2026-11-10
Toggl's calendar rule marks client calls billable before anyone tracks a minute
Toggl now lets a calendar decide what a client pays for. A Toggl product page, last updated October 20, 2026, says you can "Add tags and set billable status directly on a calendar event, before any time is logged." To do this for every client call at once, the page says to "set up a matching rule in Settings → Connected calendars." It describes that rule in one line: "It applies to every event it matches."
If Harvest's renewal has you pricing Toggl, read this setting before the price. It moves the billable decision ahead of the work, onto a calendar that holds a title, a start and an end. Whether an hour should be billed is something a person knows after the hour, not before it.
What the rule matches
Toggl's help page on its calendar integration gives the details. "Matching rules match calendar events by keyword and set a task or project, tags and billable status for you." The keyword is a word in the title: "Matching isn't case-sensitive and looks for whole words in the event title." A rule doesn't have to point at a project: "A rule can contain only tags and/or billable status; a task or project is optional."
Four more lines on that page set how far a rule reaches:
- "A rule applies to every connected calendar."
- "Rules are personal: they apply only to you, in the current workspace."
- "When you save a rule, it fills empty fields on upcoming planned events that aren't logged yet, and matching events are logged with those details from then on."
- "Time you've already logged is not changed, and deleting a rule doesn't undo details it has already applied."
A rule keyed to a client's name matches every event with that name in its title. It would also match an internal prep meeting someone titled after the client. Because rules are personal, two people on the same call can each have a different rule, or none, and the same hour can come out billable on one timesheet and not on the other. A rule you delete leaves its billable flags behind.
With auto-track on, nobody logs it either
The rule fills in the billable status. Auto-track fills in the time. Switch it on and, in Toggl's words, "Past events from the current week (from your week start until now) are logged automatically." After that, "each event is logged once it has started, for its full scheduled length." The logging happens when Toggl syncs your calendar, "which happens when you open Toggl or return to it." Turn auto-track back on after a pause and the started events "are logged using your current rules."
Put the two together. A client call that matches a billable rule becomes a billable time entry for its booked length the next time Toggl syncs after the call starts. Nobody has to open the entry for that to happen. If the call ended early, the entry still shows the scheduled length until someone edits it. The same page says who can switch auto-track on: you need permission to manage calendar integrations, and "Admins, Managers and Members have it by default."
Import your Harvest account and read the reconciliation
Free for 2 people and 1 active project; $9 per active member per month after that, no usage fees on anything. The import runs on the free plan.
Where Toggl puts the check
Toggl does have a check, and its own help page describes it well: "Approval is the checkpoint that catches missing or misattributed time before it turns into an invoice." The questions are which plan it is on and what it holds back. The product page names no plan. Toggl's pricing page and help pages fill that in:
- Calendars: Toggl's Free plan lists "Google & Outlook Calendars integrations."
- Billable status: the billable control "appears only on plans that include billable rates," and "Workspace, Member and Projects rates are available on the Starter plan."
- Approvals: "Timesheet Approvals is available on the Premium plan and above, on the Webapp only."
On Starter, then, a rule can mark a call billable and auto-track can log it, and there is no timesheet approval step on that plan. On Premium, an approver who opens a member's timesheet sees "total hours and billable percentage for the period," and "a submitted or approved period locks so billing, payroll, and reporting stay stable." A single entry can be corrected by hand: "You can remove the billable flag from individual time entries when needed." That correction comes after the default is set, and the default came from a word in a calendar title.
What we could not find is what happens to time nobody has approved. Toggl's invoicing page says "Team leads can review and approve time before it leaves the workspace," and its billing advice is: "When it's time to bill, filter a report by client and date range and export it." It also says "Toggl calculates the billable amount as the hours come in." Neither that page nor the approvals help page says a report or an export leaves out time that is still waiting for approval. If you're pricing Toggl, ask.
What should decide what a client pays for
A calendar event is a plan. It was written before the work, and it knows a title, a start and an end. What a client pays for should be settled after the work, by someone who has seen the hours and the note on each entry and agreed to them. A rule can fill in a default. It shouldn't be the last word.
Where approval sits in Winnows
In Winnows, if you use approvals, hours become invoice-ready lines after someone approves them. Approvals "open the week itself before you decide: every entry and its note, then approve or send it back with a comment." Our invoicing guide says what that changes: "If approvals are switched on, hours still awaiting approval are left out of the invoice entirely."
- On Reports → Invoicing you pick the dates and tick the clients and projects to bill. "Any project holding those hours starts unticked, so a partly-approved project cannot be swept into an invoice by a select-all."
- "The preview shows each invoice, its lines, its total and its number before anything leaves Winnows."
- The lines go to QuickBooks Online or Xero as unsent invoices on the paid plan, or download as a CSV of the same lines on every plan, the free one included.
- Approvals are on the free plan too, for two people and one active project at a time.
Winnows does not send invoices, calculate tax or email your client. The invoice waits in your books, and you read it there before it goes anywhere.
Five questions before a rule bills your client
- Who sets billable status, and when: a person after the work, or a rule before it?
- Does a rule apply to time nobody has opened yet?
- Is the rule set for the workspace, or does each person write their own?
- On the plan you're pricing, is there an approval step at all?
- Does time waiting for approval stay out of the invoice and the export?
Ask them of every tool on your Harvest shortlist, us included. Our answers are in the guide to invoicing from approved hours.
Import your Harvest account and read the reconciliation
Free for 2 people and 1 active project; $9 per active member per month after that, no usage fees on anything. The import runs on the free plan.