Time Tracker and Invoicing

Time Tracker & Invoicing

Stop leaking billable hours — clock time on the notes you're already working in, then turn it into client-ready invoices without leaving Obsidian.

Track billable time against your notes and projects, aggregate it by client, and generate invoices — built for freelancers and consultants who live in Obsidian. Fully local: no external API, no account, your data stays in your vault.

Open-core / one-time purchase. Time tracking is free forever in the Lite tier. Invoicing & PDF export unlock with a one-time license — $29 one-time — buy here.

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Lite vs. Premium

All time tracking is free — no trial, no expiry. Invoicing and PDF export are the only paid features, gated behind the license check (LicenseManager.isPremium()).

Purchase: Buy Me a Coffee — Time Tracker & Invoicing Premium. License keys are verified offline (Ed25519) — no account, server, or subscription.

Activate in three steps:

1. Buy the one-time Premium license from the link above.
2. Your license key is emailed to you automatically, within seconds — delivery is fully automated, no waiting.
3. Paste it into the plugin's License setting — Premium unlocks instantly, verified offline.

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How it works

Tracking time

• Start tracking active note — begins a timer against the currently open note. The note's client and project frontmatter (configurable) tag the entry; if absent, a default client is used and the note name becomes the project.
• Stop tracking — closes the timer and records a time entry.
• A status bar item shows the running timer (⏺ 0:12:34 · Acme Co); click it to start/stop.
• Entries are stored locally in the plugin's data.json (alongside settings) — fully in your vault.

Aggregation

• Show tracked time totals — summarizes hours by client.
• Aggregation also powers invoicing (totals broken down by project → invoice line items).

Invoicing (premium)

• Generate invoice (Premium) — pick a client; the plugin builds a markdown invoice (one line item per project, configurable rounding) and saves it to your invoice folder, with business details and totals.
• PDF export is stubbed today (exportPdfStub) — it saves the markdown and points you to Obsidian's built-in Export to PDF. A real local PDF generator is left as a clean TODO(pdf).

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Commands

• Start tracking active note (Lite)
• Stop tracking (Lite)
• Toggle tracking (start/stop) (Lite)
• Show tracked time totals (Lite)
• Generate invoice (Premium)
• Verify license key

Plus a ribbon clock icon to toggle tracking.

Settings

Default hourly rate, currency, hours rounding, client/project frontmatter property names, and default client (all free). Business name/address/email and invoice folder are premium (invoice-only) and locked until licensed. License key lives under License.

Keys are verified offline with Ed25519 signatures (tweetnacl) — no account, server, or network call, keeping the plugin 100% local. A key is base64url(payload).base64url(signature), verified against the public key in src/license/publicKey.ts.

Selling keys (author workflow):

node scripts/keygen.mjs                 # one-time: create keypair
npm run license:generate -- [email protected]   # after a sale: mint a key

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Feedback and support

Bug reports, feature requests, and questions all go to the GitHub issue tracker. It is the only place I track them, so an issue will always get further than a review comment.

• Report a bug — please include your Obsidian version, your operating system, and the steps that reproduce it.
• Request a feature — describe the workflow you are trying to make faster; that is more useful than a proposed solution.
• Browse open issues — worth a look first, in case it is already tracked.

More plugins by the same author

Small, local-first Obsidian plugins that each do one job and keep your data in your vault. All of them are in the community directory — search the name under Settings → Community plugins.

Search and views

• Vault Spotlight — keyboard-first command center — fuzzy search, saved workflows, and result actions.
• Bases Power Pack — kanban, calendar, Gantt, and outline views over your notes or a .base file.

Vault health

• Vault Triage — find stale, orphaned, unfinished, and metadata-broken notes, then work through them.
• Attachment Audit — find orphaned, duplicate, oversized, and misplaced attachments, then clean them up safely.
• Patina — score every note's staleness from edits, opens, and inbound links.
• Vault Router — move new notes out of Inbox with fast local routing rules.
• FlowKit Health Dashboard — find which add-on is breaking your vault, and score every one installed.

Writing and research

• Prose Lens — live writing feedback — passive voice, adverbs, hedges, cliches, and a reading grade.
• Prior Art — show similar existing notes while you write, and merge duplicates without losing links.
• Standing Questions — track the open questions in your vault and surface new notes that may answer them.
• Unwritten — report the notes you never wrote — unexplained link pairs, stub hubs, unreasoned decisions.
• Effort Index — measure the editing time behind every note and resurface the expensive ones.

Time and billing

• Task Calendar Bridge — export dated Markdown tasks to standards-based ICS calendar files.
• Invoice Forge — turn #billable notes into numbered invoices, so nothing is missed or billed twice.

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Build

npm install
npm run build      # bundles to main.js
npm run dev        # watch mode
npm run typecheck  # tsc --noEmit
npm test           # offline license verification tests

npm run build produces main.js next to manifest.json and styles.css.

Install

Community plugins (recommended): open Settings → Community plugins, search Time Tracker and Invoicing, and install it — one click, auto-updates.

Manual install — copy main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css into:

<your-vault>/.obsidian/plugins/time-tracker-invoicing/

Then enable Time Tracker & Invoicing in Settings → Community plugins.

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Project layout

time-tracker-invoicing/
├── manifest.json
├── versions.json
├── package.json
├── tsconfig.json
├── esbuild.config.mjs
├── styles.css
├── .github/workflows/
│   └── release.yml        # tag-driven GitHub release (build + attach assets)
├── scripts/
│   ├── keygen.mjs         # one-time Ed25519 keypair generator (author)
│   ├── generate-license.mjs   # mint a customer key (author)
│   └── customer-license-template.txt
├── tests/
│   └── license.test.mjs   # offline license sign/verify round-trip
└── src/
    ├── main.ts            # entry, commands, status bar, persistence
    ├── settings.ts        # settings tab
    ├── license/
    │   ├── LicenseManager.ts  # offline Ed25519 verification
    │   └── publicKey.ts       # embedded public key
    ├── types/tweetnacl.d.ts   # minimal tweetnacl type shim
    ├── timeStore.ts       # entries, active timer, aggregation
    ├── invoice.ts         # invoice markdown generation + PDF stub (premium)
    └── types.ts           # shared interfaces & defaults

Reference: the licensing approach, settings-tab patterns, build/test setup, and project layout are adapted from the Vault Spotlight plugin — see "Borrowed from Vault Spotlight" notes in the repo.

License

MIT (plugin source). Premium feature access is governed by a signed license key.