Projects organize work performed for a client and control available tasks, employees, dates, and rates.

This screen allows you to create new or modify existing projects. In addition to general project information, tasks can be managed and employees can be assigned to the tasks within the project configuration screens.

Options and field descriptions #

Name – A name for the project.

Accounting ID – This optional field simplifies the exporting of data to an accounting package. When supplied, the Accounting ID acts as a code or cross-reference to related data located within an external accounting package.

Client & Department – These are two separate drop-downs on this screen that include a list of clients and departments in your system. A project must belong to either a client or department. Selecting one will disable the other since a project cannot belong to both a client and a department at the same time.

Manager – You may optionally assign an employee as the manager of the project. Assigning a manager to a project permits that person to report on the project.

Status – Select a project status for the project Optional:. For more information on project status, see Project status.

Priority – Select a project priority for the project Optional:. For more information on project priorities, see Project priorities.

Category – Select a project category for the project Optional:. For more information on project categories, see Project categories.

Assignment Type – Select the appropriate assignment type for the project. The available sections are:

1. Assign to All Employees – All employees in your system will be assigned and be able to charge time and expenses to all tasks within this project.
2. Assign to Specific Employees – Selecting this option allows you to select individual employees to assign to the project. For more information, see Project assignments.

Start Date – The date that the project was started.

End Date – The date that the project has or should end.

Restrict time and expense entry to these dates – When selected, users will only be able to enter time and expenses for this project between the provided start and end dates. It is not required that both a start and end date be provided. You may, for example, provide a start date and leave the end date empty. In this case, users will not be able to start tracking time and expenses until the start date but can continue to track time and expense indefinitely until the project is made archived or an end date is specified.

Deadline – The date that the project is due to be completed.

Billing Rate – Allows you to specify a billing rate (per hour) for all time charged to the project. See How rates are applied for more information on how rates are applied in the system.

Project budget #

A project can have one budget that tracks the part of the project you care about most.

Choose No budget when you do not want to track a budget for the project.

Available budget types depend on the Time and Expense features enabled for your account.

Hours #

An Hours budget tracks time entered to the project.

You can budget the whole project or individual project tasks.

Use this when the main limit is the number of hours available for the work.

Costs #

A Cost budget tracks labor cost from project time.

You can budget the whole project or individual project tasks.

Expense items are not included in a Cost budget.

Use this when you want to watch the internal labor cost of the work.

Billing #

A Billing budget tracks billable time amounts.

You can budget the whole project or individual project tasks.

For a project-level Billing budget, you can also choose to include billable expenses when Expense tracking is enabled.

Task-level Billing budgets use billable time only.

Use this when the project has a billing or fee amount that you want to watch as work is recorded.

Expenses #

An Expense budget tracks expense item amounts for the project.

Expense budgets are set for the project as a whole.

Use this when you want to keep project spending within a set amount.

Project budgets and task budgets #

For Hours, Costs, and Billing, choose whether the budget applies to the project or to its tasks.

For a project budget, enter the budget amount on the project.

For a task budget, enter the amount for each task that should have a budget.

A blank task budget means that task does not have a budget.

An entered value of 0 is a real zero budget and is treated differently from leaving the field blank.

Tip: You do not have to budget every task. This is useful when only some parts of a project need a limit.

Budget period #

Choose how long the budget should last before it starts over.

Lifetime – One budget for the full life of the project.

Monthly – The budget starts over each month.

Quarterly – The budget starts over each quarter.

Yearly – The budget starts over each year.

Quarterly and Yearly budgets can use a selected starting month so the budget periods can match your company’s or project’s schedule.

For example, a Yearly budget can run from April through March instead of January through December.

The budget amount applies to each full reset period.

Include billable expenses #

This choice is available for a project-level Billing budget when Expense tracking is enabled.

When selected, billable expense amounts count toward the Billing budget along with billable time.

This option is not used for task-level Billing budgets.

Where to review a project budget #

After saving the project, you can review budget progress in:

• the Project Overview for a quick view of the current project;
• the Budget Performance Explore report when you want to compare projects, budget periods, or task budgets.

Note: Project Start Date and End Date are separate from the budget schedule. They do not change when a Lifetime, Monthly, Quarterly, or Yearly budget starts or resets.

Comments – Provide any additional comments regarding the project.

Allow Entries for this Project? – Indicate whether or not employees can charge time and expenses to this project (and all tasks within the project). This feature is useful when you want the project to remain active in the system but not allow any time or expenses to be charged to it (i.e. when you are initially setting up the project).

Creating and Modifying a Project #

1. Browse to Admin, select Projects, and then select Projects.
2. Select New to create a new project or select an existing project from the list.
3. Provide a unique name for the project.
4. Select a client or department to associate the project with.
5. Select an assignment type to describe how you will assign employees to the project.
6. Provide any additional data in the remaining optional fields.
7. Select Save.
8. Select New Task to assign tasks to this project.

Active and archived records #

MindSalt uses Active and Archived. Archived records stay in your account but do not appear in active lists. To archive a record, open its three-dot menu and select Archive. When a record can be copied, Copy is in the same menu.