Approvals and surcharges

Approvals record a client's decisions about extra work or charges. They do not guarantee that every cost has been agreed in advance: disclosed surcharges and configured approval ceilings can bypass another per-charge decision.

When approval is required

• Budget usage: for applicable projects, the system requests additional budget around 80% of the effective cap and blocks new billable starts at the cap. Fixed-price projects are exempt from this time-value gate.
• Surcharges: undisclosed charges generally need approval unless covered by the project's locked auto-approval ceiling.
• Extra hours: use Client Actions → Request hours for a project or the eligible client-retainer pool.

A pending request is not itself proof that all work is blocked. Restrictions depend on the project's actual pricing, budget, and usage.

The approval flow

1. You request approval

Budget requests are generated from usage. For extra hours, open Client Actions → Request hours, select the applicable project or retainer context, enter the hours, and add a useful explanation.

The portal records the request and sends the supported client notifications. Check the project's Approval Status and the request's scope: a retainer request should not be treated as approval to change a separately priced job.

2. Client responds

The client opens Approvals and reviews the budget or hours context.

For budget or hours requests, they enter the additional amount or hours they approve, then choose Approve Extra Budget or Approve Extra Billable Time. They can approve less than the requested amount. Retainer overage may also ask which project to prioritize.

Budget and hours requests do not have the same yes/no controls as surcharges. Leaving a request pending does not add authorization; work remains limited by the existing cap.

3. After their response

Approved extra budget is added to the effective cap; it does not overwrite the original budget. Eligible work can start again when there is room under that cap. When the additional allowance is used up, a new decision may be required.

Notification delivery depends on the configured workflow and approval-response settings. Check the recorded approval, not just whether an email arrived.

If an admin directly changes the budget using Client Actions → Budgets & dates, that is an admin edit, not a client approval. Keep an accurate reference to the agreement and do not describe an audit entry as legal protection.

Surcharges

A surcharge is an amount your business bills, such as materials you supply, travel, or equipment rental. Only eligible approved charges are captured on later billing snapshots.

Adding a surcharge does not retroactively rewrite a frozen invoice or an accepted quote. Review the intended billing period and any already-created invoice.

Disclosed vs not disclosed

At project setup, indicate whether the agreement actually disclosed possible surcharges. Store the relevant clause or explanation when available.

• Disclosed surcharges can be approved without another client click.
• Undisclosed surcharges require approval unless a locked plan ceiling covers the amount.
• A ceiling is part of the project's terms, not permission to split a larger charge into smaller ones to avoid review.

Do not mark a charge disclosed solely to bypass the client's decision.

Adding a surcharge

In the project's Surcharges section, enter its name, amount, frequency, and optional notes. Use ordinary currency units in the amount field—not integer cents. For example, enter 25.00 for twenty-five dollars in a dollar-denominated field, not 2500.

Review whether the action is Add Surcharge or Request Surcharge Approval. Then verify its actual approval state.

• Monthly, quarterly, and annual surcharges are allocated across billing periods. A quarterly amount is distributed across its monthly slices; a quarterly billing period includes the applicable combined allocation. Rounding is reconciled across slices.
• A one-time surcharge belongs to the period when it became billable, normally approval time, rather than being repeated every month.
• Deactivate excludes a charge from future captures; it does not erase an existing invoice.
• Completed projects must be reopened before adding new charges.

Client response

Clients review pending surcharges in their Projects view and can approve or decline, with an optional note. Declined charges are excluded from billing.

Approval makes a charge eligible for capture; it is not an immediate card charge or proof it has appeared on an already-frozen invoice.

Recurring product costs (expenses)

These are outside-provider costs the client pays directly, such as hosting or a software subscription. They do not appear on your business invoice and are not counted as business revenue.

Add them in Recurring Product Costs, with the correct amount, currency, and cadence. The client can Acknowledge a cost or Flag a concern. Acknowledgement records understanding; it does not activate the service, pay the provider, or waive all liability.

Accepted quote rows can also create these disclosures when a linked project exists. They preserve the signed quantity, monthly or annual cadence, and currency, and include only required or selected optional rows. An existing disclosure is not overwritten by a retry.

If the accepted quote has no linked project, project-cost tracking remains pending. Check that separately rather than assuming the cost appears in an unrelated project.

Section attention badges

Approval badges identify pending decisions. They are not all work-stop indicators:

• Approval Status: inspect the request and current usage limit.
• Surcharges: pending charges are not yet billable unless already authorized by the applicable rules.
• Recurring Product Costs: acknowledgement or a concern about a provider disclosure, not unpaid money owed to you.

What clients see in their portal

Approvals groups budget, hours, and retainer decisions with approval history. Surcharges and provider-direct costs are handled inside their Projects.

Keep each decision attached to the correct job and purpose. Approval of an outside cost is not approval to add it to your invoice.

When billable work is blocked

Start Work checks applicable budget and retainer limits before opening a billable session. Eligible retainer usage can be shared across projects; separately priced work follows its own rules.

The system does not cut off an already-running timer at the exact instant it exceeds a cap. Stop the session with the actual time, review any overage, and obtain the needed approval before continuing.

Non-billable work bypasses usage-approval gates, but a completed-project restriction or required unpaid deposit can still block a start. Unticking Billable is not a universal override.