Hey Sumo-lings,

I’m excited to preview the next major Hoursmith feature: recurring invoices, launching early next week.

The goal is simple: configure your billing once, and let Hoursmith prepare the next invoice when it is due.

You will be able to choose:

Weekly, biweekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly or custom intervals

A start date and optional ending rule

Fixed charges, uninvoiced work, expenses or a combination

Draft generation or guarded automatic sending

Due dates, taxes, discounts, notes, payment methods and recipients

THREE BILLING STYLES

Fixed: Repeat charges such as monthly maintenance, hosting or consulting retainers.

Variable: Automatically collect eligible uninvoiced hourly work and billable expenses from all or selected client projects.

Hybrid: Combine a recurring base fee with additional time and expenses.

If a variable-only occurrence has no billable work, Hoursmith skips it without assigning an invoice number or sending an empty invoice. A hybrid invoice still generates its base charge.

DRAFT OR AUTOMATIC SENDING

“Create draft” prepares the invoice for you to review.

“Create and send automatically” emails it using your existing Hoursmith sender, SMTP, Amazon SES or Resend configuration.

For invoices containing variable work or expenses, you must set a maximum total. If the invoice exceeds that amount, Hoursmith keeps it as a draft marked “Needs review” instead of sending it unexpectedly.

Automatic sending does not automatically charge the client. It sends the normal invoice and payment link, after which the client pays through Stripe, bank transfer or another enabled method.

NORMAL HOURSMITH INVOICES

A recurring schedule is only a template—not revenue or an outstanding invoice.

When an occurrence becomes due, Hoursmith creates an ordinary invoice and assigns the next number. It then works like every other invoice, including:

Branded PDFs and public links

Client portal

Stripe and manual payments

Partial payments

Supporting documents

Reminders, reports and exports

You will also be able to pause, resume, skip the next invoice, undo a skip, generate the next invoice now, clone a schedule, or end it.

When editing an upcoming occurrence, you can apply the change to only that invoice or to that and all future invoices. Previously generated invoices are never rewritten.

Resuming a paused schedule will move to the next future date instead of creating a surprise backlog.

Recurring invoices will be part of the Studio plan, so every Hoursmith AppSumo lifetime customer will receive them regardless of license tier.

If you have a particular recurring billing workflow you want us to consider before launch, please leave a comment.

— Nivesh

Founder of Hoursmith

Hey Sumo-lings,

Nivesh here, founder of Hoursmith.

A lot has shipped since my first founder post, so here is a quick look at what is already live.

FIXED-FEE PROJECT BILLING

Fixed-fee projects now work as proper invoice contracts. Set the total contract value, then invoice the complete remaining amount or a partial installment.

Hoursmith clearly shows the contract value, previously invoiced amount, draft reservations, posted invoices and remaining balance. Drafts reserve their allocation, preventing the same contract value from being invoiced twice.

Your team can still track time on fixed-fee projects for delivery and profitability reporting, but those hours never become hourly invoice lines.

START AND END TIMES

Manual time entries can now include actual start and end times. Enter “9am to 10:30am” and Hoursmith calculates the duration automatically.

These times appear across timesheets, projects, clients and tasks. Overnight work is supported, and entries are displayed in the timezone of the person who tracked them.

The API, CSV exports and MCP server support these fields too.

BACKFILL TIME WHILE CREATING A TASK

The task drawer now includes an optional “Time already spent” section. You can create a task and add several dated time entries in the same flow—useful when recording work completed over multiple days.

FOUR INTERFACE LANGUAGES

Hoursmith is now available in English, Spanish, French and German. Language is a personal preference, so teammates can each use their preferred language without changing the workspace for everyone else.

PROCESSING FEES ON EVERY PAYMENT METHOD

Percentage or flat processing fees can now be applied to cards, bank transfers, Wise, cheque, UPI or any custom payment method.

Card fees are collected through Stripe Checkout. For offline methods, clients see a clear balance + fee = total-to-pay breakdown.

SAFER PAYMENTS

Stripe Checkout now resumes an existing matching session instead of opening duplicate full-balance sessions. We also strengthened payment-session expiry, refund limits, merchant-account checks and zero-decimal currency handling.

MCP OVER HTTP

The Hoursmith MCP server now supports Streamable HTTP for clients that require a URL, while continuing to support Claude Desktop, Cursor, Zed and other stdio clients.

We have also added live in-app support for every signed-in user.

You can follow every release here:

https://docs.hoursmith.app/changelog

Next, I’ll share a detailed preview of recurring invoices, launching early next week.

— Nivesh

Founder of Hoursmith

Hey Sumo-lings, I'm Nivesh — the founder of Hoursmith.

For years I ran my freelance and studio work the way most people billing by the hour do: a time tracker in one tab, an invoicing app in another, and a payment processor that quietly took a slice of every client payment. Three tools, three subscriptions, and a billing day that ran longer than the work deserved. The part that nagged at me was small but telling — the invoice my client opened never really looked like mine. My brand lived everywhere except the one document that asked them to pay.

So I built Hoursmith to do one job, and do it properly: turn your billable hours into paid invoices.

Here's the whole loop. You track time with a one-click timer (or type it in), and that time flows straight onto an invoice priced at your rate. You send it from your own email domain, so it lands in your client's inbox under your name. They open a clean, branded page, pay by card or bank transfer, and the money settles directly into your own Stripe account. Hoursmith never holds your funds and never takes a cut — you pay Stripe's standard processing fee and nothing more. Your money and your brand stay yours, start to finish.

A few things I care about that you might too:

Your money, your account. Payments run through Stripe Connect into your own Stripe — no middleman, no skim.

Your brand, your domain. Invoices send from your address, not a third party's, with an optional client portal for your clients.

One tool, not three. Clients, projects, time, invoices, and payments live on one tidy line.

Built to automate. A real REST API and an MCP server let you drive Hoursmith from your own scripts or from AI tools like Claude.

Why bring it to AppSumo? Because you're exactly who I built this for — freelancers, consultants, and small studios who live and die by billable hours and are tired of overpaying for bloated suites. I'd rather put Hoursmith in your hands early, hear what's missing, and build the roadmap around real billing workflows than polish in a vacuum. Your feedback during this campaign will shape what I build next, and I mean that literally.

What's in it for you: lifetime access to the Studio plan — choose Solo, Trio, or Quintet to match your team size — plus every Studio-tier update for life, and a founder who reads and answers every message. This is still a young product, so if you tell me what you need, there's a real chance you'll watch it ship.

I'll also be upfront about what Hoursmith isn't: it's not a full project-management suite, it's not accounting software, and it's never a bank.

Thanks for taking a look, and for giving an independent product a shot.

— Nivesh, founder of Hoursmith