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Payments & finance

Turn Toggl Track hours into Sage invoices

Time-to-invoice automation totals the billable hours tracked in Toggl Track for each client and project at the end of a billing period. After a person approves the summary in Slack, it creates the invoices in Sage and tags each time entry so it can’t be billed again.

An example of how the studio would build it. No live services are connected.

From tracked time to invoices a person has approved.

  1. Step 01

    Period ends

    On the agreed day, read the period’s billable time entries from Toggl Track.

  2. Step 02

    Time checked

    Flag entries with no project, unusually long entries and time logged against fixed-price or closed projects.

  3. Step 03

    Summary shared

    Post a summary for each client to Slack, with hours, rate and total, for the account lead to approve.

  4. Step 04

    Invoices created

    Once approved, create each invoice in Sage Accounting with a line per project, without emailing it.

  5. Step 05

    Sent by a person

    The account lead checks the invoice in Sage and sends it, and the time entries are tagged as invoiced in Toggl Track.

The result

Billable time reaches invoices without a spreadsheet in between.

Each time entry is tagged as invoiced once its invoice is created, so it cannot be billed twice. Invoices are created only after approval in Slack and are never emailed to clients automatically.

Before we connect it.

Where this is useful

Useful for agencies, consultancies and IT support firms that bill by the hour and rebuild each invoice from a time report. A sensible first version covers clients on simple hourly rates, while retainers and fixed-price work stay manual until the rules are clear.

What we need to connect

  1. 01Toggl Track API access to the workspace, with clients, projects and billable entries recorded consistently.
  2. 02Sage Accounting access to create sales invoices, with each client and service already set up.
  3. 03Each client’s rate, billing period and invoice wording, plus who approves each client’s summary in Slack.

What needs careful handling

Time is often logged late, so entries added after a period closes are picked up in the next run rather than lost. Retainers, capped budgets and fixed-price projects need their own rules, because billing every hour logged would overcharge the client. Entries with no project or with unusually long durations are held back for a person to fix rather than guessed.

Questions people ask.

Can’t Toggl Track handle invoicing itself?

Toggl Track reports billable amounts, and some plans include invoicing features. This flow suits teams whose invoices need to live in Sage, with their own services, VAT codes and payment terms, so the accounts and the invoices stay in one place.

What about clients on a monthly retainer?

Retainers can be invoiced at a fixed amount, with the hours shown for information or used to flag when a client goes over their allowance. The choice is yours for each client, and the flow follows it.

Invoice overdue → Owner alerted
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Quote sent → Owner notified
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