. All relevant integrations for agencies, available now and on the roadmap.
Budget alerts, project status updates and overload notifications directly into your Slack channels. Your team stays informed without switching tools.
AvailableStructured hour and payroll exports in DATEV-compatible format — directly to your tax advisor or accounting system. No more manual transfers.
AvailableFull REST API for custom exports, your own dashboards and integrations into your tech stack. Webhooks for real-time events — budget exceeded, new booking, project status change.
AvailableMigrating from your current tool? No problem. Master data, employees, project data and historical time entries can be imported via CSV in minutes. Onboarding without data loss.
AvailableCRM integrations for direct import of client deals into projects, automatic time tracking per CRM deal and bidirectional status updates.
On the roadmapCalendar integration for automatic time suggestions from meeting invitations, single sign-on via Microsoft Entra or Google, and project bookings directly from the calendar.
On the roadmapFAQ
Yes. You can set an hour budget or cost budget for every project. Once 80% and 100% are consumed, project managers receive automatic alerts. Ideal for fixed-price projects so overruns are visible immediately — not just at the final invoice. Project hours in a fixed-price context are clearly separated from time-and-material projects.
Yes. Team members can enter and edit project hours retroactively. Administrators can configure how far back entries are allowed — for example restricting it to the current week or month. All changes are logged in the audit trail in a revision-proof manner. Flexibility is maintained without losing control.
Retainer projects receive a monthly hour quota. You can see at any time how many hours of the retainer have been consumed and how many are still available. Rollover rules — whether remaining hours carry over to the next month or expire — are configurable per project. The monthly client report can be exported as PDF or CSV in one click. No Excel, no manual merging of timesheet files.
Yes. Temporalis EMS offers a mobile app for iOS and Android. Your creative team can track project hours directly at a client meeting, on a photo shoot or on the go — with offline capability and automatic sync on the next network connection. Holiday requests and absence notifications are also manageable on mobile. Filling in timesheets on the train back to the office: done in two minutes.
Yes. Temporalis EMS supports flexible hourly rate configurations at multiple levels: per employee (e.g. senior vs. junior), per role (e.g. strategy vs. production), per project and per client. So senior designer hours are billed differently from junior hours, and internal agency work stays separate from the client budget. Rates are automatically applied to the billing export.
Temporalis EMS prepares billing data completely: filtered hour overviews per client and project, applied hourly rates and summed amounts. Export as a professionally designed PDF or structured CSV is possible in one click and can be handed directly to your tax advisor or DATEV workflow. Fully automatic invoice generation with invoice number, payment terms and letterhead is on the roadmap.
The agency KPI dashboard shows billable rate, team utilisation, project contribution margin and revenue per employee in real time — without manual Excel consolidation. Every project has a controlling view with booked vs. billable hours, cost centre assignment and margin calculation. You can immediately see which clients are profitable and which projects are squeezing your margin.
Client guest portals with their own view of project status, hour quota and open tasks are on the roadmap and being developed as a priority. Currently you can invite clients as external users with restricted read permissions. You decide granularly which projects, boards and reports are visible — internal costs, margins and staff hourly rates remain hidden from external users.
More questions? Visit our general FAQ page or book a personal demo.
Ready for better project hours?
14 days free, no credit card, no risk. Setup in one day. Your first fixed-price budget is set up in under 10 minutes — and you can immediately see your team's current utilisation.
From €14 / user / month · GDPR-compliant · Hosted in Germany · Karlsruhe