--- description: "How work categories decide what a time entry bills, where it lands and why the category matters." --- # How to log billable time with categories > **Audience:** both — staff log the time, admins own the taxonomy the > categories come from. Every time entry records what kind of work it was, and that one field decides how it bills. The category is a slug from your org's taxonomy, not free text. This page covers both halves: logging it, and owning the list. ## 1. Log an entry Three surfaces write time, and all three take the same two fields. - **Timer stop** on the workbench or the day page. - **Quick log** on Today. - **The entry form** on a ticket or a project phase. You pick a category from the ordered picker the admin arranged in Settings. The picker shows live categories only, in the order the admin set. Two fields ride with it: - **Billable** — the category's default applies, so most entries need no thought. - **Reason** — required when a category is set to demand one and you turn billing off. The set is fixed: warranty, courtesy, in_retainer_block, sla_covered, internal, mistake. Sending an entry non-billable with no reason is refused with a 422. On a ticket the wrap-up sheet also offers a suggestion chip from the billing audit, showing the probability it read of the entry's billability ("Looks billable", "Looks non-billable — add a reason?"). Clicking it prefills the form. Nothing is written until you submit. ## 2. Where a category lands The slug keys three places at once, which is why it is a slug and not a label: - The entry's `work_type`. - The T&M rate card on the contract, so a rate card row for `on_site` prices on-site work. - The reports and scorecards, which read the same column, and the report builder's field catalog. A label can change any time. A slug never does, because changing it would re-point every historical entry and every rate card row at once. ## 3. Work logged before the taxonomy existed Capture surfaces normalize pasted free text through a mapping table, so an old value still lands correctly. `onsite` resolves to `on_site`. Anything unmapped is refused rather than guessed — a silently mispriced entry is worse than a rejected one. Admins manage that map on the same settings page. Add a row: the free text a tech might type, and the category it should resolve to. Matching is case-insensitive and ignores surrounding spaces. Migration 0110 seeded the map once from the free text already in the database; anything you add shows as "added here" rather than "migration 0110". **Re-key history** is a separate, deliberate action on a row you added. It rewrites every entry (and rate-card row) still carrying the legacy value onto the category's slug, and reports how many it touched. Adding a mapping does not rewrite history on its own. ## 4. Admin: run the taxonomy Open **Settings → Time categories**. Each row carries the three flags the capture surfaces read: - **Billable by default** — applied to new entries in that category. - **Ask for a reason when non-billable** — the entry form demands a typed reason before billing can be switched off. - **Keyed by cards** — documentation that T&M rate cards are expected to price this category. It is a hint for whoever maintains contracts, not a write path. The up and down buttons set the order, and that order is what every capture picker shows. Reordering writes the whole order in one call. ## 5. Admin: retire, never delete Retire takes a category out of the pickers while leaving its entries alone. Entries and rate-card rows keep the slug they were written with, so historical work keeps its meaning, and the **Entries** column on each row tells you how much history rides on it before you retire anything. Retired rows group at the bottom of the list for reading; their stored positions are untouched. Restore puts one back in the pickers. Deleting a category would orphan entries and silently re-price them at the contract default. There is no delete for that reason. ## 6. What an admin cannot see here Rate-card rows. Contracts stay contract-owned: a category's "keyed by cards" flag says what a contract is expected to price, and editing the card itself happens on the contract. See [how to price a service contract](https://getmarula.com/docs/psa/next/how-to/admin-contract-types). ## What you learned - A category is a permanent slug, and it decides billing before approval. - Turning billing off on a reason-demanding category requires a typed reason, or the entry is refused. - Legacy free text normalizes through a mappable table. Unmapped values are refused. - Categories are retired with their history intact, never deleted.