Quotes & Invoices

Retainers

Retainers are ongoing monthly or quarterly engagements — a set fee for a block of time or services each cycle. CoPortal auto-generates invoices and tracks hours used against each retainer.

Creating a retainer

Go to Invoices → Retainers tab and click New retainer. Fill in:

ClientWhich client the retainer is for

ProjectOptional — links hours tracking to a specific project

Namee.g. "Monthly Marketing Support"

AmountThe retainer fee per cycle (excl. VAT)

Hours includedOptional — hours of work included per cycle

Billing cycleMonthly or quarterly

Next billing dateWhen the first (or next) invoice should be raised

StatusActive or paused

Auto-invoicing

CoPortal runs a cron job each day to check if any active retainers have reached their next billing date. When the date arrives, a new invoice is automatically created as a draft — linked to the client with the retainer amount and description.

You review and send the draft invoice manually. After sending, the next billing date is automatically advanced by one cycle (monthly = +1 month, quarterly = +3 months).

Tip: Review your retainer invoices each billing cycle before sending. The draft gives you a chance to adjust amounts or add a message before it goes to the client.

Hours tracking

If a retainer has a Hours included value set, you can log time against it from the project time tracker.

In the project Time panel, when the timer is running (or when adding a manual entry) and the client has an active retainer, a retainer dropdown appears. Select the retainer to log those hours against it.

On the Retainers tab, each active retainer shows a progress bar:

•Green — hours used is within the included amount
•Red — hours used exceeds the included amount (scope creep alert)

The hours counter resets at the start of each new billing cycle automatically.

Pausing a retainer

Set a retainer to Paused to stop auto-invoicing temporarily. The retainer stays in the list with its configuration intact. Resume by changing the status back to Active and updating the next billing date.

Workflow: monthly retainer

1Create retainer: R15,000/month, 20 hours included, next billing 1 March

2Log time against the retainer throughout the month via the project timer

3On 1 March, CoPortal auto-creates a draft invoice for R15,000

4Review and send the invoice — next billing moves to 1 April

5Retainer tab shows 18 of 20 hours used for the new cycle

Invoices →Time & expenses →