Retainers

A retainer in Runnit is one thing, not a budget you copy every month. Finance > Retainers holds the series, its calendar, one budget per period, the hours carried between periods, and how each period gets invoiced.

Reading a retainer needs Manage retainers or Manage budgets. Changing one needs Manage retainers. Drafting or running its invoice needs Draft invoices.

The calendar

Choose a cadence (weekly, fortnightly, four-weekly, monthly, quarterly or yearly) and the date the first period starts. Periods are generated ahead of time as drafts, with draft budgets, so time cannot land on a period nobody has checked.

A period runs from its start date up to but not including the next one, so a day belongs to exactly one period.
A monthly retainer anchored on the 31st lands on the 30th or the 28th in short months and returns to the 31st in the next long one.
A run that was missed catches up. It generates every period that should exist, not just the latest.

Closing a period’s window

Close the consumption window records approved consumption and writes the carry ledger. It is not the financial close: the budget still needs its delivery and its invoicing.

Time still in draft or waiting for approval is reported, never written off. The page tells you how many entries are still to settle.

Carry between periods

Carry records its source period, unit, cap and expiry when first created.

Carry is consumed oldest first, so what is closest to expiring is used first.
Expired carry is skipped rather than deleted, so the ledger still explains where the hours went.
Re-closing a period supersedes only what has not been consumed. Carry a later period has already used keeps its consumption and gets a balancing entry. Corrections go to the earliest eligible open period. Periods that are closed, have recorded time, or have reserved or issued invoices stay unchanged. Repeating an unchanged close does not add another balancing entry.

The policy can carry unused hours, unused hours and overuse, an amount credit, or nothing.

Unused hours keep their original expiry when they pass through later periods. Approved work uses the oldest carried hours first, then the current period’s own allowance. The carry cap applies to forwarded and newly unused hours together for each line.

In Rollover, open Carry origins and expiry to see where each lot began, which period forwarded it, when it expires, and its allocated and remaining balance. Allocated carry belongs to a period. Expired carry remains visible in the history. Unused entitlement is excluded from Still to use and the end-settlement total after expiry. A correction to carry already used still applies, even after the original expiry.

Carry, allowance and excess hours retain up to four decimal places. For example, an allowance of 0.0050 hours appears as 0.005h; it is not rounded away or reduced by more carry than it can absorb. Carry caps accept nonnegative hours with up to four decimal places.

Adjusting a period

Choose an open period and find Period adjustments. Choose Add hours or Remove hours, enter the hours, choose the allowance line and give a reason. Select Record adjustment. You need permission to manage retainers.

Hourly carry and manual hour changes affect the delivery allowance. They do not change the agreed fee or the amount sold. For example, six carried hours on a ten-hour, $2,000 period make sixteen hours available while the fee remains $2,000. Change the priced quantity through the budget when the agreement itself changes. A price change that conflicts with existing allowance reductions is refused; review the allowance before submitting that change.

The history shows what was requested and the actual allowance change. Removing 20 hours from an allowance of 10 reduces it by 10. Reverse restores that recorded change to the same line and requires a reason. Repeating a reversal returns the one already recorded.

Closed accounting periods and closed consumption windows block new changes. If later adjustments prevent an exact reversal, review the period before recording a new adjustment. Older history may show Not recorded for the actual effect; review those entries before deciding on a correction.

Record added amount and Record removed amount are informational records. They do not change the fee or an invoice. Amounts are shown only when your financial visibility allows prices.

When a period overruns

Approved time fills the included allowance first and becomes billable excess second, at the rates the entries were approved at. What happens to the excess is the series’ policy:

Policy	Effect
At the line rate	Excess is invoiceable at the line’s own rate
At the overage rate	Excess is invoiceable at the retainer’s overage rate
Absorb	Excess keeps its hours and its cost but is never invoiceable, so the margin hit stays visible
Block	The approval that would create the excess is refused

Overuse either reduces the next period or raises a true-up. Never both. The retainer states which.

A retainer funds many jobs. Tasks in any of the client’s projects can be mapped to a retainer line, and the consumption view groups the hours by the project the work was done on.

Invoicing a period

The agreed fee and the excess are invoiced as two separate things, and each can be raised only once however it is triggered: by hand, by the nightly pass or by an automation. A period already drafted or issued says so rather than producing a second invoice.

The fee is what the period sold. Hourly carry changes the allowance without changing that fee. Unused amount carry appears as a separate invoice credit, with the same tax treatment as the fee. For example, $1,200 of carry reduces a $2,000 fee to $800 before tax. Periods shows this amount as invoice credit.

A credit can cover the whole fee, producing an invoice with nothing to pay. Excess carry stays available for a later eligible period, subject to expiry. If a re-close reduces carry already used, the correction adds a charge to a future eligible period. It does not change an issued invoice.

Voiding an invoice or crediting its sources for reissue makes those sources available again. Choosing to write off the sources keeps them unavailable.

Policies run at the start or the end of the period, with a day offset, and either draft or issue. Automatic issue needs three things: the retainer allows it, the person it runs as still holds the authority to issue, and the issue approval passes. Missing any one leaves a draft and says which.

Pause, resume and end

Pause stops generation and remembers where it stopped. Resume catches up every period that was missed.
End asks what happens to the unused balance: invoice what is outstanding, forfeit the carry, or leave it live to credit back. The outstanding balance is reported either way.
Apply to future periods rebuilds future periods from the template. It only touches periods that are still draft, untouched by a change order, with no recorded time, manual adjustments or work reserved on a draft invoice, and nothing invoiced. Financially closed periods are skipped. Everything skipped is listed with its reason. Applied carry keeps its original expiry when the budget is rebuilt. If a smaller allowance cannot absorb all overuse, the unused reduction remains available to a later period.

Rates

Role-priced lines use the rate card as it stands when a period is generated. Manual prices keep the template’s entered amounts, and a later rate card edit never rewrites a period that has already been generated.

Next step

Bill a period from Invoices, or see the retainer in the Forecast.

Help from Ru

Ask Ru to explain this workflow, inspect records you can access, or carry out supported steps when you authorise them. Your permissions and approval rules still apply. See Finance with Ru.

Overage appears in Finance Reports after you close its consumption window. It belongs to the final included day of the period. The reporting value uses the exchange rate for that day and stays unchanged if you close the same excess again after correcting exchange-rate settings.

New periods retain the template budget’s tax pricing basis and currency. A template in a different currency, billing entity or client cannot be substituted into a series. Review older pricing through Budgets.

Client portal

Clients with budget access can review visible retainer periods, approved usage, assigned rollover and history under Budgets in the Client Portal. Hours appear only when the agency enables them. Unapproved time, hidden sections and internal cost are excluded.