Projects offer a simple way to group together your sales, expenses, estimates and purchase orders into a single container. This makes it easier to report on a specific activity within your business, for example a project you’re working on for a client or a new division in your sales team.

We’ve designed the project system to be as flexible as possible by relying on what we call project tags. You can apply tags to your sales invoices, purchase invoices, estimates, recurring invoices and purchase orders. All items with the same tag are grouped together, so you can quickly see all sales and expenditure on an invoice and cash basis. Find your projects under Reports > Projects.

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Adding a project tag

To create your first project, add a tag to an item. You can add up to 5 tags to any item. Tags can be applied to:

• Sales invoices
• Purchase invoices
• Estimates
• Recurring invoices
• Purchase orders

Tag an item as you create it

1. Open the data entry screen for the item, for example New Invoice.
2. In the Project Tags box, enter the tags for the item.
3. Save the item as normal.

The Project Tags box is on the New Invoice, New Estimate, New Recurring Invoice, New Purchase and Purchase Order screens. It applies to the whole document, not to individual lines.

Tag an item from its preview

Alternatively, tag an item that already exists.

1. Open the preview of the item, for example Sales > Show all sales and click View on an invoice.

2. Hover your mouse over the top right-hand corner of the document and click the grey Add or modify project tags button.

   

3. In the dialog box, click in the tag box and start typing a tag name.

   

4. Press Enter to create the tag, or choose a tag from the list. Existing tags appear as you type, making it easy to link items to project tags you have already created.

   

5. Click Confirm. The tags now appear as markers along the right-hand edge of the document.

   

Tag rules

• You can add up to 5 tags to an item. If you add more, the message Please enter a maximum of 5 tags appears.
• Tags use letters and numbers. Symbols such as ! are not accepted.
• Spaces are replaced with hyphens, and tags are saved in lower case. For example, Test Project A becomes test-project-a.

Remove a tag or open its project

1. Hover your mouse over a tag marker and click the delete icon (x) to remove the tag.

   

2. To jump to the project report, hover over the marker and click its view icon (the magnifying glass).

   

Tagging several items at once

Use Update Tags to add, remove or replace tags on several items in one go.

1. For purchases, go to Purchases > Show all purchases, tick the purchases and click Update Tags.

2. For sales, go to Sales > Show all sales, tick the invoices and click More Options > Update tags.

3. Under What would you like to do with the selected items, choose Add the following tags to the selected items, Remove the following tags from the selected items, or Replace all tags on the selected items with the following tags.

   

4. Enter the tags and click Confirm.

Project Reports

As soon as you tag an item, it is recognised as a project, and you can view detailed analytics on all items linked to the same tag.

To see your projects, go to Reports > Projects. The list gives you a quick summary of all income and expenditure on an invoice and cash basis.

Click the arrows beside Tag name, Count, Sales, Purchases, Received or Paid to order the list by that column.

Click View to open the project report. The detail screen shows the project totals, the activity chart and the buttons for Show tagged items, Add items and P&L Report. It also has an Archived tick box and a notes box where you can enter a short description of the project.

Project totals

The table at the top of the project screen has three columns: Money In, Money Out and Profitability.

The first line is a breakdown of all issued sales and purchase invoices. It gives you a projected figure for the net amount of the two, assuming they are all fully paid. We refer to this as the projected profitability.

The second line is the cash position: all monies received and paid in relation to all tagged invoices. The amount received less the amount paid is the cash profitability.

Hover over any of the numbers on the screen for an explanation.

Project adjustments

The project incoming and outgoing totals are typically derived from sales invoices (to clients) and purchase invoices (from suppliers). There may be occasions when you want to introduce funds into the project or make deductions that aren’t linked to a specific invoice, for example payroll costs or apportioned invoices (where only part of an invoice is attributable to the project).

From any project detail screen you can make a generic adjustment to the invoice and/or cash based values.

1. Open the project from Reports > Projects.

2. Click Add items and select Adjustment.

   

3. Complete the New Adjustment dialog (see the table below).

   

4. Click Save.

You can adjust either total independently, or both together. A positive value increases Money In. A negative value increases Money Out.

View, edit or delete an adjustment

1. On the project screen, click Show tagged items and select Adjustments.

   

2. The list shows the Date, Reference, Invoice Total and Cash Total of each adjustment. Click the Edit icon (the pencil) to change an adjustment, or the Delete icon (the bin) to remove it.

   

Project activity chart

The line/area chart below the totals shows the chronological changes for income and expenditure. The green area sits above the x-axis to track sales, and the red area hangs below the x-axis to track purchases. A blue line between the two marks out the profitability.

Use the Chart view options, Invoice based or Cash based, to switch the chart between an invoice based view and a cash based view.

Drilling down on tagged items

From the project report screen, click Show tagged items to drill down on the items in the project.

The menu lists only the types of item the project has, with the number of each in brackets, for example paid sales invoices, all purchase invoices, estimates and adjustments.

Tagging recurring invoices and estimates

You can add project tags to a recurring invoice profile using the Project Tags box on the New Recurring Invoice screen.

When an estimate is converted to an invoice, the estimate’s tags transfer to the new invoice.

Project level profit and loss report

A project level profit and loss report shows all nominal activity for the tagged sales and purchase invoices in a project. This lets you quickly see how those invoices are categorised.

1. Open the project from Reports > Projects.
2. Click P&L Report.

The report has Invoice Basis and Cash Basis tabs. Use Date Range or Period to choose the dates, and use Export Data or Print Report to save or print it. Turnover, cost of sales and expenses are listed by nominal code, and the Net Adjustments row shows the effect of any project adjustments on Net Profit.

Locate untagged sales and purchase invoices

On your main list of sales invoices or purchase invoices you can filter for invoices that do not have a project tag.

1. Go to Sales > Show all sales or Purchases > Show all purchases.
2. Click Search.
3. Under Project Tags, choose Untagged, then submit the search.

This is a useful filter when you want to make sure all your income and expenditure has been grouped into a project. Choose Tagged to show all tagged items. The default is All.

Applying project tags from the bank

When you create a backing purchase or invoice from a bank transaction, the form has a Project Tags box where you can enter your project tags.

See Tagging your bank transactions for how to tag transactions from the bank statement.

Troubleshooting

An item is missing from the project report.

Click Show tagged items on the project and check the item is listed. Draft sales invoices are listed there but are not counted in the project totals or the profit and loss report.

I need to split one invoice between projects.

Tags apply to the whole document. Use a project adjustment to apportion part of an invoice, or raise separate invoices.

I can’t tag a bank transaction directly.

Add the project tags to the purchase or invoice created from the transaction, using its Project Tags box.

Related topics

New to invoicing? Start with Create Your First Invoice, then come back here to tag your invoices to projects.

• Create Your First Invoice: Create, save and send an invoice, including tagging it to a project.
• Tagging your bank transactions: Tag bank transactions and add project tags to the backing invoice or purchase.
• Rebilling Expenses: Pass purchases on to a client on a sales invoice.
• How to record disbursements: Record costs you pass on to a client, and track them by project.