Functions in Projects

Let us have a look at some of the functions that can be performed in the Projects module.

Log Time

Once you create a task for a project, you can log time for the time spent on each task.

• Select the project that you created from the Projects page.
• Click on the Log Time button placed on top of the project dashboard.

You can also log time in two other ways:

• Record Manually
• Start Timer

Record Manually

You can enter the time you’ve spent on a project manually. Here’s how:

• Go to Time Tracking > Projects.
• Select a Project.
• Click Log Time from the top of the page.

• Enter the Date, select the Project and the Task you’re associating it with.
• Enter the Time Spent.  

or

Choose the start and end time by clicking the Enter time duration instead option. 

• Check the Billable box off if you do not wish to bill the task and select the User.

• Click Save.

Start Timer

You can log time for a particular project using the timer. Here’s how:

• Click Start in the top right of the page or using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl/cmd + t.

• Enter the Note and click Start Timer.

• The timer will run on the left sidebar and you can choose to Stop, Pause or Discard the entry.

Once you stop the timer, you can enter the project details in the following popup.

Track Project Cost and Revenue

When accounting for a project based company, you might want to track the project’s cost and revenue, and also summarize it accordingly.  In Zoho Books, this process can be done by associating projects with transactions. Once the projects are associated with transactions, you can view the summary of the project’s profitability from the Reports module.

Create and Send Project Quotes

  Before you begin working on the project, you can send a quote of the project and the prices to your customers. They can either accept, reject, or comment on the quote. After a quote is confirmed, it can be converted into an invoice. To create a quote for a project:

• Go to Time Tracking > Projects.
• Select the project for which you want to create a quote.
• Click New Transaction from the top right corner of the page.
• Select Create Quote.

• Enter all the necessary details.  
• Click Save.

 You can also create a quote from the Quotes module and associate a project to it. Here’s how:

• Go to Sales > Quotes.
• Click + New on the top right corner of the page.
• Fill in the customer details, item details, and other required fields.
• Click the Project Name drop down and select the project with which you want to associate the quote.

The total expense will be created and the projects details will be available in the timesheets module.

Invoice customers for projects

  You can create an Invoice and send it to your customers for partial or full completion of a project. 

  You can create an invoice for a project from the Project details page. Here’s how:

• Go to Time Tracking > Projects.
• Select the project for which you want to raise an invoice.
• Click New Transaction from the top right corner of the page.
• Click Create Invoice.

• In the Bill up to field, enter the date up to which you wish to bill your customer.
• Select the method in which you like the data on invoice to be sorted from How to sort data on invoice dropdown.
• Click Add.
• Make the necessary changes to your invoice.
• Click Save and Send.

Billing Method	Available Options
Fixed Cost for Projects	Only Single line for the project option will be shown.
Based on Task Hours	The option Group by users will not be shown.
Based on Staff Hours	The option Group by users will not be shown.
Based on Project Hours	All the options will be shown.

Similarly you can associate other sales transactions such as Sales Orders and Credit Notes to a project.

Record Project Expenses

Projects have certain expenses. It can be anything from buying a coffee for your user to purchase tools for a task.  To record expenses for a project:

• Go to Time Tracking > Projects.
• Select the project for which you need to record an expense.
• Click New Transaction from the top right corner of the page.
• Click Create Expense.
• Fill in the required details in the Expense creation page.
• Click Save.

 

You can also create an expense for a project from the Expense module. Here’s how:

• Go to Purchases > Expenses.
• Click the + New button in the top right corner.
• Fill the required details.
• Select the Customer Name from the dropdown. The Project dropdown will appear on selecting the customer name.
• Mark the Billable checkbox if you want to bill this customer for this expense.
• Click Save.  

Create Retainer Invoices for Projects

At times you might have to take an advance payment to arrange the resources for the project you are going to work on. Create a retainer invoice for the project and accept advance payments. You can later adjust them with the invoice you create from the project.

To record an advance payment for a project:

• Go to Time Tracking > Projects.
• Select the project for which you need to create a retainer invoice.
• Click New Transaction from the top right corner of the page. 
• Click Create Retainer Invoice.

• Fill the required details in the following page.
• Click Save or Save and Send.

