Projects: long jobs with a budget, the team's time and staged invoices

#What it is and who it is for

A project is a long job for one customer: weeks or months of work, a contract value, a budget split into phases, a team that spends time on it, materials and bills that cost money, and several invoices along the way. Projects keeps all of it in CreekPOS Online, next to your customers, stock, expenses and Books, so you can see at any moment what a job has cost, what you have billed and what it earns.

It is made for contractors, fit-out and maintenance firms, agencies, workshops with long jobs, event companies and printing houses.

Once it is on, the Customers & credit menu has Projects (the list), Board (the tasks) and Time (the team's hours, made for the phone). Projects is exact software: fixed rules and arithmetic, no AI.

#Projects and job orders

Job orders are short tickets taken at the counter with a deposit: a laundry bag, a phone to repair, an abaya to alter. They are ready in days and collected as one ordinary sale at the till.

A project has no till sale at all. It has a budget and phases, the team's hours, costs from several places, and it is billed by milestone, by progress or by time and materials, with retention and advances, through Books or the customer's account.

A shop may use both: a print shop can take walk-in jobs as job orders and run a company's year-long branding contract as a project.

#Switching it on

Projects is off until a manager switches it on, in either of two places:

• Settings → Projects settings: tick Use projects and save. The switch is set for every branch you see.
• Settings → Modules: the Projects card.

It needs Customers and Loyalty switched on first, because every project belongs to a customer. Books is not required: see with Books and without.

On Online Retail, Projects is an add-on. The owner buys it in Billing → Plan → "Add-on modules" with Get it (and stops it there with Cancel the add-on); the Projects card in Settings → Modules has Buy the add-on, which opens the same place. You can also ask us on WhatsApp. On Online Restaurant and Online Chain it is part of the plan.

Switching Projects off hides its pages from the menus. Nothing is deleted: switch it on again and every project is where you left it.

#Rights

Team → the person → Rights has three projects rights:

Managers and the owner have all three.

A person without the right to see the money (field staff, typically) sees only their own work: the projects they manage or have a task on (number, name, status, customer and dates, never the contract or the costs), their tasks on the board, their own time and the Time page. A site team can log its hours without seeing what the job is worth.

Issuing an invoice in Books also needs the Books right Manage sales documents and receipts; managers do not get Books rights by themselves. When your plan does not include Projects, the three rights show locked with the name of the plan that has it.

#A new project

Projects → New project:

• the customer, the Project name and the Site / address;
• the Project manager, the Start date and the Due date;
• the Contract value (what the customer pays for the job) and the Budget (what you expect it to cost; left empty, it is the sum of the phases' budgets);
• Billing: By milestone, By progress or Time and materials, the kind the next invoice starts from (you can still issue any kind);
• Retention %, Markup on costs % and Billing rate per hour, which start from the defaults in Settings → Projects settings;
• the status: Active, or Quote for a job you have priced but not won yet.

Create the project gives it a number like PRJ-000123. Use Change the details on its page to correct anything later.

#Phases

Split the job into Phases (New phase). Each phase has a name, a budget, a start and a due date, and a Milestone amount: what you bill the customer when that phase is reached. A milestone that was billed keeps its amount and can no longer be removed. Costs, time and tasks can each be put on a phase, so you see budget against actual phase by phase.

#Status

A project moves through Quote → Active ⇄ On hold → Done with the buttons on its page: Start / resume, Put on hold and Mark done. Cancel the project works from Quote, Active or On hold. A manager can bring a done project back to Active. The project's History keeps every change of status.

#Files

Files on a project's page keeps pictures and PDFs: the drawings, the signed contract, photos of the site. They are stored encrypted with your shop's own key, like the HR documents.

#Tasks

On a project's page, New task: a title, the phase, Assigned to, a Due date, an Estimate (hours), notes and a Checklist (one item per line).

Open a task from the board to tick its checklist items and to add Comments (who wrote what, and when, stays under the task). The person a task is assigned to can move it and tick its checklist.

The tasks also suggest how far the job is: the estimated hours of the done tasks over all estimated hours (a task without an estimate counts as one hour). The progress invoice shows this suggestion next to the % you type.

#The board

Board shows the tasks in four columns: To do, Doing, Review and Done. Each card shows the project's number, the person it is assigned to, the due date (marked when late) and how much of its checklist is ticked.

Move a card with its buttons, one column back or forward. There is no drag and drop. Pick one project or all of them, and tick Only mine to see your own tasks.

Clicking a task opens it above the board, with its checklist, a button for each other column and its comments.

#Time

The Time page (/projects/time) is made for the phone: the clock at the top, then Add hours, My tasks and the week.

#Typing hours

Add hours: pick the project (or one of its tasks), the day, the hours, a note, and whether the time is Billable. Hours can be typed as 1.5, 1:30 or 90m. The day can be today or earlier, never a day ahead.

#Clock in and clock out

Press Clock in on a project or a task when work starts, and Clock out when it stops (with a note if you like). The minutes between are recorded: at least one minute, at most 24 hours. Each person has one running clock: to move to another project, clock out first.

#The hourly cost

Every time entry keeps its Cost per hour from the moment it was recorded:

1. the person's pay in HR, when HR and Payroll is on and the person has an HR file (the same rule as HR's labour cost);
2. otherwise the salary on their staff record, turned into an hourly cost the same way;
3. otherwise the Hourly cost per person set in Settings → Projects settings;
4. otherwise nothing.

The entry also keeps its billing rate: the project's Billing rate per hour, otherwise the shop's default. Changing a rate later does not change hours already recorded.

