Getting Started with Lochrono

Welcome to Lochrono

As a locum professional, you’ve chosen a path that offers freedom, variety, and the ability to set your own terms. But that freedom comes with a business challenge: managing invoices, tracking time, handling credentials, and staying on top of finances — often across multiple facilities and agencies at once.

Lochrono is built specifically for this reality. In this guide, we’ll walk you through the core features and get you up and running in minutes.

Step 1: Set Up Your Business Profile

Your business profile is the foundation of every invoice you send. Navigate to Business Profile from the sidebar and fill in:

• Legal business name — the name that appears on invoices (your name, LLC, or PC)
• Business address — used for invoice headers and tax purposes
• Tax ID / EIN — required for most W-9 situations
• Banking details — for ACH payment instructions on invoices (optional but recommended)

A complete profile means every invoice you generate is ready to send without edits.

Step 2: Add Your Clients and Agencies

Lochrono separates clients (the facilities you work at) from agencies (staffing companies that place you). This distinction matters because your invoicing relationship may be with either one.

To add a client:

1. Go to Clients in the sidebar
2. Click New Client
3. Enter the facility name, billing contact, and address

To add an agency:

1. Go to Agencies
2. Click New Agency
3. Enter the agency name and your contact’s details

Once added, you can associate engagements with the right entity.

Step 3: Create an Engagement

An engagement represents a contract or assignment at a specific facility. Each engagement tracks:

• Client or agency — who you’re billing
• Start and end dates — the contract period
• Rate — your agreed hourly or daily rate
• Contract type — 1099, W-2, or other arrangement

Creating an engagement first makes time tracking and invoicing faster, since Lochrono auto-fills rate and client information when you log shifts.

Step 4: Track Your Time

Head to Time Tracking to log shifts. You can:

• Start a live timer when you begin a shift (look for the clock icon)
• Add entries manually for past shifts — useful if you’re catching up
• Link entries to an engagement for auto-populated rates

At the end of a pay period, use Timesheet to see a summary of all hours logged, organized by engagement.

Step 5: Send Your First Invoice

Go to Invoices and click New Invoice. Lochrono will:

1. Ask you to select an engagement (or let you build manually)
2. Pull in your logged time entries for the billing period
3. Calculate totals based on your rate
4. Generate a professional PDF invoice ready to send

Download the PDF and send it to your client or agency. Once payment comes in, mark the invoice as Paid to keep your records clean.

Step 6: Log Expenses

Track business expenses under Expenses. Common categories include:

• Travel costs and mileage
• Licensing and credentialing fees
• Professional development and CME
• Medical equipment and supplies

Upload receipts directly — Lochrono stores them alongside each expense entry so you have everything in one place at tax time.

What’s Next?

Once you’ve got the basics set up, explore:

• Reports — revenue summaries, hours worked, outstanding invoices, and expense reports
• Calendar — a visual overview of your engagement schedule

We’re also building dedicated tools for Mileage tracking and Credentials management (license expiration dates, continuing education) — stay tuned for those updates.

Lochrono is designed to grow with your practice. The more you use it, the more valuable your data becomes — especially when it’s time to negotiate rates, plan for taxes, or review a year’s worth of earnings.

Have a question or feature request? We’d love to hear from you — reach out via the in-app feedback link. Welcome to smarter locum practice management.