You can also record advance payments from the Retainer Invoices module. Here’s how:

• Go to Sales > Retainer Invoices.
• Create a new transaction or edit an existing one.
• Select the project from the Project Name dropdown.

• Enter the other required details.
• Click Save.

Once the Retainers are in the paid status, you can choose to apply them to your invoice. Here’s how:

• Go to Time Tracking > Projects.
• Select the project for which you have created a retainer invoice and recorded payment.
• Go to the New Transaction drop-down and click Create Invoice.
• In the Project Invoice Information page, mark the Would you like to apply the retainers collected to the invoice checkbox.
• Click Add and you will be taken to the invoice creation page

• Enter the necessary invoice details and click Save and Send.

The retainer amount will be deducted from the invoice. You can then view this in the total section.

Bill the Vendors for a Project

When you are working on projects for your customers, you may incur various bills purchase of a software, tool etc. You can associate customers and projects to these bills and mark them as billable. Here’s how:

• Go to Purchases > Bills.
• Create a new bill or edit an existing one.
• In the Items Details section, select the Customer from the Customer Details dropdown.
• Click the Edit icon next to Non-Billable and mark the billable checkbox if you want to bill this item.
• Select the project name from the dropdown.
• Click Update.

Similarly you can associate other purchase transactions such as Purchase Orders and Vendor Credits to a project. To do this:

• Click the More icon next to the line item.
• Select the Project from the dropdown.
• Click Save.

Manual Journals

You can create journal entries to keep of other transactions associated with this project manually. Here’s how:

• Go to Time Tracking > Projects.
• Select a project for which you want to create a journal entry
• Click the More Transaction button in the top right corner of the page.
• Select Create Manual Journal from the dropdown.

• Enter the necessary details.
• You can associate a project to each entry by clicking the More icon next to the row.

• Select the project from the Associate Project dropdown.
• Click Save.

• Click Save and Publish.

Bulk Update Line Items

You can bulk associate projects to line items of an invoice. You can select multiple items and associate projects easily in just one click.  To bulk update projects:

• Go to Sales > Invoices.
• Click + New in the top right corner of the page.
• Enter the other required details.
• Click the Bulk Update Line Items option above the Item Details table on the right.

• Click Update Projects.

• Select the projects to update from the Projects dropdown.
• Click Update.

Tracking Transactions

The transactions that you’ve recorded for a project can be tracked in the project module. Here’s how:

• Go to Time Tracking > Projects.
• Select the project for which you wish to see the transactions.
• You can view all the sales transactions under the Sales tab and all the purchase transactions under the Purchases tab.

Project Reports (Project Profitability)

You can customize reports and filter them based on the projects associated with different transactions. The overall profitability of a project can be viewed from the Profit and Loss report and the transaction based project details can be viewed from the transaction specific reports.

Profit and Loss Report

Project profitability can be customized and read from the Profit and Loss report. You can tailor the report and view them based on specific projects. To do this:

• Go to the Reports Module in the left sidebar.
• In the Business Overview section, select Profit and Loss.
• Click Customize Report in the top left corner of the page.

• Select Projects from the Advance filter dropdown and select the name of the project from the adjacent dropdown.

• Click Run Report.  

Other Reports

You can view the reports of transactions created for a project. These reports include:

1. Purchase Order Details Report
2. Invoice Details Reports
3. Quote Details Report
4. Sales Order Details Report
5. Bills Details Report
6. Expense Details Report
7. Debit Note Details Report

For instance, to view the projects associated with bills:

• Go to the Reports module in the left sidebar.
• In the Payables section, select Bills Details.
• Click Customize Report in the top left side of the page.
• Select Projects from the Advanced Filter dropdown, and select the name of the project from the adjacent dropdown.
• Click Run Report.

Track Project Cost for Staffs

A project can have multiple users working on it. Each user will spend a specific amount of time working on the project, and each user can have a different cost for every hour each works on the project.

Enable Cost Tracking

Before you create a project, you will have to enable the Cost Tracking option.

To enable:

• Go to Settings on the top right corner of the page.
• Select Timesheet under Preferences.
• Scroll down and select Timesheet under Time Tracking.
• Check the Track costs for time entries option.
• Click Save.

