---
title: "Costings, estimates and actuals"
slug: "time-billables-costings-estimates-actuals"
description: "Manage billable projects effortlessly, track time, and calculate costings automatically. Set roles for accurate estimates and actuals in your projects."
updated: 2026-04-21T11:34:20Z
published: 2026-04-22T08:52:43Z
canonical: "help.cintra.co.uk/time-billables-costings-estimates-actuals"
stale: true
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://help.cintra.co.uk/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Costings, estimates and actuals

Available in:

**Time**

Who can do this:

**HR Manager**

### Overview

It is possible to make projects billable within the system, which will allow you to estimate project costings. While the project is ongoing, and employees are marking time against it, the system will automatically calculate your project actuals.

By default, all projects are not billable, however you can override this to ensure all or some time tracked is marked as billable.

You can plan your project hours and costings within the project page and this will automatically calculate your estimates for you.

The project actuals are then automatically populated.

Project Admins & Project Managers with Create, Billing & Costing roles will see all of this information.

### **Before you start**

It's a good idea to set up your Project Roles and assign them to your employees first. This way, your project costings will be calculated automatically for you. Additionally, when tracking time, Employees will have their project role automatically populated for them, which will reduce user error.

For more information about Project Roles, take a look at the following article: [Project Roles](/hr/docs/time-project-roles).

Head to **Time > Config > Project Roles** to set up your project roles.

Then go to **Organisation > Employees > select employee > Time** to give your employees specific roles & their exact cost.

### **Costings & Estimates**

Costings & Estimates are configured per project.

Go to **Time > Config > Projects.**

![](https://cdn.document360.io/fc2cda72-4645-4b36-96bf-60439ec11f11/Images/Documentation/204017220745.png)

Create a new Project or open one that's already been created and go to the Costings & Estimates tab.

Click Add Role to start working out your costs & estimates.

Select a Project Role from the list or create a new one.

Enter estimated hours for the project for Billable and Non Billable time. This will then calculate the Project Estimates.

![](https://cdn.document360.io/fc2cda72-4645-4b36-96bf-60439ec11f11/Images/Documentation/204017220746.png)

If you have set up an hourly rate on the Project Role, this will populate in the Billable and Cost columns.

The Options tab will give you additional configuration options to change such as the Currency and billable settings.

![](https://cdn.document360.io/fc2cda72-4645-4b36-96bf-60439ec11f11/Images/Documentation/204017220747.png)

When you're happy with the Costings, Estimates and Options, click Save Changes.

### **Actuals**

When employees start tracking time against the project, your actuals will calculate.

Go to **Time > Config > Projects >** open a Project > **Actuals.**

![](https://cdn.document360.io/fc2cda72-4645-4b36-96bf-60439ec11f11/Images/Documentation/204017220748.png)

From here you will see the time spent on this project, whether it's billable or not, and the calculation against the project cost.