The article explains managing projects through Cost Centers, which is essential for tracking budgets and hours. It covers creating projects and details required fields. The Manage Projects report shows project statuses (Pending, Open, Closed) with editing options. The Project Budgets report compares budgeted vs. actual spending. The Project Log consolidates logged costs by project and employee details.
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Cost Centers
Businesses track individual budgets against projects assigned to employees. These projects and their associated budgets may consist of one or multiple entities being tracked as a Cost Center.
- The use of Cost Centers is required because as assigned employees track time in those Cost Centers, the hours remaining, target hours, and budget are reduced
- Go to: Settings > Global Setup > Cost Centers
Please Note: You may or may not have access to add projects to the Cost Center Tree. If you do not have access, contact your company's system admin user.
- Select the Edit Pencil next to 'Projects' to view
Creating Projects
- Go to: Team > Time > Project Costing > Manage Projects
- Click 'Add New Project'
Please Note: A new Project Cost Center may need to be added to start a new project, see Cost Centers above
Project Details
- Fill in the fields for which you have information on the new project. At a minimum, the required fields are necessary to save this new project. You may add to and edit these fields until the project is closed or deleted.
- The following fields are available as details for this project:
- Project Name: Name for easy identification in the report (Required)
- Business Purpose: The reason this project is needed
- Percent Complete: The current status of the project
- Project Budget: The monetary budget value set for the project
- Project Target Hours: The amount of time budgeted for the project
- Description: Outline the additional details of the project
- Type: Choose from a Cost Center List or a Single Cost Center (Required)
- Projects: Select the Cost Center List or the individual Cost Center for this project (Required)
- EIN: Only required for Multi-EIN containers - select the EIN for this project (Required)
- Start Date: Select the date this project is to start (Required)
- End Date: Select the date this project is expected to end (Required)
- Assign Employees(s): Select the employee(s) to track details in this project (Required)
- Assign Manager(s): Select the Manager(s) to review the project details
- When all details are entered, choose Save in the upper right of the page, then return to the 'Manage Projects' page.
Manage Projects
- The Manage Projects report displays all projects. With permission, you can copy a project, select projects to Close and Delete, and review project details by choosing the View/Edit Project (pencil) icon. The Status column identifies projects that are Pending, Open, or Closed.
- Projects that are starting at a future date have a Pending status and cannot be closed. Projects with a current start date are in an Open status. Closed projects become read-only and may be re-opened using the Reopen button at the top of the Edit Project page. The status returns to Open.
Project Budgets
- This report, though similar to the Manage Project report, does not allow the user to add new projects, or close or delete outstanding projects. This report displays amounts that were budgeted for the project in comparison to actual amounts spent to date.
- The report columns contained in this report include but are not limited to, the following:
| Project Name | Project Dates | Status | Completion % |
| Budgeted $ | Remaining Budget $ | Remain Budgeted Hrs | Spending Trends |
- With permission, you can adjust the project by choosing the View/Edit Project (pencil) icon, and review the project details by choosing the View Details icon.
- This Project Details page contains the following features.
- Metric Header: This header displays the current Status, Logged Budget, Remaining Budget, and length of time Until End Date or the number of days the project may be Overdue.
- Project Details: This widget displays the details of the project as entered from the Manage Projects report.
- Assigned Team: This widget displays the employee(s) assigned to log time and budgets against the project. With proper permissions, you may add new employees to the project or remove members using the buttons at the top of the widget.
Please Note: If granted permissions, an Edit button displays in the upper right of the page allowing you to adjust project details
Project Log
This report contains the information on all projects that contain logged costs associated with it. Data from project logged time is consolidated with the defining project details, such as the project name and project dates. The amount of detail is dependent on columns added.
- For example, if you include the Employee column, you will have a separate row for each Employee within each Week. If you remove the Employee column, you'll have a single consolidated row for all Employees