Log hours on a weekly grid tied to engagements and tasks, get them approved, and turn unbilled time into branded invoices in a single click. From timesheet entry to settled receipt — all in one platform.
Five steps from a time entry on Monday to a settled invoice the following week. One platform, one audit trail.
Hours on the weekly grid by engagement and task.
Manager reviews and approves the timesheet.
Import unbilled hours and add tax and discount.
Branded PDF emailed via a secure client link.
Record payment; receipt PDF auto-generated.
The weekly timesheet grid mirrors the spreadsheet format your team already knows. One row per engagement-task pair, one column per day. Staff type hours directly into cells and submit — no timers, no complex forms.
A spreadsheet-style grid that anyone can use from day one. No training needed — if your staff can use Excel, they can log time.
Each row is tied to a specific engagement and task. Hours are never logged to vague categories — every entry connects to real client work and stays billable.
Monday through Friday columns (plus weekends when needed) let staff fill in hours as they go or catch up at the end of each day.
The submit-and-approve workflow ensures only reviewed hours feed into engagement budgets, utilization reports, and client invoices. Catch mistakes before they become billing problems.
When the week is complete, staff submit their timesheet with a single click. The submission locks the entries and sends them for manager review.
Managers see pending submissions in the admin timesheet view. Review hours by staff member, check for gaps or inconsistencies, and approve accurate entries.
Approve clean timesheets so the data flows into invoices and reports. Reject entries with issues and they go back to the staff member for correction with a clear reason.
When you create an invoice for an engagement, CPA Buddy shows every unbilled, billable hour logged against it. Tick the entries you want to bill and they become invoice line items with hours, descriptions, and rates pre-filled. Once issued, those entries are flagged as billed and removed from the picker — no double-billing, ever.
Multi-select unbilled time entries for the engagement. Each row shows the date, staff member, description, hours, and rate so you can decide what to bill at a glance.
Selected entries become line items with quantity = hours and rate from the time entry (or engagement hourly rate as fallback). Edit descriptions, amounts, or taxable flags before issuing.
For fixed-fee or retainer engagements, click "Add Engagement Fee" and CPA Buddy pre-fills a single line with the engagement title and budgeted amount — no time import needed.
Once an invoice is issued, the included time entries are marked as billed. They will never reappear in the picker for any future invoice on that engagement.
Every invoice is generated as a polished, branded PDF with line items, a configurable tax rate, optional discount, and payment terms. Numbering, prefixes, default tax, footer text, and payment instructions are configured once at the firm level and reused on every invoice you issue.
Set a default tax rate and label (GST, HST, VAT, sales tax — your terminology) at the firm level. Override per invoice when needed, mark individual lines as taxable or non-taxable, and flag entire invoices as tax-exempt.
Apply a flat discount before tax. Pick payment terms — due on receipt, net 15/30/60, or a custom number of days — and the due date is calculated automatically.
Set firm-level prefixes for invoice, refund, and receipt numbers (e.g., INV-2026-, REF-2026-, REC-2026-). Sequence numbers are server-managed so two staff issuing invoices simultaneously never get duplicates.
Default payment instructions (bank details, e-transfer email) and invoice footer text are configured once and appear on every invoice automatically.
Every invoice is emailed to your client with a unique secure link to a branded public page — no client login needed. When the invoice is paid, recording the settlement automatically generates a sequenced receipt PDF and emails it to the client. One workflow, two professional documents.
Each invoice gets a unique URL secured by a one-time token. The client opens a branded page showing the invoice, payment instructions, and a download button — without creating an account.
Missed the email? Resend the invoice (or receipt) from the invoice detail page. CPA Buddy tracks resend counts and timestamps for your audit trail.
When payment lands, click Record Payment and enter the method (cash, e-transfer, bank, cheque), date, reference, and optional notes. Status flips to settled in one action.
On settlement, CPA Buddy issues the next sequenced receipt number, generates a receipt PDF, and emails it to the client — no manual PDF export or follow-up email needed.
Issue a refund invoice against an original (line items pre-filled, total refunds capped at the parent amount) or void an invoice with a required reason. Both are preserved in the audit trail.
See how accounting firms use CPA Buddy timesheets and billing to solve the problems that actually come up every week and every month-end.
Staff forget to log time during the week and try to reconstruct their hours from memory days later. Entries are inaccurate, incomplete, and submitted late.
The weekly grid makes it easy to fill in each day as it happens. Staff see their engagement-task rows and enter hours into the corresponding day columns — no complex forms, no timers to remember.
Accurate time data submitted on time every week. Managers get reliable entries for reporting and billing instead of guesswork reconstructed after the fact.
At month-end, partners spend a full day combing through time logs, copying hours into a billing spreadsheet, calculating tax, and emailing PDFs. By the time invoices go out, cash flow is already a week behind.
Open the engagement, click new invoice, and import unbilled time. CPA Buddy builds the line items from approved time entries, applies tax and discounts, generates a branded PDF, and emails the client a secure link — all in a few clicks.
A half-day of billing collapses to minutes per engagement. Invoices go out on schedule, clients pay faster, and no billable hour falls through the cracks.
