Skip to main content
You can download a report as CSV, or print it. The file contains the whole report, not the page you can see.

​
Export to CSV

Open the report menu and choose Export report as CSV. The download starts in your browser, so it needs no waiting and produces no generated-file history. The file carries every row the report covers, with the same columns, in the same order as the screen. Print / Save as PDF is also available from the same menu, and uses your browser’s print dialog.

​
Set the duration format before you export

This is the setting that decides whether your spreadsheet can do arithmetic on the hours. It is in the report’s display settings, as Duration format:
  • Hours and minutes (9:15) — readable, and what the screen shows by default.
  • Decimal (9.25) — a plain number.
The screen and the download both use whichever you pick.
Multiply decimal hours, never 9:15. A value like 9:15 is not nine and a quarter hours to a spreadsheet — most read it as a time of day, which is a fraction of a 24-hour day. Multiply it by an hourly rate and you get roughly a third of the right answer. Switch Duration format to Decimal before exporting anything you intend to price.
So: read on screen in hours and minutes, export in decimal when the numbers are going into a rate calculation.

​
When a report is too large

Begin refuses to download a report it cannot produce completely. It does not give you a truncated file. A report covering more than 10,000 source rows stops before the download with:
This report covers more than 10,000 rows — too many to show at once. Narrow the date range or add a filter.
Do one of these:
  • shorten the date range — one month at a time rather than a year
  • add a filter, for a location, department or position
  • group the report, so it summarises rather than listing every record
A summary of a large period is usually what you wanted anyway; the record list is for checking individuals.

​
Hours that were still being calculated

If you export while the calculator is still working on somebody, the file says so in a comment line at the top:
# Provisional: hours for 3 people were still being calculated when this file was exported, so their hour columns are zeros rather than measured totals
A zero on that row is not a measured zero. Wait for the report to finish calculating and export again.
Lines beginning with # are notes, not data. Spreadsheets import them as ordinary rows, so delete them before you sort or sum the sheet.

​
What is not here yet

Native spreadsheet files (XLSX), scheduled delivery and a history of generated files are not part of this release. CSV opens in Excel, Numbers and Google Sheets, which covers the month-end job.

​
Next

The hour columns

What each hour figure means before you export it.

Presets

Start from a report Begin ships, and keep the original intact.

​
Still need help?

Contact support

Email the Begin team and we’ll get back to you.

Ask Begin AI

Open the AI assistant and get instant answers based on these docs.