How to set up clients, projects, tasks and tags (and when to use tags vs tasks)

Toggl Best Practices
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For anyone setting up a Toggl workspace or tidying one up: a simple rule for what goes where, three example setups and the common mistakes.

Short answer

Use a client for who the work is for, a project for a piece of work with its own dates, budget or team, a task for a step someone plans and estimates, and a tag for a label that cuts across projects, like activity type or location. If you want to assign it, give it dates or estimate it, make it a task. If you want to filter by it across projects, make it a tag.
Think of it like paperwork: a time log is a sheet of paper, a task is an envelope, a project is a folder and the workspace is the drawer. A client is the label on the folder, and each folder gets only one.

Set it up

  1. Clients. Clients live on the Projects page. Create one with New → New client, or type a new name in the client picker and choose Create client. Each client can keep an Internal reference, a Contact email and an Address. Client names must be unique. To see your projects by client, use Group by → Client.
  2. Projects. Create one project per engagement or initiative. Add start and end dates and an estimate if you want the project on the Timeline and counted in capacity. Projects without them still show in reports.
  3. Tasks. Add the steps inside the project, with an assignee, dates and an estimate. Subtasks give you one more level, in the same project as the parent task.
  4. Tags. Keep the list short. Admins manage it in Admin settings → Tags, where you can add several tags at once (separated by commas) and merge duplicates. To stop the list growing, change Allow members to manage tags under Admin settings → Access.
  5. Names. Pick a naming pattern and stick to it. If your finance team uses internal codes, add them as the client’s Internal reference. That field doesn’t show in reports, so if you need the code there too, put it in the project name as well, for example “Acme website (AI489289)”.
  6. Import. Coming from a spreadsheet or another tool? Admins can bulk-import clients, projects, tasks, tags, members and time entries from a CSV in Settings → Data import. See the universal CSV importer.

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The Projects page with the Client column

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Admin settings → Tags

Three example setups

A freelance video editor. One client per customer and one project per video (“Brand film – Northwind”). A task for each stage: Rough cut, Color, Sound mix, Revisions. Each stage can move across a Board with your own statuses. A “revisions” tag on extra rounds shows how much time they take across all clients.

A fifteen-person design agency with retainers. One client per customer. Each retainer is a recurring project: monthly, with a budget per period and a rule for unused time or overruns. Regular deliverables go into the project’s default tasks, so they’re created again each period. Unfinished tasks stay in the period that closed, so move anything still open by hand. Tags cover activity type: design, meetings, admin.

An internal IT team. Clients are optional; use them for departments if you report that way. Projects are areas of work (“Service desk”, “Laptop rollout Q4”). Routine work like weekly patching is a recurring task. Tags cover the type of request: hardware, access, network. On Premium, a custom field such as cost center keeps those values fixed and easy to report on.

Setup questions that come up often:

  • Merging clients. There’s no merge button. On the Projects page, select the old client’s projects, choose Edit and change the Client field to the client you’re keeping. Then archive or delete the old client. Deleting a client keeps its projects, tasks and time logs, and you can undo it.
  • Wrapping up a client. Choose Archive client from the client picker, or from the client’s ⋯ menu when Projects is grouped by client. It archives the client’s active projects too, and tells you how many first. Archived clients are under Projects → Archived → Clients. Unarchiving brings back only the client, so unarchive any projects you need separately.
  • Repeat intervals. Recurring projects repeat weekly, every two weeks, monthly, quarterly or yearly. Recurring tasks repeat daily, weekly on the days you choose, monthly or yearly.

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A project’s Board view

Common mistakes

  • One project per task. Group related tasks under one project, which holds the dates, estimates and fixed fee.
  • Archiving a finished client’s projects one by one. Archive the client instead; its active projects go with it.
  • Too many tags. Merge duplicates in Admin settings → Tags and limit who can create new ones.
  • Tags that should be projects or clients. If it has a budget, deadline or team, make it a project. Client names used as tags miss out on client grouping in reports.
  • Tasks that should be tags. A “Meetings” task copied into every project works better as one “meetings” tag.
  • Expecting undated work on the Timeline. Only tasks with a start and end date appear there. The rest wait in the Unplanned tasks panel.

Plan notes

Clients (including client details and archiving), projects, tasks, tags on tasks and time logs, and bulk editing work on every plan. Tags on projects, private projects and recurring projects need Starter or above. Custom fields need Premium or above.

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