For monthly retainer or fixed-fee engagements, you do not bill from hours — but you still want a clean, professional invoice that ties to the engagement and posts to the right client account.
On the invoice create page, click "Add Engagement Fee" and CPA Buddy fills in a single line item using the engagement title and budgeted amount. Add tax, hit issue, and the invoice is on its way.
Retainer billing is as fast as time-based billing. Every invoice — hourly or fixed — runs through the same numbering, branding, and receipt flow.
An engagement is going over budget but nobody notices until the invoice goes out. Hours piled up across multiple staff members without any visibility into the total.
Time logged against engagements shows actual hours vs budgeted hours in real time. Managers see cumulative time on the engagement record as staff submit their entries.
Managers intervene before budget overruns happen. Conversations with clients about scope happen proactively, not after the damage is done.
A client pays an invoice by bank transfer. Now you need to mark it paid in your records, generate a receipt PDF, and email it to the client — usually three separate tools and a manual PDF export.
Open the invoice and click Record Payment. Enter method, date, and reference. CPA Buddy flips the status to settled, generates a sequenced receipt PDF, and emails the receipt to the client automatically.
One step replaces three. Your books are up to date the moment payment lands, and the client gets a professional receipt without you having to remember to send it.
From hour entry through receipt delivery, CPA Buddy covers the full timesheet-to-cash workflow.
A familiar spreadsheet-style grid organized by week. Each row is an engagement-task pair, each column is a day. Navigate between weeks to view or edit historical entries.
Staff submit completed timesheets. Managers review submitted entries and approve or reject them. The status flow ensures data quality before it is used for billing, budgeting, and reports.
Every time entry is tied to a specific engagement and task. The same link is what powers one-click time-to-invoice and accurate engagement budget tracking.
When creating an invoice for a client engagement, pick from a list of unbilled, billable time entries. Selected entries become invoice line items with hours, descriptions, and rates pre-filled.
Apply a configurable tax rate with your own label (GST, HST, VAT, sales tax), a flat discount, and payment terms (due on receipt, net 15/30/60, or custom). Per-line taxable toggles and tax-exempt invoices supported.
Invoices and receipts are generated as polished PDFs and emailed to the client through a secure, tokenized link. Resend any invoice or receipt with a single click.
Every invoice gets a unique client link. Clients open a branded page with payment instructions, view the invoice, and download the PDF without a login.
When a client pays, record the settlement with method, date, and reference. CPA Buddy automatically generates a sequenced receipt PDF and emails it to the client.
Issue a refund invoice against an original invoice. Line items are pre-filled from the parent and quantities are validated so total refunds never exceed the original amount.
Set firm-level prefixes for invoice, refund, and receipt numbers. Default payment terms, tax rate, payment instructions, and footer text are configured once and reused.
Start and stop a live timer to capture time as you work. The timer auto-logs entries so you never have to recall hours after the fact.
Schedule monthly retainers to auto-issue and let clients pay invoices online with card or ACH. On the roadmap.
Staff use a weekly timesheet grid where each row represents an engagement-task combination and each column is a day of the week. They type hours directly into the grid cells and submit the completed timesheet for manager review. Time can also be entered from the task detail page.
Yes. When staff submit their timesheets, managers see the submissions in the admin timesheet view. They can review the logged hours and approve or reject the submission. Rejected timesheets go back to the staff member for correction.
Every time entry is linked to an engagement and task. When you create an invoice for an engagement, CPA Buddy shows a picker of all unbilled, billable time entries for that engagement. Select the entries you want to bill and they become invoice line items with hours, descriptions, and rates pre-filled. Once an invoice is issued, the included time is marked as billed so it never appears in the picker again.
Invoices include line items (description, quantity, unit price, taxable flag), a configurable tax rate with your own label (e.g., GST, HST, VAT, sales tax), optional discount, payment terms, currency, client-visible notes, and internal staff-only notes. Each invoice gets a generated PDF and a secure tokenized client link.
Invoices are emailed directly to the client (or any contact you choose) with a secure link to a branded public page. The client can view the invoice and download the PDF without needing a login. The same secure link works for the receipt once the invoice is settled.
When a client pays, you record the settlement on the invoice with the method (cash, bank transfer, etc.), date, reference, and optional notes. CPA Buddy then automatically generates a sequenced receipt PDF and emails it to the client. Invoice and receipt numbering use firm-configurable prefixes.
Yes. To refund, issue a refund invoice against the original — line items are cloned and quantities can be reduced, and total refunds across non-voided refund invoices are capped at the original amount. To cancel an invoice that should not have been sent, you can void it with a required reason; voided invoices are excluded from billing reports but remain in the audit trail.
Not yet. Today, invoices include payment instructions you configure (e.g., bank transfer details, e-transfer email) and settlement is recorded manually. Online payments via card/ACH are on the roadmap.
A real-time start/stop timer is on the roadmap. Currently, all time entry is manual through the weekly grid or task detail page. The weekly grid format makes it easy to enter hours at the end of each day or week.
CPA Buddy features are designed to work together. Explore related capabilities that complement timesheets and billing.
Capture every billable hour, get manager approval, and turn time into branded invoices and receipts without leaving CPA Buddy. Start your 30-day free trial.
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