In the world of work, certain types of jobs are best as fixed-price, while others are simply better off as pay-by-the-hour. Our latest round of site improvements have focused on revamping and streamlining the hourly work experience on Elance. Here’s what’s new:

Timesheets: This is a new feature that will save providers a great deal of, well, time at the end of each work week. With one single form, a provider working on an hourly job can submit the number of hours worked, upcoming plans for next week, attach any relative documentation, and update current job status. Timesheets for hourly jobs does double duty, providing both a status report and invoicing the client all at once.

Automatic Invoices: As stated above, the new Timesheet becomes your Invoice, removing the hassle of submitting one manually. If needed, providers can manually submit Invoices to get paid back for out-of-pocket expenses, or other costs that are not documented in the Timesheet.

Terms: Terms for hourly jobs are now easier than ever to set up. Instead of setting up weekly Milestones ahead of time, all you have to do is set up the hourly rate, the duration of the job, and the authorized hours per week. Then, you’ll be set. Providers with flexible or irregular work week schedules are free to modify the amount of hours worked (so long as it doesn' t exceed the pre-approved number of hours authorized) by filling out their Timesheets accordingly.

Tracker Integration: The Tracker tool (which is optional for providers to use) is also integrated into the new Timesheets, so if the Tracker is the preferred method to log your number of hours worked, your Timesheet will be automatically populated. Nifty! Of course, if the Tracker tool doesn’t fit your fancy, you can always still manually fill out your Timesheet at the end of the week, as you wish.

Hourly Payments Simplified: As an employer, the payment process for hourly jobs is now simplified to one-page process. Simply review the provider’s Timesheet (hours worked by day, plans for next week, comments), review the billing summary, choose a payment method, and click Submit to pay.

With these upgrades, we're making Elance simpler, faster, and easier to use for hourly-based jobs. We’re continuing to improve Elance in our quest to continually improve the Web's favorite site for online work. And to reassure all of you fixed-price fans out there, don’t fret – these hourly changes have no impact on how fixed-price jobs work.

For the full list of changes (there’s a lot of great stuff in there), check out our latest Release Notes over in the Water Cooler, and for a more in-depth look at how the new Hourly system works, check out our new Help page here.