YOUR APA DAY, TOTALLED.
TimeMachine is an APA pay and timesheet calculator for UK commercial crew, on iPhone and the web. It tracks call and wrap, calculates overtime and break penalties, and carries each finished day’s total into an invoice. Built around the APA Recommended Terms, with mileage worked out from a postcode and bank details pre-filled on every send.
It speaks your language
In one app
Day to paid, end to end.
No spreadsheet handoffs. No second app for invoicing. No copy-pasting to your bookkeeping software. The whole pipeline lives on the phone in your pocket.
Call time, breaks, wrap. Travel, mileage, kit money.
APA rules applied: penalties, OT grades, CWD, TOC.
Clean A4 PDF or plain text for WhatsApp / email.
One tap to invoice. Mark sent. Watch for paid.
Who it's for
Crew who do the maths in the truck.
You're on APA terms. You know your BDR. You know what an L1 costs. You've worked enough CWDs to spot one coming. TimeMachine takes the running calculator off your phone and replaces it with a tool that already knows the rules.
Role-aware: pick Spark, Grip, Construction Manager, PA / PM / Runner, or whatever you actually do. The right rate card loads, and the right §s of the APA terms apply - §5 and §6 don’t follow Runners around, for instance.
A real day, totalled
What it gives you back.
Every row is a day. Every chip is a penalty caught. Every number ties back to the APA rate card for your role.
- OT Overtime past the 10th hour (or 11th, on 11-hour days)
- L1 First break started late - auto-penalty applied
- CWD Continuous working day, with the extra break check
Export as a PDF (looks like the one shown) or plain text for WhatsApp / email. Your name on top, "Made with TimeMachine" on the bottom - that's it.
Show the mathsHow a £626.95 day adds up +
Lighting Technician on Grade I overtime (BDR ≤ £458, so OT is 1.5 × BHR). BHR = BDR ÷ 10 = £45.70. Penalties from the APA Recommended Crew Terms, September 2026. This is the exact figure the app produces.
On iPhone
The same app, with native hands.
Everything above works in any browser. Install the iPhone app and a few things only a native app can do switch on, built for the bits of the day when your hands are full.
On your lock screen, the whole day at a glance.
Live Activity iPhone
Your shoot day on the lock screen: running total, a live timer, a lunch countdown, and two-tap Lunch / Wrap without unlocking. The Dynamic Island shows a quiet status dot while you work - long-press it for the name, the total, and the call/OT line.
Siri iPhone
“Hey Siri, wrap now in TimeMachine” stamps the time straight onto today’s day. Lunch, too. Hands full of cable, no problem.
Call-sheet reader iPhone
Import a call sheet (a PDF, a photo, or something shared in) and it reads the production details and fills in your invoice. It works on any iPhone that runs TimeMachine. Nothing leaves the phone, and you check every field before it saves.
Features
What's in the box.
APA rates, baked in
BDR and OT for Spark, Gaffer, Grip, Camera, Sound, AD, Production and more. Override if you've got a custom rate.
Solo or Best Boy
Run your own day, or manage a department - per-crew rates, weekly grid, bulk-edit by date.
Penalties, auto
Missed lunches, short turnarounds, post-wrap travel, OT, CWD, TOC, night premiums - flagged and costed without you thinking about it.
Weekends, bank hols, 11-hr days
Sat 1.5×, Sun 2× by default. UK bank holidays loaded through the next decade - Sunday rate applied automatically.
Postcode → mileage
Paste the unit base postcode - distance from W1F is worked out from every UK postcode district. M25 warning. “Same as yesterday” in one tap.
Travel, per diem, kit money
Travel time both ways at BHR. Per diem, kit money, expenses - all line-itemed on the timesheet and invoice.
Cancellation calculator
Job binned with 48h notice? Work out the cancellation fee straight from the §7 block rules. Per-crew breakdown if you’re running a team.
Invoicing
One tap from a day to an invoice. VAT-aware, your bank details pre-filled, auto-incrementing numbers, PDF out, email opens with it attached. Or export straight to QuickBooks, Xero or generic CSV for your accountant.
Invoice tracking
Draft → Sent → Paid. Overdue auto-flagged from the due date. See every invoice across every job in one list.
Late payment charges
Invoice gone overdue? You’re owed statutory interest and a fixed recovery fee by law - TimeMachine works both out and adds them in a tap. One clean document: your original invoice untouched, the charges beneath, new total. Remove them any time.
