Guide: Ledger — from logged hours to true profit

Ledger is the money loop: time and expenses go in, invoices go out, and profitability falls out the bottom — with payroll rules applied automatically instead of in a Sunday-night spreadsheet.

Log the inputs: time and expenses

Time entries carry the person, the project, and billable status; expenses carry the category and the project they burden. The discipline is simple: if it cost money or took hours, it gets logged against a project. Everything downstream — invoices, payroll, profit — is only as good as this.

Payroll rules: set once, applied forever

In settings, the owner sets two rules: the unpaid break (auto-deducted from any day over its threshold — the unpaid lunch, never charged to a project) and the overtime threshold (weekly hours past it cost the multiplier, 1.5× by default). The Time view's Payroll & Overtime panel then shows each week the way a bookkeeper would build it: logged → break → regular/OT split → true cost, with flags on days that ran past what was scheduled.

The team: roster, pay, permissions

The Team view is the roster you schedule and pay. Give a member a login, and toggle exactly two permissions: manager (can edit the schedule) and sees pay. Pay rates are owner-only by default — managers run the whole schedule without ever seeing what anyone makes.

The schedule: planned time next to actual

The weekly grid prices scheduled hours at each person's rate, so you see estimated labor cost before the week happens — then compare it against what actually got logged. Run Job Sites too? Tasks pinned to a date appear read-only above the grid, so you staff the crew around the commitments that can't move.

Invoices and the cash-flow forecast

Branded invoices track from draft to paid, and the dashboard projects your next 90 days of cash from what's outstanding, what's recurring, and what's overdue. Overdue money gets louder, not forgotten — and Midas, the Ledger agent, chases it on his shifts.

The profitability answer

The AI profitability summary reads projects, time, and expenses together and answers the question the spreadsheet never quite did: which work actually makes money, which quietly bleeds, and what to do about it — one insight and one recommendation at a time.

Time, expenses, invoicing, scheduling, and the team are free. The profitability AI and Midas come with the AI subscription.