How to Track Time Manually in VibaCloud

Connecting a calendar is the quickest way to fill a timesheet in VibaCloud, but it isn't the only way, and it isn't required. You can build a complete timesheet entirely by hand, without linking Outlook, Google, or anything else. This guide is for anyone who doesn't keep their work in a calendar, would rather not connect an account, or just needs to add the odd thing that was never booked as a meeting.

When manual entry makes sense

Plenty of people work this way. Maybe your week isn't planned out in a calendar to begin with. Maybe you keep your personal and work accounts well apart and would prefer not to connect either. Or maybe you do import most of your week, but some of it, the focused work, the quick phone calls, the bits of admin, never made it into a calendar in the first place. Manual lines cover all of these. You can use them on their own or alongside imported events in the same week.

1. Open the Draft Timesheet

Head straight to the Draft Timesheet. There's no need to visit the Import screen or connect anything first. You'll see the weekly grid: a row for each Organisation, Project and Task, and a column for every day from Monday to Sunday. If you've not imported anything, it simply starts empty, ready for you to fill in.

2. Add a line and pick a project

Add a new line and choose the project it belongs to. That single choice does a lot of work behind the scenes: VibaCloud takes the organisation, whether the time is billable, and the hourly rate straight from the project, so you don't set any of that per row. If the project you need doesn't exist yet, create it first under Projects, then come back and pick it. Add a separate line for each distinct piece of work you want to record.

3. Enter your hours per day

With a line in place, type the hours into the day columns. If you spent three hours on a project on Tuesday and two more on Thursday, put 3 against Tuesday and 2 against Thursday on that line. VibaCloud adds up each day and the week as you go, so your totals are always in front of you. Record non-billable work too, things like admin or internal catch-ups, because even though those lines carry a value of zero, they still give you an honest picture of where your week went.

4. Review and submit

When the grid reflects your week, give the totals a quick once-over and submit. Submitting freezes the hours, rates and values so the week stays put as a record you can rely on. Spotted a mistake afterwards? Reopen the week, fix it, and submit again. Every reopen is tracked, and you can view or print any past week from My Timesheets whenever you need it.

Mixing manual lines with imported events

You're never locked into one approach. If you connect a calendar later, your imported events and your manual lines sit happily side by side in the same week. A lot of people settle into exactly this rhythm: import the meetings, then add a manual line or two for the work that happened away from the calendar. Either way, the grid is the same and it all adds up together.

A few tips

• Set up your common projects once, under Projects, so picking one each week takes a second.
• Fill the sheet in little and often rather than all at the end of the week. Your memory of the hours is far better on the day.
• Keep line descriptions clear, so a week still makes sense when you look back at it months later.
• Don't skip the small stuff. A handful of fifteen-minute jobs is still an hour of your week.

Want the full picture? Getting Started with VibaCloud walks through the whole flow, and filling out a timesheet correctly covers the habits that keep your hours accurate however you enter them.