IT services: how the screens work

Your first ten minutes

Start with three screens every workspace has: Clients for who you bill, Projects for the work you do for them, and Invoices for the bill itself.

The LUT warning, foreign-remittance matching, the Export evidence card and the Retainer card need the IT services pack switched on, and so does the licence note in section 6. Export invoices, the LUT switch, conversion rates and Log time do not. If a screen is missing, ask Finocket support.

2. Log time each day

Open Time tracker and choose Log time to record work you did without running the timer. The box opens on Basic: the day, the hours and minutes, and what you worked on.

The client and project, the hourly rate and the billable tick sit in Client and billing. The project is optional.

Billable time with no client cannot be invoiced until you give it one.

• Log time refuses a future day, a time that has not happened yet, and an entry longer than 24 hours.

3. Export invoices and FIRA evidence

Bill a foreign client in its own currency. Add the currency's rate under Currency conversion rates; the invoice stores the rate it used. Choose the Export Invoice document type and turn on Export under LUT (no IGST). If no LUT number is saved in GST settings, or the saved LUT had lapsed before the invoice date, the form shows a warning. The warning does not stop the save.

When a foreign client pays, match the receipt on Foreign remittances, opened from the button of that name on bank reconciliation: pick the money-in bank line, type the figures from the FIRA or FIRC, confirm the invoice it pays and attach the advice. Attaching the advice file is optional.

Later, open an invoice in a currency other than INR that has a client. It shows an Export evidence (FIRA / FIRC) card that lists the advices filed for it, with their date and Open.

• When none is stored yet, the card says so and offers Match a foreign remittance.
• The card only reads. You attach advices on Foreign remittances.

4. Retainers: the Retainer card

Open Projects and open a project. Under its profit and loss, the Retainer card holds the client's terms: the fee for each cycle, an hours cap, what happens to hours over or under the cap, and the rate for hours over it. Until the pack is on, a project's page does not show the Retainer card.

The card also shows the client's billable hours for this cycle against the cap.

Choose the Catalogue item for GST, then tap Invoice the fee each cycle. Finocket raises the fee as a draft invoice every month, quarter or year, as the terms say.

When the cycle's hours pass the cap and the terms bill them, Bill the overage raises those hours as their own draft invoice at your overage rate.

• There is one draft per cycle. Tapping again opens the same draft, and hours already billed are not offered again.
• If the terms say nothing carries or bills over, no overage is billed. The When hours run over setting decides this.
• Nothing is sent. Review each draft first.
• A team member without billing rights sees the card and a note that billing needs an owner or assistant, but not these buttons. Someone without access to the client's retainer sees "You don't have access to this client's retainer. Ask the workspace owner to share it." instead of the card.

5. Recurring rules and the period on each line

Each draft that a Recurring rule raises fills in the Period covered field on every line that has none: from the run date to the day before the next run. This happens only where the workspace has the Period covered line field.

A rule set to repeat every 3 months from 1 April 2026 gives 1 April 2026 to 30 June 2026, so one draft ends the day before the next begins.

If the period cannot be worked out, the draft is still raised without it. Change it on the draft if a cycle is irregular.

6. Resold licences and deferred revenue

If you resell software licences, set the item's Licence term field to Monthly, Annual, Multi-year or Perpetual.

On a tax invoice or invoice (not an export invoice, credit note or estimate) with a total above zero, Defer over N periods shows for people who can write reports. A paid invoice with an Annual or Multi-year licence item also shows them a note suggesting a deferral schedule, when the IT services pack is on.

It is a suggestion only: nothing is deferred until you set up the schedule.

• A Monthly or Perpetual licence item gets no deferral note on its invoice.

7. What is not built, or is switched off

Retainers need their tables installed. Until they are, the Retainer card says retainers are not available yet.

• Nothing is sent from a draft until you send it.
• The deferral offer posts nothing to your books. It only suggests a schedule.

8. Who to ask

Ask Finocket support to switch on the IT services pack. Ask your administrator to give you billing rights for retainers. Ask your CA about GST on export invoices, the LUT and the TDS a client deducts. This guide gives no tax advice and records no answer for you.