Projects, time and costs

A project groups the time and costs of one job, so you can invoice it and see whether it made money. Open Projects in the side rail. The tabs are Projects, Time and Profitability.

Setting up a project

Choose New project. Give a code and name, the customer and the income account. Pick how you bill:

• Time and materials: you bill the hours and any costs you charge on.
• Fixed price: you bill an agreed price, in stated parts.

You can set a budget (the price, for fixed price), budget hours, and a usual hourly rate. A project is active, on hold or done.

Recording time and costs

1. Under Time, choose Add time or Start timer. Only one timer runs per person. Stopping rounds to the nearest minute. A timer left over 24 hours is refused.
2. Each time entry has a billing rate (what you charge), a cost rate (what the hour costs you) and a billable flag.
3. Choose Add a cost to link a line from an issued bill, a line from an approved expense claim, or a cost you type. Mark a cost to charge to the customer and, if you like, add a markup.

A bill line belongs to one project. A bill made from an expense claim is linked through the claim, not through its own lines.

Invoicing

Choose Invoice unbilled work, then Make the draft. You get one draft invoice from the unbilled time, grouped by person and rate, plus billable costs. For a fixed price project you bill part of the price, never past the total. Everything on the draft is marked as invoiced. If you discard the draft or void the invoice, the work becomes unbilled again.

Profitability

The Profitability tab shows, for each project, invoices before tax less the time cost and linked costs. It also shows margin, budget used, and unbilled time and costs. You can rank by profit, margin or income, and limit it to a date range.

Good to know

• Costs from a foreign-currency bill use the base amount. The project invoice is in your company currency.
• Profit counts only issued invoices. Draft invoices are not counted.
• The screens have not yet been tried by hand against a real company file. Try one small project first.
• Access depends on role. Reading projects needs permission to read the books.