We just released a few features that should make it easier to both input and output expenses.

First of all, we made a few tweaks to improve the speed of expense entry. For instance, when you add a tax percentage and then choose "Add Another", the tax percentage sticks around for the next entry. Try using "Add Another" to persist other data between entries as well.

Furthermore, expense reports can now be exported in XML or CSV formats, just like time reports. XML data is particularly useful to developers, while CSV (comma-separated values) files can be opened with spreadsheet applications such as Excel. In order to download any report in these formats, look for the links in the upper right corner of the report (next to the printer icon).

We're now getting back to work on our time and expense review features, which we hope to release soon.

We've refreshed LiveTimer's logo and general appearance just in time for Spring (well, in the Northern hemisphere). We've added more color to brighten up the site, hopefully without being distracting.

For instance, the Timer page has gone from this:

To this:

So why update the appearance now? We're getting ready to roll out a new LiveTimer support site, which will include a number of articles and screenshots. We thought we should take a weekend to refresh our "look" before snapping all those screenshots.

We certainly hope you like the changes. Please feel free to let us know what you think!

We've just added new filters and grouping options to our reports. Time and expense reports can now be grouped and/or filtered by the billable status of entries. Expense entries can also be grouped or filtered by their reimbursable status.

For instance, the following expense report is grouped according to billable status:

How is Billable Status Determined?

The billable status of time and expense entries depends on the level at which you've defined billing rates for your account (see Settings / Billing Rates):

• Clients, Projects & Tasks - A billing rate must be assigned to a project or task for it to be billable. This can be overridden by a "not billable" activity (if activities are enabled for your account).
• Activities - A billing rate must be assigned to an activity for it to be billable. This can be overridden by a "not billable" client, project or task.
• Users - A billing rate must be assigned to a user for his or her time to be billable. This can be overridden by a "not billable" client, project, task or activity.

In order to keep these rules fairly simple, we decided that even billing rates of $0 / hour would be considered "billable". We also added explicit "not billable" flags at the project and task levels to override a rate set at a higher level. For instance, the following billing settings should be available at the task level (assuming your billing rates are set at the client, project and task level):

This gives you the option of considering gratis work billable or not. Assign a billing rate of $0 / hour to keep it billable, or else use the explicit "not billable" option.

How is Reimbursable Status Determined?

Expenses are reimbursable if they're associated with a reimbursable payment method. The following payment methods are created by default when expense tracking is enabled (of course, these can be customized):

More to Come...

These reports are a big step toward the addition of invoicing to LiveTimer. Along those lines, we're working to add the ability to review time and expenses for yourself and others within your organization. As part of this review process, you'll be able to mark entries as billed and/or reimbursed. This will give you the ability to create invoices (billable time that hasn't yet been billed) and reimbursement reports (reimbursable expenses that haven't been reimbursed).

We're getting there - thanks for your patience!

When selecting from multiple classifications (such as clients, projects and tasks) to make a time entry, it can be difficult to distinguish between your classifications by just their names. This is especially true if a colleague named them and you need to decipher those names.

For this reason, one of our users made the excellent suggestion that we should display detailed descriptions when you mouse-over items in the selectors. This seemed like a great use of the description fields that you can already enter for classifications in the Manage section.

We've just completed this addition, which we consider to be a subtle yet elegant way to clarify your assignments and perhaps save a few clicks.

If you have any suggestions of your own that could help streamline our interface, please comment below or send us a suggestion from the Help tab in your account. Thanks - we'd love to hear from you!

LiveTimer now officially supports the following desktop browsers:

• Firefox 2.0+ (3.0+ highly recommended) (Mac, Linux and Windows)
• Safari 3.0+ (Mac and Windows)
• Internet Explorer 7.0+ (Windows only)
• Google Chrome 1.0+ (Windows only)

We no longer support Internet Explorer 6.0 because of the significant amount of custom development and testing required to do so. We've studied our usage statistics and found that only a miniscule percentage of our users have ever accessed their accounts with IE 6, so we felt that we could responsibly make this decision. Although we won't intentionally break anything that currently works in this browser, we also won't actively develop for and test with it any longer.

We strongly recommend that users of Firefox 2.0 upgrade to version 3.0. We've encountered serious performance problems resulting from Firefox 2.0's inefficient javascript processing. As a result, we've disabled our most javascript-intensive page, the bulk time entry view in the time ledger, for users of Firefox 2.0. Please note that we provide the same level of support for Camino 1.6+ (a Mac-only browser) that we provide for Firefox 2.0, since it is based on the same Mozilla engine.

In addition to the desktop browsers mentioned above, we also provide support for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch. We hope to add support for BlackBerry and other mobile devices in the near future.

