Retainers

A retainer is a recurring budget of hours for a client: "Globex support, 40 hours a month". Every tracks consumption against it in real time, shows you a burn-down, and tells you when a retainer is drifting off course.

Creating a retainer

From Retainers in the sidebar, choose New Retainer: pick the client, name it (e.g. "Monthly Support"), and set the frequency (Weekly, Fortnightly, Monthly, Quarterly, Half Yearly, or Yearly), the budget hours, and the start date. The end date fills in automatically from the frequency, and as you type a budget the form shows its dollar value at the client's hourly rate.

A retainer's status follows its dates automatically: Upcoming before the start date, Active during the period, Completed after it ends.

Reading the retainer page

The retainer page leads with four numbers:

• Consumed: hours logged within the period.
• Outstanding: estimated hours still to be done on its open tasks (with a warning count of unestimated tasks, since those are invisible to the maths).
• Remaining: budget minus consumed, in hours and dollars, turning red if you're over.
• Health: a one-word verdict:

Health	Meaning
On Track	Consumption is pacing with time elapsed
Ahead	Well under pace, room to pull work forward
At Risk	Burning meaningfully faster than time is passing
Over Committed	Outstanding work exceeds the remaining budget
Over Budget	Consumed more than the budget

Below that, the burn-down chart plots three lines: the ideal linear burn, the actual hours consumed so far, and a projection of where the outstanding estimates will land you, drawn in red if the answer is "past zero".

How tasks count toward a retainer

A task counts toward a retainer through the first of three routes that applies:

1. Explicit assignment: the task was attached to the retainer directly.
2. Project inheritance: the task's project is linked to the retainer.
3. Client inheritance: the client's retainer picks it up.

Any task can opt out with its Exclude from retainer flag, and only time logged within the retainer's period counts. The retainer page lists its active tasks with estimate, logged, and remaining columns, and gives you the tools to curate: Attach tasks to pull tasks in, Move (individually or in bulk) to shift tasks between retainers, and a collapsible Previously on this retainer section showing history and where each task lives now.

Renewing

When a period ends, press Renew to create the next one. Tasks and projects aren't copied automatically, but if hours were left over you can choose to transfer remaining hours into the new period's budget. Renewals chain together, and arrows on the retainer page step you through the chain period by period.