If you are working toward an ICF or NBHWC credential, you need a coaching hours log, and rebuilding one from a calendar and a spreadsheet is the chore most coaches dread. Grove builds the log for you as you work: every session you complete is already counted, so tracking your coaching hours is mostly a matter of checking the gaps before you apply.
This guide walks the Coaching hours page from end to end: choosing the credential you are tracking, adding clients you coached before Grove, setting paid, bartered, or pro bono per client, confirming session lengths, and exporting the log. Grove does not verify your hours. Your credentialing body reviews the log you submit.
The terms you’ll see
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Tracking | The credential your log is measured against. The picker offers ICF ACC, ICF PCC, ICF MCC, and NBC-HWC. Switching never re-enters data. |
| Your log | The table of your clients (“By client”) or sessions (“By session”). ICF credentials use the client view and NBHWC uses the session view. |
| Before Grove | A row you typed in yourself for coaching you did outside Grove, such as practicum hours kept in a spreadsheet. These rows are tagged before Grove. |
| Usual length | A client’s usual session length, used for completed sessions whose length you have not set. Without one, Grove counts 60 minutes and marks the session default. |
| Paid, Bartered, Pro bono | How a client pays you, set once per client. Bartered is coaching traded for goods or services, and ICF counts it as paid. Pro bono counts toward your total, not toward the paid minimum. |
| Before you export | A card listing the gaps in your log, each with a button that fixes it. |
Before you start
- Open Coaching hours in the sidebar. If you do not see it, the feature is not switched on for your account yet.
- Pick the credential you are applying for. If you have not chosen one, the page starts on ICF ACC.
- Have your pre-Grove client names, dates, and total hours to hand, plus whether each was paid or pro bono.
- Clients must exist in Grove for their sessions to count. Self-coaching and sample clients never count toward the log.
Steps
-
Choose your credential. Open Coaching hours in the sidebar. Click the Tracking menu at the top of the page and pick ICF ACC, ICF PCC, ICF MCC, or NBC-HWC. Each option shows its requirement summary, for example “100 hours · 75 paid · 8 clients · 25h in last 18mo” for ACC, and your log is measured against that credential’s rules. The sessions stay the same.
Tip: “Same sessions, different rules. Switching never re-enters data.” Try each credential if you are not sure which you are heading toward.
-
Complete sessions as you normally do. Every session you mark complete in Grove lands in your log with the length you set (or the client’s usual length) and the paid or pro bono setting from the client record. Cancelled sessions never count. On the session wrap-up you will see a line that starts “Logged toward” and names your credential, the length, and where the length came from.
-
Add clients from before Grove. In the Your log card, click + Add clients from before Grove. Fill in Client name, Contact (optional), Total hours, Start date, End date, and Paid or pro bono, then click Add to log. The row appears in your log tagged before Grove, and you will see “[name] added to your log.” Repeat for each client. To fix a row later, click it, change what you need, and click Save changes, or click Delete and confirm.
Heads up: This button appears for the ICF credentials only. “These rows are yours to attest. Grove marks them ‘added by coach’ in the export.” See the FAQ on adding hours from outside Grove.
-
Set paid, bartered, or pro bono for each client. In the Before you export card, click Mark paid / pro bono when you see “hours aren’t marked paid, bartered, or pro bono”. Choose Paid, Bartered, or Pro bono for the client and click Save for N sessions. You can also set it any time on the client’s Profile tab, in the Paid or pro bono row. A pre-Grove row takes its setting from its own Paid or pro bono field.
-
Confirm session lengths. When the card shows “N sessions used the 60-minute default”, click Confirm lengths. In Confirm session lengths, choose the real length for each session (30, 45, 50, 60, or 90 minutes, or a custom length), then click Confirm N sessions. Confirming also sets that client’s usual length, so their future sessions stop defaulting.
Gotcha: Custom lengths run from 15 to 480 minutes. The usual length is only updated here, so a one-off change on a single session leaves it alone. See the FAQ on the usual-length default.
-
Override a single session when you need to. Open the completed session’s wrap-up and click Change for this session on the “Logged toward” line. Set Session length, Compensation, and Topics discussed, then click Save. This changes the log for that session only; every other session keeps the client record value.
-
Add missing contact details. If the card says “N clients have no contact on file”, click Add contact, enter Email or phone, and click Save, or click Skip for now. The contact is only shared if your credentialing body audits your log.
-
Work down the Before you export card. Each fix shrinks the list. When it is clean you will see “Nothing to fix”: “Every session in your log has compensation, a confirmed length, and contact info on file.” Some gaps are informational, such as sessions under the minimum length for NBHWC or sessions with no topics discussed yet.
-
Export your log. Click Export log at the top of the page. Pick a Format: ICF Client Coaching Log (.xlsx) (one row per client), NBHWC coaching log (.xlsx) (one row per session), or Session CSV. For ICF, tick or clear Include client contact details and Include clients from before Grove, check the Preview, then click Download .xlsx or Download .csv. You will see “[credential] log downloaded.”
Tip: Open gaps do not block the download. “The file downloads either way; unset rows export as blank cells.” Fix them first so the file is complete. See the FAQ on what the export contains.
What’s next
With your log clean, the remaining job is keeping it that way. Set each new client’s Paid or pro bono setting when you add them, and the log stays gap-free as sessions complete. If you charge for coaching in Grove, set up pricing and get paid is the natural next guide.
Come back to Coaching hours before every application window. The requirement figures shown are the credentialing body’s published minimums, so check their current application before you file.