Chase it for me
One tap writes the chase email - polite, to the point, quoting exactly what’s owed, charges and all. On iPhone the invoice PDF rides along too. You just hit send.
Accountant export
Pick a tax year, get two files: a CSV of every invoice, and a summary with month-by-month totals and your mileage. The January handover, done in a tap.
Stats & sausage rolls
Total earnings, day counts, role breakdown, year-on-year. And yes - how many Greggs that's worth.
PDF & text export
Clean A4 timesheet PDF. Formal A4 invoice. Plain text for WhatsApp / Slack. Landscape crew-grid PDF when you're running a team.
Yours alone
No login. No ads. No cookies. No server of ours - your data lives on your device, and on iPhone it’s also backed up to your own private iCloud, invisible to everyone else, including us. Export a backup any time, wipe it all in one tap.
Supported roles
If you’re on the call sheet, you’re probably in here.
TimeMachine ships with rate cards and APA rule subsets for the roles most commonly on a UK commercial. Don’t see yours? Custom BDR covers anything bespoke - the rules apply, the rate is whatever you negotiate.
The details that matter
The little stuff most apps miss.
Pre-call rates
Truck drivers, pre-light shifts, anyone with an early start - pre-call hours paid at your overtime rate, triple before 5am and double on a night shoot, lunch deadline left intact.
Step-up rates
Asked to cover the Gaffer for the day? Flag the step-up - the higher rate applies for that day, automatically.
Auto CWD detection
Lunch hasn't started six and a half hours after call and the app flags a Continuous Working Day before you do, with overtime from nine hours.
Favourable rounding
Where the APA terms allow benefit-of-the-doubt rounding, you get it. Toggle off if you prefer the strict reading.
How a day flows
From wrap to total, in three taps.
New production
Name the job, pick Solo or Best Boy mode. Role, BDR and VAT carry over from your settings.
Tap in the day
Call time, wrap, breaks. Tap “Now” when wraps run late. Add travel, mileage or per diem in Extras.
Total, send, invoice
Tap the money pill for the full breakdown. Export the timesheet PDF, generate the invoice, mark it sent - all from one screen. Done.
The fine print, plainly
Free. Local. No login. No catch.
Free
Free now, and staying free for a while yet. If that ever changes, you’ll get plenty of notice - nothing you’ve logged gets held to ransom.
Your data, your phone
No account. No ads. No cookies. Everything lives on your device - in your browser on the web, on the phone in the app, where it also keeps a quiet daily backup in your own iCloud. Export a backup whenever you want.
Honest about the maths
Built around the published APA terms, but always sense-check your final number before sending. Spotted a bug? Tell me.
Questions you might have
FAQ.
Does it cover my role? +
If you work on commercials under APA terms, yes - Sparks, Grips, Construction, Art Dept, Camera, PMs, PAs, Runners. The app applies the right §s of the rate card to each role (e.g. §5 TOC and §6 breaks don't apply to PMs/PAs/Runners - the app knows). Custom BDR for anything bespoke.
Where can I run it? +
Any modern browser, right now - iPhone, Android, laptop. On iPhone there's a native app on the App Store. On Android, use the browser menu → Add to Home screen and the web app behaves like an installed one.
Is it on Android? +
Yes, as the web app. Open the web app in Chrome on your Android phone and it works out the same APA days, timesheets and invoices, with nothing to install. The native app is iPhone only, so a few extras, like the lock-screen timer and the call sheet reader, are iPhone only too.
Does it work offline? +
The web app needs a connection to load - it's a website, so there's nothing to download. The iPhone app is different: it installs on the phone, so it opens and runs without signal, handy when you're rigging somewhere with two bars. Your data is local either way.
What if production disputes my total? +
Every PDF and text export shows the full breakdown - base day rate, every penalty applied, every multiplier, every extra. If they want to argue a number, they can argue the APA terms. The PDF also shows which rate version was used (currently APA Sept 2026).
Will the rates stay up to date? +
When the APA publishes a new rate card, the app updates and the new version shows in Settings → About. Old productions keep the rates they were costed under.
What's coming next? +
More invoice templates, deeper Siri, and whatever more than three people ask for.
A spark, on his off-days.
TimeMachine started as a phone calculator full of half-remembered APA clauses and OT formulas. It got out of hand. Now it’s this.
If you find a bug, want a feature, or just want to say hi - feedback@timemachineapp.co.uk.
- D.
Stop doing the maths in your phone calculator
Get the app.
No login. iPhone or web.