Welcome to HourBank

HourBank lets you sell a retainer to a client, for example 10 hours a month, and then keeps count for you. Every minute your team logs in Perfex CRM is taken off the client's hours automatically. When the month ends, unused hours carry over or expire, extra hours are invoiced, and the client can see exactly where their hours went in the client area.

What you can do with it

• Sell monthly, quarterly or yearly retainers, and one-off packs of prepaid hours.
• Count hours automatically from the time your team already logs on tasks.
• Decide what happens to unused hours: they expire, carry over, or carry over up to a limit.
• Bill extra hours automatically when a client goes over.
• Email clients when they reach 75%, 90% and 100% of their hours.
• Give clients a page in the client area with their hours left, a burn-down chart and a list of the work done.
• Use optional AI features for work categories, summaries and a question box. They are off until you switch them on.

Where to start

1. Check the requirements.
2. Install the module from Setup, then Modules. You do not need FTP.
3. Follow the setup wizard. It takes about five minutes.
4. Make sure automatic updates are running. This is the one step that needs your hosting control panel.
5. Create your first plan and give it to a client.

The words used in HourBank

Plan

A template you can reuse for many clients: the hours, the price, and what happens to unused hours.

Pack

A one-off bundle of hours a client can buy at any time, for example 10 hours for 800.

Agreement

A plan given to one client. The agreement is what counts the hours. You can give a client more than one.

Billing cycle

One period of an agreement, usually a month. The hours are renewed and the retainer is invoiced at the start of each cycle.

Hour batch

A group of hours that share an expiry date, such as this cycle's hours, hours carried over from last cycle, or a pack. Older hours are used first.