#The weekly timesheet

The Timesheet at the bottom of the Time page shows your week, with buttons for the week before and after. With the right Approve the team's time it shows everyone: each person's hours, billable hours and how many entries are Waiting. For each person:

• Approve the week: the person's waiting entries of that week become approved;
• Send back, with a note: the entries go back to the person, who corrects them, and they wait again.

Approved time is locked: nobody changes it any more. An approver does not approve their own time; the owner may. Only approved billable time goes on a time-and-materials invoice. The week starts on the day chosen in Settings → Projects settings.

#Costs

A project's costs come from four places:

• The Expenses page: when you add an expense, its Project field lists the open projects. The expense and the project's cost line are saved together, and the expenses list shows the project's number next to it. See Expenses.
• Materials from stock: on the project, choose the product and the quantity and press Take from stock. The branch's stock goes down at once, and the cost is the quantity × the product's cost; the stock movement carries the project's number. It is refused when the branch does not have enough stock. Pressing twice by mistake never takes the stock twice.
• Add a cost: a Supplier bill, a Subcontractor, an Expense or Other, with the day, the amount without VAT, the supplier and a reference. With Procurement, type the Supplier invoice no. (procurement): the supplier, the reference and the net amount come from that invoice.
• Labour: the team's hours at their cost per hour (time that was sent back is left out).

Every cost line has a day, an amount without VAT, a phase, Billable and a Markup on costs % (the project's by default). A billable cost goes on the next time-and-materials invoice at its amount × (1 + markup); the Charged (with markup) column shows what the customer will pay for it.

#Billing

On a project's page, New invoice: choose the kind, fill in what it asks, then press Preview. The preview shows the work, the retention, the advance recovered, the net, the VAT and the total before anything is issued.

The rules:

• Milestone and progress invoices together never go above the contract value: the invoice is refused and the page says what is left of the contract.
• A progress % that is not above what was already billed bills nothing.
• Hours and costs are billed once: what one invoice billed cannot go on another. Time-and-materials invoices are not capped by the contract.
• A double click or a lost connection never makes two invoices: the same request finishes the same invoice.

Then press Issue in Books or Issue to the customer's account: which one you see depends on Books.

#Retention and advances

Retention is the part of each payment the customer holds back until the job is finished. Every work invoice (milestone, progress, time and materials) holds back the project's Retention % of the work, or an amount you type. The project shows the Retention held. When the job is done and the retention falls due, issue a Retention release invoice for it (or for a part).

An Advance is money billed before the work. Every later work invoice recovers part of it, by default in proportion to the work billed: the advances × this invoice's work ÷ the contract value. It never recovers more than is left of the advances, nor more than the invoice leaves after retention; you can type a different amount. The project shows the Advance to recover.

So each work invoice's Net = the work − the retention − the advance recovered, and VAT is charged on the net: on what is billed now.

#With Books and without

With Books on, issuing makes a Books tax invoice, numbered by Books (INV-000123) and posted there, with one line per part of the work and the project's number as its reference. The retention and the advance recovered appear as the invoice's discount, so VAT is charged on what is billed now. When your shop charges VAT, the lines carry the country's standard VAT, 5 %; otherwise they are out of scope. The due date follows Books' payment terms. The customer pays you as usual and you record the payment as a Books receipt; the project reads what Books says is paid.

Without Books, issuing puts a charge on the customer's account, with your shop's VAT added on the net. Record the payments on the project's page with Record a payment: Cash, Bank transfer, Card, Cheque or Other. They settle the customer's account; a payment above what is left to pay is refused.

#Profit and the report

Budget and actual, on a project's page, shows for the whole project and for each phase:

• the budget, the costs by kind and the Labour;
• the Revenue: the work of the milestone, progress and time-and-materials invoices (an advance is not revenue);
• what was Invoiced (the nets) and Paid;
• the Margin and the Margin %, the budget used, and Over budget when the costs pass the budget.

The Projects list shows every project with its contract, costs, budget used, invoiced, paid and margin %, the totals at the top, and how many projects are Past due and Over budget. Filter by Open, Quotes, Active, On hold, Done, Cancelled or All, and search by name, number or customer. Download CSV and Download Excel give you the report for your accountant or your own sheets.

A customer's projects: on the Customers list, the Projects button on the customer's row.

#Owner alerts and Ask your shop

While Projects is on, the owner alerts include four kinds:

• Project past due: an active or on-hold project past its due date;
• Project over budget: its costs passed its budget (not once it is done);
• Time not invoiced: approved billable time not invoiced after the days you set, 30 by default;
• Retention due: a done project still holding retention, the days you set after it was done.

Ask your shop answers "how are my projects": the active projects with the budget used and the margin, how many are late and over budget, and the retention held. It needs the right to see projects and their figures.

#Settings

Settings → Projects settings (managers):

• Use projects, the switch;
• the Defaults of a new project: Retention % (up to 50 %), Markup on costs % and Billing rate per hour;
• Alert when approved time is not invoiced after (days): 30 unless you change it (1 to 365);
• Retention falls due after the project is done (days);
• The timesheet's week starts on;
• Hourly cost per person: for people with no pay in HR and no salary on their staff record.

#Plans and price

Projects is included in Online Restaurant and Online Chain. On Online Retail it is an add-on at AED 49 a month before VAT. Every 14-day trial includes it. See the pricing page.

Projects works without Books: invoices then go on the customer's account. Books, for tax invoices, comes with Online Restaurant and Online Chain, not with Online Retail.

Projects is in CreekPOS Online only. It is not in the buy-once desktop program.

#What it does not do

• No Gantt chart and no drag and drop: the board moves tasks with buttons.
• No dependencies between tasks and no recurring tasks.
• No quotes as documents: Quote is a project's status, and Books' own quotes are not linked to projects.
• No desktop: Projects is in CreekPOS Online only.
• It is not AI: every figure comes from fixed rules and exact arithmetic.