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Project management gives you real-time visibility into every phase of a project—from bid to completion. Within a single, centralized hub, you can monitor progress, compare budgeted vs. actual costs, access key insights, streamline communication, assign tasks, and keep cash flow on track.

A gif showing different screens that touch on Project Management.

Setup

What you need to get started

To prepare for project management, start with the basics:

Required permissions

The following permissions are required to set up and manage project management. To have these enabled, please contact the account administrator on your team:

  • Attach job to project

  • Detach job from project

  • Edit project status        

    • Set project to completed status

    • Set project from completed status to another

  • Delete project and location opportunities and estimates

  • Edit business unit on project

  • Show financials

  • Edit project type on project

  • Override project type settings on project

Quick start guide

To quickly get started with project management, follow these steps:

Step 1: Choose Core or Phase project management

Review the Overview of project management setups and workflows to pick the setup and workflow best suited for your business.

If you aren't sure what setup and workflow works best for your business or are new to project management, we highly recommend you set up project management for our core setup and workflow to help you avoid uncategorized transactions on the Budget vs Actual table in project management.

Step 2: Create project labels

  1. Go to the navigation bar and click Settings A simple icon representing a settings gear..

  2. In the side panel, click Operations > Project Settings.

  3. Click Add Label. 

  4. Enter a name and select a color.

  5. Repeat until all of your labels are created.

Step 3: Set up revenue recognition for projects

  1. Go to the navigation bar and click Settings A simple icon representing a settings gear..

  2. In the side panel, go to Operations > Project Settings.

  3. Click the Project Setup tab.

  4. Select the default revenue recognition method you want to use for projects. 

Step 4: Set up pricebook items

  1. Go to the navigation bar and click Pricebook.

  2. Make sure that your pricebook items are set up either according to the line item or rough item estimate approach.        

    1. If you're using the line item estimate/budget creation method, the pricebook should be set up and have relevant services, materials, and equipment added.

    2. If you are using the rough project estimate estimate/budget creation method, create generic summary services, materials, and equipment and apply appropriate project label defaults to those items.

Step 5 (Phased Project management only): Create job types

  1. Go to the navigation bar and click Settings A simple icon representing a settings gear..

  2. In the side panel, click Operations > Job Types.

  3. Click Add

  4. Create a job type that represents one of your project phases.

  5. Click the Project Label dropdown to assign the project label you created.

  6. Repeat until all of your job types are created.

Step 6: Set up payroll information

  1. Go to the navigation bar and click Settings A simple icon representing a settings gear..

  2. In the side panel, click People > Technicians.

  3. Click Edit for the technician you want to add payroll information for.

  4. Enter any relevant payroll information like pay rate and labor burden.

Advanced setup

Use these guides to understand the differences between Core and Phased project management and learn how to set up the correct workflow for your business.

Part 1: Core and Phased project management

  • Core project management setup and workflow: Use the core project management setup and workflow to track your budgeted and actual Contract Value revenue, as well as your budgeted and actual project expenses by cost type: Labor, Materials, and Equipment.

  • Phased project management setup and workflow: Use the phased project management setup and workflow to track your budgeted and actual revenue, as well as your budgeted and actual project expenses by phase.

Use these guides to enhance your project management experience with optional features.

Part 2: Project Portfolio

Use this high-level overview of your projects and manage them based on the information presented, including budget, invoices, payments due, and more.

Part 3: Project sub-statuses

Add custom sub-statuses to better define the stages of completion of your projects.

Project management settings

Efficiently manage your project management settings in one place.

Key workflows

End-to-end guide to project management

The End-to-end guide to project management covers everything you need to know to effectively manage projects using the Project Management feature.

Before diving in, we recommend that you read our Introduction to project management article to help you set up your system and familiarize yourself with industry-standard workflows.

Estimates

Easily create and manage estimates for your projects

Project labels

Use project labels to organize expenses in the Budget vs. Actual table and to populate the schedule of values used in creating Applications for Payment.

Manage double costing

Learn how to avoid double costing and how to resolve it if it does happen.

Progress billing

Set up and use different methods for billing throughout a project.

Application for Payment

Change orders

Budget vs Actuals

Keep your team organized and identify risks early with a comprehensive view of every project's progress so you can stay on budget and schedule.

Project management reporting

Use reporting to manage multiple projects at scale to provide your leadership with accurate and up-to-date metrics.

Troubleshooting and FAQ

Troubleshooting

Address project management issues quickly and efficiently by exploring our troubleshooting articles, which detail the most frequent problems and their solutions.

FAQ