Keep tracking time in the app your team already uses and let Ignition handle the billing. Time from Karbon, Financial Cents, Practice CS or Xero Practice Manager (XPM) comes into Ignition's WIP, where you review the work, decide what to bill and invoice through your usual Ignition billing and payment flow.
Before you begin
Connect your time tracking app to Ignition. Each app's section below links to its setup guide.
Link each client in your app to the matching Ignition client.
Check that time is marked billable or non-billable correctly in your app.
Map your app's work, projects or jobs to the Ignition service they should be billed under, and check each service's billing type, hourly or fixed fee.
Choose the period you want to import.
Bill hourly work
Resolve any items in Exceptions, such as unmapped services.
Open Ready to invoice.
Check the client, service, team member, work date, rate and amount for each entry.
Write entries up or down if needed.
Create the invoice in Ignition.
Pro-tip: Time descriptions are often written for your team, not your client. Before you send the invoice, remove internal shorthand, combine related entries and add a client-friendly summary.
Review fixed-fee work
Fixed-fee work is billed through the client's existing Ignition agreement, so imported time doesn't create a second invoice. Use the time to see whether the fee covers the effort, and to spot low effective rates, recurring overages, out-of-scope work and services that need repricing.
Working with Client Groups
Client Groups organize related clients, but each group member remains a separate client record. Match imported time to the individual Ignition client that received the work, then confirm the service mapping before billing. A group proposal can assign services to one entity and bill another, so check the service’s Service for and Bill to assignments if work and billing involve different group members. The Client Group view rolls up services, billing schedules, and invoices; check the individual client record when reviewing a specific member’s work.
Decide which system owns what
Agree up front which system owns clients, jobs, time, billing status, payments and reporting. This keeps your team from doing the same work twice, especially if you use more than one practice app.
Karbon
The Karbon integration is available on the Pro and Pro+ plans. To connect it, see Karbon and Ignition.
WIP is based on active, billable work items. Work that's already billed, completed, canceled, archived or written off shouldn't keep appearing as new WIP. If older work shows up, check the work item's status in Karbon and the date range you're importing.
After you bill: Billing in Ignition doesn't mark the Karbon time or work item as billed, and the Ignition invoice isn't sent back to Karbon. Agree on a reconciliation process so both systems stay aligned, and don't create a second invoice in Karbon unless that's your firm's agreed workflow.
Financial Cents
To connect Financial Cents, see Financial Cents and Ignition.
Imported time can include the client, project, team member, work date, duration, billing rate, WIP value and billable status. Take extra care with mapping when a client has several services, when service names have changed, or when the same project covers both fixed-fee and hourly work.
For recurring projects, Financial Cents project timing and your Ignition billing schedule don't always line up. Check the work date, project period, completion status and billing schedule before you invoice.
After you bill: Billing in Ignition doesn't mark the Financial Cents time as billed, and the Ignition invoice isn't sent back to Financial Cents. Your WIP may be cleared in Ignition while the time still shows as unbilled in Financial Cents, so agree on a reconciliation process.
Practice CS
Time comes from Practice CS through the Practice CS Connector, a Windows app installed on a machine that can reach your Practice CS database. The connector is in Early Access, can be enabled via Labs and is available as a plan add-on. Reach out to your Key Account Manager for more details. To set it up, see Set up the Practice CS Connector.
Note: A hosted Practice CS environment may not give the connector the database access it needs. Check access with your IT team or hosting provider before you start.
Practice CS stays your system of record for time, internal WIP and operational reporting. The connector's experimental WIP feature also shows the agreed fee from Ignition next to hours and WIP from Practice CS, and can flag services whose unbilled WIP has reached a share of the agreed fee. Turn it on from Settings → Experimental features in the connector app.
After you bill: The connector can push issued Ignition invoices into Practice CS, and payments collected in Ignition post back as receipts. See Practice CS Connector overview.
Xero Practice Manager (XPM)
To connect XPM, see Connecting to and setting up Xero Practice Manager (XPM).
Check which jobs are active, and confirm billable time and rates in XPM. Review client and job matches carefully when client names differ between XPM and Ignition, a client has duplicate records, a business and its owners are separate records, or jobs have been closed or archived.
After you bill: Check whether the job or time in XPM also needs updating, and agree on a reconciliation process with your team.
Troubleshooting
No WIP is showing
Check that your app is connected, the client is linked, the work item, project or job is active, the time is billable and the import period covers the work. For Practice CS, also check that the connector has refreshed.
My app still shows the time as unbilled
For Karbon and Financial Cents, this is expected. Confirm the Ignition invoice, the amount billed and any write-offs, then update your app using your firm's reconciliation process.
Fixed-fee work is showing in Ready to invoice
The work may be mapped to the wrong service, or the Ignition service may be set up as hourly.
Work is matched to the wrong client
Check for duplicate clients, or a business and its owners set up as separate records. For XPM, see Duplicate clients in Xero Practice Manager.