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Question

Summarize (i.e. total) Records by Linked Type

  • June 8, 2026
  • 3 replies
  • 34 views
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I’m invoicing time records by project, by month. Each time record has a “Time Task” which comes from a linked lookup table. There’s some 42 time tasks and more may be added in the future. When creating a monthly invoice I want to summarize the hours for each task utilized by that monthly collection of time records for each project invoiced.

e.g.

5/1/2026 2.0 hours Preparation

5/19/2026 1.3 hours Preparation

5/21/2026 1.0 hours Preparation

*Total Preparation 4.3 hours

 

5/8/2026 1.5 hours Development

5/8/2026 5.8 hours Development

*Total Development 7.3 hours

 

I only want to show the * totals, not the actual individual time records.

Ideally these totals would simply go into a separate table linked to the invoice.

I really don’t want to use a third party tool like Make or Zapier.

 

How can I go about doing that?

    3 replies

    Matt_Shepherd
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    • Matt_Shepherd
    • Participating Frequently
    • June 8, 2026

    I think the cleanest approach for this is a summary table where you have 1 row per invoice / task type combo, and a linked field linking to all the relevant time records for that task type & invoice. Then a rollup field gives you the total for each row.

    You need an automation that triggers whenever a time record is created, conditionally creating the summary row if it doesn’t exist yet, or linking it to the existing summary row.

    Hope that helps, let me know if there’s any particular part you’re stuck on and I’m happy to provide more detail.

    Matt, founder @ CollabPortals | Spin up a branded client portal in minutes | collabportals.com
    DisraeliGears01
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    Depending on your types of Time Task (e.g. “Preparation”, “Development”, etc) you could just use filtered rollups to sum the time lengths, assuming you don’t have dozens of time categories. Something like this…

     That’s of course dependent on your data structure, helps to see some base layout screenshots 🤷‍♂️

    TheTimeSavingCo
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    I like solving this with a formula field that outputs the month + type and a table where each record represents a single summary, and I’ve set it up here for you to check out!

    Time log
    Summary with rollup field to display hours

    Formula:

    DATETIME_FORMAT(
      Date,
      'MMM YY'
    ) &' - '&
    Type

    The idea is to have an automation that triggers whenever the Date and the Type field are completed, and its action will be to paste the value from the formula field (“Formatted Name”) into the linked field, which will either create a new record or link to an existing one:

    And here’s how it’d look in action:

     

    Adam, Airtable Consultant - thetimesaving.company
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