Recurring engagements
A retainer that refreshes each period — set the cadence and decide what happens to unused time.
A recurring engagement refreshes its allocation every period — the classic monthly retainer. Instead of one budget for the whole contract, each period gets its own allowance, and pacing resets with it.
Set it up
Turn on Recurring on the Retainer (or Time & materials) type. Then on the Timeline step:
How often it refreshes: Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly, Annually, or Custom (every N weeks / months / years).
The budget (hours or dollars) each period gets — set as the budget amount, labeled "Per-period allocation."
What happens to time you didn't use when the period rolls over (below).
Rollover policies
- Use it or lose it — unused allocation is discarded each period; the next period starts fresh.
- Carry unused — leftover time rolls into the next period.
- Carry up to a cap — leftover rolls over, but never more than a maximum you set.
Because the allowance resets, the pace and utilization you see track this period — so you can spot a client who's over- or under-using their retainer while there's still time to act on it.
On the Engagement ribbon
Because a recurring engagement keeps refreshing, the Engagement tab draws it in two parts on its lane: the current term — the period you're billing now — is solid, and everything past the next renewal is hatched (with a ⟳ at the renewal and a tick at each one after). The hatching marks it as projected income: real if the retainer renews, but not yet committed.
That distinction carries into the headline Booked tile. The big number still counts projected renewals (your likely pipeline), but when any are in view a smaller committed figure appears beside it — the share of capacity that's locked in regardless of whether anything renews. So you can see both the optimistic and the guaranteed read at a glance.
You can also re-pace a recurring engagement within its current cycle — nudge a week up or down inside this month, say — right from the ribbon or the Adjust Pace button. The change applies only to the committed cycle and resets at the next renewal; trying to reach past the cycle is greyed out. See Pacing & velocity for the editor itself.
A recurring engagement keeps refreshing until you stop it. On the Timeline step, tick Stops renewing on a date and pick the date, say when a client gives notice. The final cycle ends there, the Engagement tab stops drawing renewals past it, and the engagement reads completed afterwards. Archive ends it immediately and keeps the history. Either way there's no whole-contract burn-up, just the current period's usage.