Help: Projects

What are Projects For?

The "Projects" module is a powerful tool for job costing. It acts as a central hub to connect all your income and expenses related to a specific job or initiative. By linking transactions to a project, you can accurately determine its profitability.

This is essential for service-based businesses, construction, consulting, and anyone who needs to know if their individual jobs are making or losing money.

Creating and Managing a Project

Step 1: Create the Project

1. Navigate to the Projects module from the main menu.
2. Click the Create New Project button.
3. Fill in the key details:
   • Project Name: A clear, descriptive name for the job (e.g., "Main Street Office Remodel").
   • Client: Every project must be linked to a client from your Accounts Receivable.
   • Status: Set the current stage of the project.
     • Not Started: Planning phase.
     • In Progress: Work has begun.
     • On Hold: Temporarily paused.
     • Completed: The job is finished.
   • Budget Amount: Enter the total expected revenue or contract amount for this project. This is used in profitability reports.
   • Deadline: The target completion date.
4. Click Save Project.

Connecting Transactions to Your Project

Once your project is created, the next step is to link all related financial activities to it. This is how the system calculates your job costs and profitability.

Linking Expenses and Bills

When you purchase materials or incur costs specifically for a job, you must link them to the project.

• When Entering a Bill: On the "Enter Bill" screen, each line item has a "Customer:Project" column. Use this dropdown to select the project the cost belongs to.
• When Recording an Expense: On the "Record Expense" screen, you will also find a "Customer:Project" column. Tag the expense line to the correct project.

Linking Employee Time

If you track employee hours, you can assign their time to a project to account for labor costs.

• Go to the Time Tracking module.
• When creating a new time entry, select the appropriate Project from the dropdown.
• Mark the time as Billable or Non-Billable. Both can be tracked for profitability, but only "Billable" hours can be pulled onto a customer invoice.

Invoicing for a Project

When it's time to bill your client for the work, you can generate an invoice that pulls in all unbilled project-related costs.

• When creating a new Invoice, select the client. A drawer will appear on the right side of the screen showing all unbilled Time and Expenses for that client.
• You can select these items to add them directly to the invoice, ensuring you never forget to bill for your work.

Project Reporting

Project Performance Report

This is your primary tool for analyzing profitability, found under Reports > Project Performance.

This report provides a detailed breakdown for each project, showing:

• Budgeted Amount: The budget you entered when creating the project.
• Invoiced Amount: The total revenue you have billed to the client for that project.
• Project Costs: The sum of all billable expenses and time entries linked to the project.
• Profit (or Loss): The difference between your invoiced revenue and your costs.

Use this report regularly to catch budget overruns early and to understand which types of jobs are most profitable for your business.