Writing and editing time

This article describes how to write, edit, copy, or delete time entries, provided you have the appropriate rights to do so.

After you log in to Legalsense, you land on the Time entry homepage (see the screenshot below). The left side of the screen shows your recent time entries for up to 7 days. The right side lets you add time entries.

Time entry homepage, showing recent time entries on the left and the fields for adding a new time entry on the right.

There are four starting points for writing time for a performed activity:

1. Recent time entries (Hand (H:MM) and From/To)
2. Per day
3. Timers
4. Mobile app

Whichever method you use to write time, you always need to fill in a number of mandatory fields, marked with an asterisk (*).

Hours*: Enter the time here. Time is usually written in hours and minutes (hours:minutes), but Legalsense can configure a different time format for you, such as decimal hours. For more information, see the article Change time format.

Date: The date defaults to today's date, but you can change it.

Timekeeper*: If you have sufficient rights, you can change this field. Changing the username lets you write time for someone else.

Matter*: When you activate this field, a Recent matters label appears, showing the ten most recent matters so you can quickly select a current matter. You can also search for a matter by entering part of its name. Use the down arrow to select the matter from the list, or press the backspace key to display all available matters. Recent matters also appear in the matter field on the Time entry homepage, when editing time entries, in Per day, and in Timers.

You can also search using multiple search terms, separated by a space, which are then combined as an AND search.

Submatters/Product: If your Legalsense environment has products set up for writing time and invoicing (under Settings → Lists → Submatters/product kinds), you can add the relevant products to matters. When you select a matter that has a product added while writing time, an optional product field appears. For more information about products, see the article Products.

Activity*: Type or choose an activity from the list of available activities — press the backspace key to see all activity types. Your organization can adjust this list (see Settings and the article Activities) and divide it into groups if desired; see the article Activity groups. For a matter in another language, the activity displays in that language. To use activities in languages other than Dutch and English, activate those languages in your Legalsense environment. If no activities are configured, this field is hidden and not mandatory.

Description: Type a description here if desired. The description usually also appears on the invoice specification. For a foreign-language matter, write the description in that language, for example, if the selected matter's language is set to German, (German) appears next to the Description field.

Comment (internal): Use this field for an internal comment. Internal comments appear under the description in the added time entry, and in the details of the draft invoice specification under the relevant user.

Travel expenses: Specify travel expenses (in kilometers) in this field. Directly below the Travel expenses field, you can enter the total number of kilometers and, if desired, a description. Legalsense then generates the travel expenses as a disbursement, and the time entry displays the total number of kilometers.

To activate this function, specify the default type of travel expenses under Settings → General → System.

Non-billable and Zero rate: If you have sufficient rights, you can mark time as Non-billable or Zero rate. In several screens, you can also mark written time as Written off. For a more detailed description of these options, see the article Billable/Non-billable/Zero rate/Write-off.

Add other timekeeper: This field lets you add another timekeeper to your time entry — for example, if you had the same meeting with a colleague. When you add another timekeeper, Legalsense creates the same time entry for each user you select. The selected users receive a notification on their homepage. The notification includes the time entry details and the name of the user who wrote the time for them, for example: "Alice Johnson wrote 4.0 hours for you on [time entry date] on [matter name] with [the description]."

The notification for a time entry made by another user.

You can only use this functionality when creating a time entry, not when editing one afterwards. To use this functionality, users need the add_multi_user_logline permission.

Click Save to save the time entry.

Sometimes you cannot charge all written time to the client. With the appropriate rights, you can also apply a (partial) write-off of your written time during billing. For a description of all the options for writing off time on a draft invoice, see the article How to partially bill or write off written time on a draft invoice.

Recofa (for insolvency matters): If you select an insolvency matter, an extra Recofa category field appears where you can select the desired category. When you create invoices, you get an overview per category, and you can report as required by the applicable guidelines. For a detailed description of how to process insolvency matters in Legalsense, see the article Insolvency matters/Matter Insolvency Report.

Adding time entries

The following sections explain each starting point for adding time entries.

Hand

Here you enter the time spent, rounded to the standard rounding unit (usually 5 or 6 minutes). You can adjust this under Settings → General → System. Fill in the remaining mandatory fields (marked with *) before you save the time entry.

Next to the mandatory fields, you see an open padlock icon. Click the padlock to lock a value, which can be a current matter or a frequently used activity. Legalsense then pre-fills that field for each new time entry until you click the padlock again or log out. A user who adds time on behalf of another user can lock that other user's value in the same way.

Padlock icon next to a mandatory field in the hand time entry form, used to lock a value such as the matter or activity for future entries.

From/To

From/To time entry interface, showing start time and end time fields with the total time calculated automatically.

Here you enter the start and end time; Legalsense calculates the total time automatically. Fill in the remaining mandatory fields (marked with *) before you save the time entry.

