Sell prepaid hours, never lose track of a balance
Retainer contracts and prepaid hour or credit blocks that draw down automatically from validated timesheets — with live burn-rate, run-out forecasting, and billable top-ups your team never has to remember to invoice.
The problem
Service firms sell blocks of hours or monthly retainers up front, but the drawdown almost always lives outside the system where the work actually happens — a spreadsheet someone updates by hand, if at all. That leads to month-end surprises: hours that ran out weeks ago, retainers exhausted before anyone noticed, and invoicing disputes because nobody can prove which timesheet consumed which block.
The solution
Prepaid Hours & Retainer Packages turns every sold package into a live contract that consumes the oldest block first as timesheets are validated. Balances, burn rate, and a projected run-out date update in real time, low or depleted contracts trigger alerts automatically, and a one-click top-up wizard creates the invoiceable sale-order line for you — no manual toggle, no spreadsheet.
Everything a retainer needs, in one contract
Every capability below is implemented in the module.
Contract-health dashboard
A kanban of every prepaid contract, color-coded by state, with a progress bar for consumed hours and the projected run-out date on every card.
Unambiguous lifecycle states
Draft, Running, Low, Depleted, and Closed each get a distinct color and list decoration, so status and next action are obvious at a glance.
FIFO block consumption
Prepaid hour or credit blocks carry an optional expiry date and are drawn down oldest-first, so the closest-to-expiry balance is always used first.
Automatic timesheet drawdown
Every validated timesheet on the linked project reduces the balance in real time, and re-syncs automatically if an entry is edited or deleted.
Low-balance & expiry alerts
A configurable threshold flips a contract to Low and schedules a top-up activity for staff; expiring blocks and depleted contracts are flagged automatically on a scheduled check, and customers get their own alert.
Billable, zero-friction top-ups
The top-up wizard pre-fills hours and unit price and always generates an invoiceable sale-order line — no manual checkbox, no missed billing.
Manual adjustment wizard
Correct a balance for goodwill or a data-entry error through a dedicated wizard that logs the reason, keeping every adjustment transparent.
Burn-rate & run-out forecasting
Hours-per-day burn rate and a projected depletion date are computed live at both the contract and the individual block level, with a burn-down graph and pivot to see the trend, not just today's number.
Sale-order & product integration
Mark a product as a prepaid package (hours or credits) and confirming a sale order automatically creates or tops up the linked contract, with a stat button back to every contract the order funded.
How it works
Sell a package
Mark a product as a prepaid hours or credits package and sell it on a normal sale order.
Contract is created
Confirming the order creates or tops up the linked prepaid contract and its first block automatically.
Timesheets draw it down
Validated timesheets on the linked project consume the balance FIFO, live, with a full per-entry audit log.
Top up before it runs out
A Low-state alert fires ahead of depletion; the top-up wizard bills the renewal in one step.
Frequently asked
No sales fog. If your question isn't here, email us and we'll answer it the same way.
No new data entry. The module reads the validated timesheets already logged on the project linked to a contract and draws down the oldest block automatically, re-syncing if an entry is edited or removed.
Buy it on the Odoo App Store
Purchase, download and install directly from the official Odoo Apps Store — you'll always get the latest supported build.
Prepaid Hours & Retainer Packages
Prepaid hour blocks and retainers drawn down automatically from timesheets in FIFO order — with low-balance alerts, burn-rate forecasting and billable top-ups.
Buy on Odoo App Store