Export

The export module allows you to export filtered timesheet data into several formats.

Difference between export and invoice

There are a couple of differences in these two Kimai modules, the most important ones:

• Invoices can only be created for a dedicated customer, where an export can be created without selecting a customer
• Invoices do more calculation (e.g. tax)
• Invoices support templates in more formats (e.g. XLSX, ODS, DOCX)

Export state

Invoices and exports share the export state, which is used to mark timesheet records as processed. These records cannot be edited any longer by regular users and are excluded by default from further invoices and exports.

You need to activate the checkbox before creating the export, to automatically set the export state on all filtered timesheet records.

For further information read the timesheet documentation.

Time format

Kimai knows both the natural and decimal notation for times and both versions have their Pros and Cons:

• the natural format (e.g. 1:15) is usually easier to understand
• the decimal format (e.g. 1.25) is better for calculations

As a user, you can decide which version you want to use by going to your own user preferences: in the upper right corner click your username and then Preferences.

There is a toggle called Use decimal duration in export that switches between the two versions:

Export templates

Kimai supports customizable PDF, Excel and CSV templates.

You can create them with the UI: after filtering timesheets, you will see the list of export buttons. Next to them is the button, which will open the modal to create a new template.

These templates allow you to select:

• the exported file type (here PDF, CSV or Excel)
• the language for header translations, which uses the request language if not configured
• the columns that should be exported
• whether they can be used by every logged-in user with Allow access for all users

Share with your users

Enabling the Allow access for all users setting makes the new template available in the My times and All times views for exporting data.

⚠️ Important: These views do not check user permissions.
For example, if you add a rate column to the template, the rates will be visible to all users — even if they normally do not have permission to see rate information.

Format specifications

Some fields are specific for the export format.

PDF

• Title
• Summary (export summary on the first page of the PDF)
• Font (a list of fonts)
• Page size (A4, A5, A6, Legal, Letter)
• Orientation (Portrait or Landscape)

CSV

• Separator (Comma or Semicolon)

After creating the template, the respective buttons will become a dropdown and you can select your template for the export.

When you hover such a template, you can edit and delete it from the dropdown.

PDF and HTML (for developer)

Kimai supports custom PDF and HTML export twig templates. This is an advance topic, only for very specific use-cases.

How to create your first template

• Copy & paste the default templates
• Read the dedicated chapter about PDF templates
• Adjust the template to your needs and add it to Kimai

Be aware of the following rules:

• HTML templates have the file extension .html.twig
• PDF templates have the file extension .pdf.twig
• Use unique filenames and prefix them with your company name, eg company-export.html.twig
• The name timesheet.html.twig, timesheet.pdf.twig, default.pdf.twig, default.html.twig are reserved
• After updating an existing template, you have to clear the cache to see the results

How to access custom fields in PDF templates

You can access custom fields with entry.metaField('name') and you should always safeguard the call in case of a missing custom-field:

{% set cf = entry.metaField('example') %}
{% if cf is not null and cf.value is not null %}
    {{ cf.value }}
{% endif %}

Permissions

• The export does not guarantee to respect permissions like view_rate_other_timesheet and view_rate_own_timesheet
• The “mark as export” checkbox is only available for users with the edit_export_other_timesheet permission