Record the extra work before it disappears into the project.
When a client asks for work outside the agreement, mark the time entry Out of scope. The hours stay in your records, but they no longer make the original budget look overrun. If you decide to charge for the request, a Phase or Project Report can show it separately as Additional Work, with its own hours and price.
Mark it while you still remember it happening.
Extra requests often sound small: one more round, another size, or a quick call. If you log them with the agreed work, the budget cannot show whether your estimate was wrong or the job simply became larger.
Mark the extra entries when they happen. The original budget continues to measure the work you priced, while the added request keeps its own hours for your records and, if you choose, the client report.
What counts as scope creep?
Scope creep is work added after you agreed the price and what it included. It might be another revision round, an unquoted file format, or a call that turns into a new brief.
The size of the request is not the main issue. The useful question is whether the work was included in the agreement. If it was not, record it separately so its time does not distort the original estimate.
Does going over budget mean the work was out of scope?
No. A phase can run over because the agreed work took longer than expected. Extra work can also arrive while the phase is still well within budget.
Phased keeps those questions separate. Going over changes the budget status and effective rate. Only marking an entry Out of scope removes it from the original budget, and that decision stays with you.
When should you mark the work?
Mark it as soon as you know the request was outside the agreement. The Out of scope control is available on entries for a budgeted client phase, and you can always change an entry back if the agreement changes.
You can mark older entries later, but doing it during the week saves you from reconstructing the client conversation at the end of the month.
- Open an entry and turn on Out of scope
- Mark it while creating the entry on the calendar
- Use the shortcut on a row in the week list
- Select several week-list entries and mark them together
What happens to the hours you mark?
The hours stop counting against the budget and effective rate for the agreed work. The phase can now show how the original estimate is performing without the added request mixed into it.
Nothing is deleted or hidden. The hours remain in your week totals, Time view, and exports, and they appear in the Out of scope summaries.
On Pro, you can give the marked work a separate price when you create a Phase or Project Report.
How does Additional Work get priced?
Choose the price when you create the report. You can use the hourly rate already set for the phase, enter a different hourly rate for this work, or enter one flat amount when the extra work belongs to a single phase.
If no hourly rate is set, Phased asks you to enter one instead of guessing. If you agreed a fixed amount for the request, choose the flat option. The report can still show the hours behind that amount.
Once the report is created, that version keeps the rate and amount you chose even if the live project changes later.
What does the client see?
A Phase or Project Report shows the work you include as Additional Work, separate from the original agreement and with its own hours and amount.
You can leave it off the report, list it task by task, or combine it into one line. Profitability, budget warnings, effective rates, planned hours, and private notes never appear on the client document.
The app calls the entry Out of scope because that is how you classify it internally. The client report calls it Additional Work because that is the clear client-facing description.
What if you decide to absorb the work?
Leave it as part of the original scope. The hours continue to use the phase budget and lower its effective rate, which shows what absorbing the request cost you in time.
Phased does not have a separate absorbed label. The Out of scope mark answers one question: should these hours affect the original budget? Whether you charge for marked work is a separate choice you make when creating a report.
Common questions
Is scope creep the same as going over budget?
No. An overrun means the agreed work used more hours than planned. Scope creep means work was added outside the agreement. Going over budget never changes an entry automatically. Marking an entry Out of scope removes its hours from the original budget but does not change the time you recorded.
Can I mark work after the phase is finished?
Yes. You can mark an entry whenever its phase has a budget, and you can change a marked entry back. A report you already created does not change. If you update the scope afterwards, create a new report to include the new classification.
Do out-of-scope hours still count as time I worked?
Yes. The hours remain in your tracked time, week totals, Time view, and exports. They leave the original phase budget, not your records. Marking keeps an added request from making the estimate for the agreed work look worse than it was.
Do I have to bill for it?
No. The Out of scope mark keeps the project record accurate. When you create a Phase or Project Report, decide whether to leave that work out, list it by task, or show it as one Additional Work summary line.
Is this on the free plan?
Free lets you mark entries Out of scope and keeps their hours separate. Pro adds hourly or flat pricing for that work and lets you include it on branded Phase and Project Reports. Every new account can try the Pro features for 30 days.