As was mentioned earlier, log windows have two configurations: narrow and wide. To expand a window to the wider view you can click on the right-pointing arrow button...
 
... or select “Show Rate, Charge, Category” under the Log menu.
The wider window reveals three new columns: Rate, Total Charge and Category, and also a new checkbox at the top of the window: “Show Expenses”.
 
Another difference between narrow and wide log windows is that in the wide configuration a slashed-circle symbol appears in place of the word “Ignore” in the heading of the Ignore column. The function of the Ignore column is the same as in the narrow log window. The symbol is used so the Ignore column could be narrower, allowing the other columns to be wider while still keeping the log window within the confines of a 640-pixel-wide monitor.
Rates and Charges
Rate refers to an hourly rate. You can set an hourly rate for any session or group of sessions, and the figure that appears in the Total Charge column will be calculated from this rate and the amount of time in that record.
To set the rate for a session, double-click on the rate figure for that record, or click once on the rate and then select “Edit Hourly Rate” under the Log menu. You can also select the rate for any number of sessions before double-clicking or using the “Edit Hourly Rate” menu selection. You can select multiple session’s rates by command-clicking on them one at a time. You can also select the rates of all the sessions in a day by clicking on the rate for that day, and likewise for a week, month, etc. Setting an hourly rate is performed in this window:
 
If you have no rates selected when you choose the “Edit Hourly Rate” menu selection, then the top radio button will be selected and the bottom one dimmed, as there are no “selected time periods”. If you have one or more rates selected in the log window, then the dialog will appear as shown above. In that case you can choose to apply the rate you enter to either the time periods you selected, or to all of the sessions in the module. If you apply the new rate to the whole of the module (i.e., if the top radio button is selected), then the hourly rate you enter will become a default rate for the module. New sessions will automatically be set to this rate as they are created. You can also establish a default rate by creating a “default category”, as will be described in the section of this chapter on log categories.
 
Expense Records:
In addition to tracking the time you spend on a project, you might also want to have a record of any expenses related to a project. You can add expense records to a MultiTimer Pro log to do this. An expense record is like a session record in most respects, but it has no entry under the “Total Time” or “Rate” columns. To create an expense record, select “New Session/Expense Record...” under the Log menu. The dialog for creating a new record looks like this:
 
The popup menu on the left allows you to select either Expense or Session. With Session selected, the appearance of the right side of the window is slightly different, in that you are prompted to enter hours and minutes figures rather than an amount of money. Enter an amount in this window (and edit the date and time, if you like), and the new expense record will appear in the log window:
 
You can edit the Total Charge amount of an existing expense record. just double-click on the record’s Total Charge figure, or click once to select it and then choose “Edit Expense Amount...” under the Log menu. A new window will appear in which you can change the amount of the expense.
Once you have one or more expense records in a log, two new items will appear at the bottom of the log window. These are two subtotals for the log, and appear under the “Total For...” column. and its “Total Charge” column shows the total of all the expenses in that log.
The Category Column:
The “Category” column can be used to attach labels to some or all of the sessions and/or expenses of a log. Clicking in the Category column of a session or expense record activates a popup menu. A small icon appears in the Category column of session and expense records to signify that the popup menu is available there. The contents of the menu are defined by you, so you determine not only what category is attached to a record, but also what categories are available for you to choose from. There are two sets of categories for each log window; one for sessions and one for expenses. Each session category can have an hourly rate associated with it, so that by setting the category of a session, you can also set its hourly rate. Similarly, each expense category can have a charge amount attached to it; this will be useful for those cases where a fixed charge is associated with a certain type of expense.
Here’s a quick example of one way you might use the category field: Say that for the “Dinosaur Graphics” project, you have to perform 3 types of work: research (into the appearance of various dinosaurs), 2D illustrations, and 3D modeling. By defining the categories of your log appropriately, you can quickly set each session to the correct category. If you charge a different hourly rate for the 3 types of work, you can set up the categories to reflect this as well.
When you first click on the Category control, there will be only two options in the popup menu: “Edit Menu” and “<no category>”:
 
Select “Edit Menu” (or select “Edit Categories...” under the Log menu), and things start to get exciting...
 
This is the window you use to create new categories to be added to the popup menu, and to modify existing categories. At the top of the window is a popup menu with which you select whether you are editing the group of categories that will appear for session records, or the group for expense records. In the illustration above, 3 categories have been defined. The process for creating a new category is fairly self evident from the illustration. To edit an existing category, click once on the category in the scrolling list in the upper part of the window, and then click the “Edit” button. The name and rate (or name and charge) of that category will appear in the two text-entry boxes in the center of the window, allowing you to modify one or both. To remove a category, click on it once to select it and then click the “Remove” button. The “Import” button allows you to import the categories from any other MultiTimer Pro log file.
The width of the Category column is limited, so only short words or phrases can be used as category names. The Edit Categories window will automatically set the correct limit on the length of category names as you type them.
In the lower portion of the window is popup menu: “Default category for sessions”. If the window were set to edit expense categories, this would read “Default category for expenses”. You can set one or both of these if you want one of your categories to be automatically applied to any new sessions or expenses that are added to the log. If these are set to “<none>, then new sessions/expenses will have the category setting “<no category>, which leaves the category column empty.
 
If the hourly rate of a session category is $0/hr, then setting a session to that category won’t effect any existing “Rate” entry for that session record. If the rate of a category is non-zero, then when you set a session to that category, the session’s rate (and total charge) will change to reflect the rate of the category. As you might expect, expense categories behave similarly. If the charge attached to an expense category is $0, then any existing charge entered for that record won’t be changed when you apply that category to it.
Establishing Default Settings For New Log Windows:
It’s likely that you will have certain preferences about how your logs should be set up. For example, you may want “Show Sessions” and “Show Days” turned on and all the other layout check boxes turned off. You may have certain categories that you will always want to add to a new log, and you may have a default hourly rate that you would like applied to all new logs. MultiTimer Pro can apply these settings to newly created logs for you. To do this, you must first set up one log window according to all your preferences. With this log window as your front window, select “Make Log’s Settings Default” under the File menu. Once this is done, whenever you create a new module, it will automatically have these settings imported to its log. The layout check boxes, whether the log window is narrow or wide, and the categories defined will all be the same as the log window that you used for the default settings. When you want to change your default settings, simply modify any log window to suit your new preferences and select “Make Log’s Settings Default” again.
