There are times when I am not as good as I should be about inputting my off-site time into Billings. When that happens, I sometimes end up creating a slip that is out-of-order chronologically. For example, I might create a slip on a Friday for a court appearance I did on a Wednesday. Right now, that slip would show up on the list after a slip I did for a Thursday phone call.

My problem is that I need my time entries to show up in chronological order by the date work was done, not the date the slip was created, both in the Billings window and on my invoices. (Using multi-day slips is not an option, as the local judges expect work done on different days to be accounted for separately.) Also, I sometimes want to enter time for work done by my assistant, and that would usually happen right before billing, also out of chronological order.

Is there any way to sort the working slips and/or sort the invoice entries into chronological order by date work was completed, rather than the date the slip was created?

Thanks.

Yes that can be done by changing the sort ordering on the line items table.

Create a new Invoice template (using an existing one as a starting point). Give the template a name you'll recognize so you don't confuse it with one of ours.

Select the line items table. Then in the inspectors area, open the Sorting inspector. Add a rule and in that rule, chose startDateTime and check off ascending. This sorting UI is not exactly the friendliest UI.

Save it, then preview your invoice with the new template.
Your items should now be in the correct chronological order.

HTH

Thanks AJ, I needed this answered.
I do have two questions.
Background:
I tried this sort option in my existing invoice template (based on coast) and it didn't work but when I created an new invoice based on Coast it worked.
Question 1:
Does this mean that every time time that there are improvements to the report engine I am going to have to waste time recreating my template. There has to be a better way.
Question 2:
Now that I have this sort order working my expenses have no date, I need them to have the date entered on the expense slip. I have tried all the standard templates and they are all the same, only difference I saw between templates was that some put the undated expenses at the top and others at the bottom.
Thanks

Answer 2: when you enter time on a new slip, next to "log" there are two checkboxes. You want to check "started" (which coincides with "startdatetime" in the sort inspector).

It will automatically put in "today's" date (i.e., the date you checked the box), to change it (say you're entering time from last week) click "started" then click "log" which will open a window to allow you to either type in the correct date or you can click on the calender icon and scan for the correct date (like if you remember it was last tuesday but can't remember the date)

On your old slips you can go back and do the above procedure to get the dates to show up.

Mike

The expense slip doesn't have this option. I think the date here is not the same as StartDateTime

You're right. I fiddled with my template a little but couldn't find the right token to insert.

m

SO what is the answer for expenses that need to be sorted or moved around? Anybody know?