Projects and jobs

Use Projects to plan and run work for a customer: an installation, a repair, a fit-out, a service contract. Each piece of work is split into tasks that you move across a board as the work goes on. Costs, stock and invoices for the work are ordinary documents linked to those tasks, so the project always shows what you have spent, what you have billed and what you have been paid.

The Projects menu only appears when your subscription plan includes Projects. If you cannot see it, ask your administrator.

Job or project?

When you create one, you choose its Type:

Both work the same way. The only difference is that projects usually use milestones and jobs usually do not.

Before you start

• Add your people under Projects → Personnel, so you can choose a project manager and assign tasks. See Skills and personnel.
• The customer you will bill must already exist as a customer.
• You need the Projects permission.

Steps: create a project or job

1. Open Projects → Projects & Jobs and click New project or job.
2. Choose the Type: Job or Project.
3. Type a Title (up to 50 characters). Put the longer explanation in Details, which takes formatted text: headings, bold, bullet lists and links, like a short document. The ✨ Assist button above it can draft the details from the title, or tidy up what you typed (see The AI writing assistant on jobs).
4. Choose the Customer (bill to). You can leave it empty for internal work, but you cannot invoice until a customer is set.
5. Choose the Project manager (optional) and the Department. The department is used as the default for tasks and as the selling department on invoices.
6. Fill in Site / location, Start and Due dates, and a short Summary if useful.
7. Click Save. The project gets its number (for example PRJ-00012) and opens on its Board.

The project page

At the top you see the number, type, status, customer, manager, site, dates and a progress bar (with a count of overdue tasks). Four tiles show the money:

Below are four tabs:

• Board — the tasks, in columns by status. See Working with the task board.
• Milestones — the stages of the project.
• Financials — every document linked to any task on the project.
• Notes & activity — notes and a history of changes.

Milestones (optional)

Milestones split a project into stages, such as "Site survey", "First fix" and "Handover". A simple job does not need any: tasks without a milestone sit in the project directly.

1. Open the Milestones tab and click Add milestone.
2. Enter a Title, an optional Due date, the Order it appears in and a short Summary. Click Save.
3. When you create or edit a task, choose its Milestone.
4. Click Complete on a milestone when all its tasks are done or cancelled. Click Reopen to open it again.

The table shows, for each milestone, tasks done out of total, cost and planned bill. You can edit or delete a milestone with the pencil and bin icons.

Project status

Use the buttons at the top of the project page:

• Put on hold — only while the project is Active.
• Make active — from Planning or On hold.
• Complete — only when every task is Done or Cancelled.
• Cancel — asks you why. The reason is saved in the activity history.
• Reopen — on a completed or cancelled project. It goes back to Active, and you must give a reason.

A completed or cancelled project is closed. You cannot add tasks or milestones, move cards on its board, or add stock and documents to its tasks until you reopen it.

The Financials tab

Financials lists every document linked to any task: expenditures, job orders, vendor bills, stock consumptions, stock transfers and invoices. For each you see the task, date, customer or vendor, status, and its Cost, On order, Billed and Received amounts, with totals at the bottom. Click a document number to open it, or the task number to open the task. A vendor bill marked (from job order) was raised from a job order linked to the task.

Deleting a project

You can delete a project only if nothing has been spent or billed on it: no linked documents, no invoiced services and no consumed stock. Otherwise, cancel it instead, so its history stays on the record.

Tips

• Use the filters on the list (All statuses, Projects and jobs, Mine) to narrow it down. Mine shows projects you manage or have tasks assigned to you on.
• The Open tasks column shows open out of total, with the number running late in red.
• Click Edit to change the customer, manager, dates or details at any time. Invoices already raised keep the customer they were made for.
• Use Invoice at the top of the project to bill several tasks on one invoice. See Billing a task or project.

Common problems

• I cannot see the Projects menu → your subscription plan does not include Projects, or you do not have the Projects permission.
• The Invoice button is greyed out → the project has no customer. Click Edit and choose a Customer (bill to).
• "… task(s) are still open. Finish or cancel them before completing the project." → open the Board, then finish or cancel the tasks that are not in the Done or Cancelled column.
• "Give a reason for cancelling this project." or "Give a reason for reopening this project." → type the reason in the box before you confirm.
• "This project is closed. Reopen it to add milestones." or "… Reopen it to add tasks." → the project is Completed or Cancelled. Click Reopen first.
• "Documents are linked to this work. Cancel the project instead." (or "Services on this work have been invoiced" / "Allocated stock on this work has been consumed") → money or stock has moved, so the project cannot be deleted. Use Cancel.
• "This milestone has … task(s). Move or delete them first." → edit those tasks and choose another milestone (or No milestone) before deleting it.
• "… task(s) in this milestone are still open." → finish or cancel its tasks before clicking Complete on the milestone.
• "The due date is before the start date." → correct the dates.
• There is no New task button and I cannot drag cards → the project is Completed or Cancelled. Reopen it.