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Hour caps

Hour caps put a ceiling on how much time you expect to log against a project in a given period — useful for retainers ("20 hours a month"), fixed budgets, or just keeping yourself honest about scope.

Setting a cap​

Open the project's Overview tab and find the Hour Caps section. Click Add Cap, choose a Cap Type, and enter the hours. Seven period types are available: Daily, Weekly, Biweekly, Monthly, Quarterly, Yearly, and Project Total. Each type can be used once per project, and a project can have several caps at once — say, 10 hours weekly and 100 hours total.

(The quick add/edit project form also has shortcut fields for weekly and monthly caps; the full set of types lives on the project detail page.)

Edit a cap with the pen icon or remove it with the ×.

Tracking progress​

Wherever caps appear, you'll see a progress bar with a logged / cap readout, such as 12.5 / 40h. The bar is green while you're under 75% of the cap, orange up to 90%, and red beyond that.

Progress shows up in three places:

  • The Hour Cap stat card on the project's Overview tab.
  • Compact bars above the grid on the project's Week tab, so you see the effect of hours as you type them.
  • The Hour Cap Status card on the Reports page, which lists every capped project in one view.

What happens when you go over​

Nothing dramatic. Caps are informational — Gigtime never blocks you from logging time past a cap. When you exceed one, the readout turns red and the bar shows full. It's a signal to invoice, renegotiate, or stop, but that decision stays yours.