Per day

Click the Per day tab on the homepage to open a screen showing all time entries for the current date.

Per day time entry view, listing all time entries for the selected date with an Add line option.

To add a time entry, click Add line. Legalsense adds the entry on the date shown in the top-right corner of the date field. You can change this date to add time entries in the past or enter future time entries. For example, to add time entries for 15 September 2025, change the date from 30-09-2025 to 15-09-2025.

You can copy time entries wherever the edit time entries screen is available:

1. Select the time entry you want to copy, or add a new line.
2. Click the copy button.

Legalsense adds a new time entry with the contents of the original. You can repeat this as often as you like, which can be useful when you need to add multiple entries with the same data, such as vacation days.

Timers

Go to the Timers tab in the submenu (the blue menu bar at the top) to use timers. The screen below opens.

Timers interface, showing an active timer and the option to start a new timer for another matter.

You can run several timers at the same time for different matters so you can quickly write time for your most recent matters. Click New timer to start a new timer for another matter. After starting a new timer, you can select a matter immediately, as described above, or wait and select it when you stop the timer to save your time in Legalsense. If you start more than one timer, the screen looks like this:

Multiple active timers running at once, with the currently active timer highlighted in blue.

If you start another timer, Legalsense pauses the previously active one. The active timer is highlighted in blue so you can easily recognize it.

When you finish your activity:

1. Click Ready.
2. A new set of fields will now show.
3. Fill in the required fields.
4. Click Save.

A finished timer showing the fields required to submit a time entry.

Legalsense saves your written time directly in the selected matter. To delete a timer, click the delete icon.

Note: A timer keeps running until you stop it manually, even if you close the screen.

Changing and deleting time entries

Edit and delete time entries

You can change or delete time you have written from:

• Recent time entries
• the Per day screen
• Search results (Timesheet → Search)
• Editing time entries on an invoice

Click the edit icon ([edit_icon]) to open the Edit logline screen, where you can edit the time entry.

Edit logline screen, showing the fields of a time entry open for editing.

Click the delete icon to remove the time entry.

Note: You can only change or delete time entries if you have the appropriate rights, and only if they are not included in a (draft) invoice or part of a closed period.

In Per day, you can only delete time entries that you just added and have not yet saved.

Change the status of time entries

After you search for the time entries you want to change under Time → Search, you can edit them individually or apply the same change to several time entries at once. Several options are available for changing saved time entries. See the article Time search to learn more about the functionality of this page.

On the right side of the time entry, you see extra icons:

• Click the write-off icon to change the status of the time entry from billable (B) to written off (W).
• Click the billable icon to change the status from written off (W) back to billable (B).

A search result on the Time search page.

Mark time entries as non-billable or zero rate

In Legalsense, you can mark time on billable matters as Non-billable, Written off, or Zero rate.

See the article Billable/non-billable/zero rate/write-off to learn more about the difference between these statuses.

The easiest way to change the status of a time entry is from the Per day screen: place a check mark in the W (write-off) or 0 (zero rate) column.

Per day screen showing the W and 0 checkbox columns used to mark a time entry as written off or zero rate.

You can also change these options from the Search screen, or from within the matter, by clicking the edit icon ([edit_icon]) after looking up the time entries you want to edit.

Options for changing the status of a time entry within the time entry edit window.

To change the status of multiple time entries at once, select the corresponding time entries and choose the option you want under Mark as. You can also use these options to undo a previously applied write-off.

Mark as menu, showing the available status options for selected time entries, including options to undo a write-off.

If your profile has the appropriate permissions you can enable additional options for writing off time entries. A new option labelled Write off - options should then be visible in the Mark as menu. When selected, a new page will open.

Write off - options dialog, showing choices to write off a time entry partially, completely, or by percentage.

In this window, you can write off time partially, completely, or by a specific percentage. Applied write-offs are visible in the relevant time entry lines.

Change time entries

Use the Change time entries button on the Search page to edit the selected time entries in bulk. You can change the activity, matter/submatter, timekeeper, and date.

Change time entries button and the bulk-edit fields for activity, matter/submatter, timekeeper, and date.

If a time entry is included in a draft invoice, you can still change or delete it in invoice edit mode. If you delete the draft invoice, the time entries become editable again under Timesheet.

If you credit a finalized invoice, and that credit invoice is also finalized, the time entries become available again for editing or deleting.

Deleting time entries

To delete time entries in bulk, use the Delete time entries button. If you click this button before selecting any time entries, a message appears. To delete a single time entry, click the delete icon on the right of the time entry line.

Delete time entries confirmation message, shown when the Delete time entries button is clicked without any time entries selected.

Maximum time or amount on matter

In Legalsense, you can specify a budget per matter for a maximum number of hours or amount. When you set a budget, you can also configure a warning notification to the user and/or matter supervisor when 80% and 100% of the budget is exceeded. For a detailed explanation of how budgets work, see the article Budgets.