Core concepts

A few ideas explain how everything in Clerq fits together.

Businesses and members

Everything lives under a business. A business has a name, a base currency, postal address, and tax config. You can invite other people as members and give each one a role - from owner down to viewer - plus per-member permission overrides. See Guides -> Roles & permissions for the full picture.

One account can create and belong to several businesses - a personal freelance name and a studio, say - and switch between them from the dropdown in the topbar without signing out. Each business is fully walled off: its clients, invoices, numbering and members are its own, and the business you're currently in is what every page, and any connected AI assistant, acts on.

Clients, projects and tasks

A client has contacts, notes, a VAT number, and a default rate. Projects belong to a client and carry a status, due date, and optional rate override. Tasks live on a project and move across a board: todo, in progress, in review, done.

Smart rate resolution

When you log time, Clerq resolves the rate in order and locks it in at entry time:

1. The rate on the entry itself
2. Then the project rate override
3. Then the client default rate

Because the rate is captured when you log, later changes never rewrite history.

On top of this, a client can carry per-member rates - a specific bill rate (and internal cost) for a given teammate on that client's work. When an invoice is generated from tracked time, a matching per-member rate takes priority, so different people can bill at different rates on the same account. See Guides -> Clients & import.

The invoice lifecycle

Invoices move through a clear set of states:

Numbers are sequential per year (YYYY-NNNN) and concurrency-safe, so two invoices never collide.