Allocate Cost to the Staff

You can set a predefined cost per hour for each user. To enter the cost:

• Go to the Settings on the top right corner of the page.
• Select Users under Users and Roles.
• Click Invite User on the top right corner of the page.
• Fill in the details and enter the predefined cost in the Cost Per Hour field.
• Click Send.

To edit the cost for an existing user:

• Go to the Settings on the top right corner of the page.
• Select Users under Users and Roles.
• Click the Gear icon next to the user.
• Click Edit at the top.
• Enter the cost per hour for that user.

The Cost Per Hour will be pre-filled in the new projects based on the amount specified for the user in the Users and Roles section. The updated cost per hour for the staff will not affect the existing projects or time entries.

On the other hand, if you missed to update the Cost Per Hour for a user before project creation, an admin can edit the project and specify the **Effective From **date. All the time entries created for the project after the selected date will be updated with the new cost.

Edit the Cost Per Hour While Logging Time

While logging the time, an admin can edit the Total Cost or Cost Per Hour by clicking the Edit icon.

To edit:

• Click the Edit icon next to the Total Cost and click the Edit icon next to Cost Per Hour in the popup.
• Enter the new cost per hour.
• Click Update and the changes will reflect in the Total Cost section.

Next, click Save in the New Log Entry.

To view the timesheet of a project with the Total Cost:

• Go to the Project and select Timesheet.
• Set the VIEW BY Status and Period as All.

You can view the total cost of each entry in the Total Cost column.

Project Cost Summary Report

This report gives you a summary of all the expenses incurred for projects. Often, when you take a project for a client, you will spend on certain resources for the completion of the project. The purchases of the resources can be tracked in the form of bills, expenses, self-billed invoices, manual journals etc. These costs spent on each project can be viewed in the form of a report in Zoho Books.

To view the Project Cost Summary report:

• Navigate to the Reports module on the left sidebar.
• Click Projects Cost Summary under the Projects and Timesheet heading.

The report will show the project name, description, customer name and the total cost from transactions, the cost amount from tiemsheet, and the budget amount. You can pick the date range from the calendar dropdown and view the report accordingly.

To customize the report, click the Customize Report option at the top bar.

Under the General section, the report can be filtered based on Project Name, Project Status, Project Billing Method and Customer Name.

You can choose to include the columns that you want to have in the report. To include columns, click Show/Hide Columns to add or remove the columns from the Selected Column box.

• Click Run Report to generate the report.

Once you run the report, the Cost From Transactions will be shown. Clicking the cost of a project, you can view the drilled-down report with the list of transactions created for the project.

You can customize this report by clicking Customize Report. You can filter it based on Transaction Type, Vendor Name and Account Name. Transaction Type includes five filters (Bills, Vendor Credits, Expenses, Journals and Self Billed Invoices). Also, you can customize the columns by clicking Show/Hide Columns.

Also, you can export the report to Zoho Sheet and in PDF, CSV, XLS, and XLSX formats.

Projects Revenue Summary Report

Based on the project you’ve worked on for the client, invoices are raised along with the progress of the project. The total revenue raised on each project can be viewed in the form of a report in Zoho Books. Here’s how:

• Navigate to the Reports module on the left sidebar.
• Click Projects Revenue Summary under the Projects and Timesheet heading.

The report contains the following fields such as Project Name, Description, Customer Name, Actual Revenue, and Budget Amount. You can pick different date ranges from the calendar dropdown.

To customize the report:

• Click the Customize Report option at the top bar.

• Under the General section, the report can be filtered based on Project Name, Project Status, Project Billing Method and Customer Name.

• You can also decide the columns that you wish to have in the Report. To do so, click on Show/Hide Columns to add or remove the columns from the Selected Column box.

Once you run the report, the Actual Revenue will be shown. By clicking on a revenue amount of a project, you can view the drilled-down report with the list of sales transactions created for the project.

Also, you can export the report to Zoho Sheet and in PDF, CSV, XLS, and XLSX formats.

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Next >
Manage Projects

Related

• Overview - Projects
• Basic Functions in Projects
• Other Actions in Projects
• Projects Preferences