Expense tracking has come to LiveTimer! This past Sunday, we finished our testing and finally released these often-requested features. Expense tracking is now available in all accounts for no additional charge.

If you're an administrator for your account, you can enable expense tracking by going to the Settings tab and then Features. Check the box labeled Expense tracking and you'll be ready to start.

Currently, there's only one option available for expense tracking, which is whether sales tax should be tracked (it is by default). If you don't have a need for sales tax data, and want to keep expense entry simple, you can change this setting from Settings / Expense tracking.

Expense categories and Payment methods are two new classifications related to expenses which can be configured via the Manage tab. Expense categories can be used to classify expenses such as meals and entertainment, mileage, utilities, etc. Payment methods specify different ways expenses can be paid for, such as company cash or personal credit. Several default expense categories and payment methods have been entered, which can of course be modified or removed.

Expenses can be entered via the new Expenses tab. Expenses are entered as part of a "receipt", which can represent an actual receipt or simply group expenses together by date, vendor and payment method. One or more expenses can be entered per receipt.

Expense reports have been added to the Reports tab. The configuration options and filters for expense reports are very similar to those for time reports, so they should look quite familiar.

Even though we're planning to add expense tracking to the iPhone interface and Mini mode soon, we didn't want to hold up this release any longer to complete this feature. We're also planning to add several new options for expense reports, such as filters for billable and reimbursable time.

We hope you find the new expense tracking features useful. Please let us know what you think!

It's been a busy day. This afternoon we updated our web servers and moved our database to a faster server, which should be good news for LiveTimer's performance and stability. All went smoothly and required only 15 minutes of downtime.

This evening, we released a number of new features:

• Users can be assigned to all projects and / or activities - Because some people are a part of every project within a company, we've made it easy to assign them automatically to all current and future projects and / or activities. Look for the checkbox at the bottom of the assignments tab for each user (in Manage / Users).

• User assignments are now optional - Perhaps everyone is a part of every project within your company? Or perhaps you're a freelancer? Either way, you can now turn off user assignments altogether by unchecking User assignments in Settings / Features.

• Easier addition of projects and tasks - We now include a little add button next to each client and project in the Manage tab, allowing you to create new projects and tasks with a single click.

• Expand / collapse all clients, projects and tasks - It can be a bit tedious to open and close these hierarchical elements individually, so we now allow you to expand / collapse them en masse both in the Manage tab and the selector in the Timer.

• Simplified setup - We trimmed our Welcome tab down to a single page to get new users up and running faster.

• Interface clean up - LiveTimer's interface has been neatened and improved, often in subtle ways, to help you focus more on your data and less on our application.

We've actually got some even bigger improvements coming very, very soon. Many of our customers have waited quite patiently for expense tracking, and I'm glad to say that it's going through final testing right now. We're ironing out some final wrinkles and plan to release it in the next few days!

We are planning a major upgrade to LiveTimer at 2pm EST (GMT-5) on Sunday, February 8th. Due to the nature of this upgrade, we need to plan some downtime to ensure that it proceeds smoothly. Our service may be unavailable for up to one hour, although we expect our downtime to be significantly less.

Please feel free to contact us before, during, or after this upgrade via email (support AT livetimer DOT com) or Twitter if you have any questions or concerns. Thanks!

When travelling with your laptop or iPhone across time zones, it can be inconvenient to have to log out and then back into LiveTimer in order to force it to recognize the time zone change. Therefore, we've begun checking your time zone every time you start or stop the timer.

In order to identify your time zone, LiveTimer checks with your browser, which in turn checks your operating system. Unfortunately, some browsers, such as Firefox, seem to cache the time zone once they've been started. Therefore, it may be necessary to close and reopen your browser for changes to your operating system's time zone to be recognized by your browser.

We've confirmed that dynamic time zone recognition works in the following platform / browser combinations:

• iPhone / iPod Touch: Safari
• Mac: Safari 3.2, Fluid 0.9.5
• Windows: Internet Explorer 7

If you travel quite a bit, consider using LiveTimer from one of these browsers. After all, jet lag is enough to worry about!

Southern New Hampshire has been struck with an ice storm that has left hundreds of thousands without power. The ice is continuing to build on trees and power lines, so the situation may worsen. The regional power company has predicted multi-day outages.

Our hosting facility, based in Manchester, NH, has kept our service running smoothly despite the adverse conditions. We're hopeful that their backup generator and redundant Internet connections will prevent any outage.

We apologize in advance if this situation does result in any LiveTimer outages, or hinder our responses to support requests. We'll try to post Twitter updates as the situation changes.