Projects module
With the projects module, you can create projects where linked employees can log hours, expenses and trips. Do you have the Advanced package or higher? Then you can also set budgets and invoice costs to the client.
Creating a project
To create a project, first, we need to activate the project module. Click the gear icon in the top right, and then select App Center. Here you can enable the projects module.
After activating the project module, you can open it. First, you'll land on the project overview, where you can filter, export, create, edit and archive projects.
Note: The Essential package has a maximum of 10 active projects.
To create a new project, click the '+project' button in the top right corner. A pop-up will appear, and TimeChimp will ask for the project name, the client for whom the project is, and whether the project needs to be invoiced. If so, you can immediately add the correct invoicing method. You can read more about the different invoicing methods in TimeChimp in this article.
You can adjust these settings after creating the project by opening and editing it.
Project settings
Each project has its own settings. Below, we explain what they are and what impact they have.
General
Under ‘General,’ you enter the basic details of your project, such as the project name, the client, and a project code, for example. You can also add a start and/or end date, so logging can only occur from the start date until the end date.
From this screen, you can also add or edit an invoicing method using the ‘Edit Invoicing Method’ button in the top right.
Do you have the Advanced package or higher? Then you can assign a specific project manager to monitor the project. Read more about this here.
Tasks
For each project, you can specify which tasks are available to employees when they log hours. In this tab, indicate which tasks should be available. If you've chosen the invoicing method 'activity hourly rate', you can also specify the hourly rate for different tasks in this tab. IF tasks already have a rate in the general settings, that rate will automatically carry over.
Employees
Just like you can specify which tasks are available per project, you can also assign employees to projects. This ensures that only employees working on a project see it when logging hours. If you’re invoicing based on employee hourly rates, you can enter the hourly rate of the various employees in this tab. If contracts are linked to employees, the rate from the contract will be used.
Do you have the Advanced package or higher and work with teams? Then you can create teams and add the entire team to the project at once.
Budget
If you want to track a budget, you can set one in the project dashboard. In the below left corner.
Choose the budget method you want to use and whether you want to receive a notification when a certain percentage of the budget has been used. Toggle the ‘Notification’ button on and enter the percentage at which you’d like to receive a notification. More information about the project budget methods can be found here.
The notification when a project's budget is reached is not sent immediately. These notifications are sent during the following night.
Milestones
Milestones are important dates or events that you can log to mark the progress of a project. You can use a milestone to record a crucial deadline or delivery date. This milestone is given a name, which can easily be found in the project dashboard and in your project exports. Along with the name, you can also link a delivery date, description, and related activity.
You can then indicate whether the milestone is completed or not. As long as a milestone is not completed, it remains marked with a red dot. Once the milestone is completed, the dot turns green. This way, you can quickly see the status of important milestones in your project.
Archiving or Deleting projects
When you archive a project, it is no longer possible to add or edit hours for that project. Employees can no longer log hours on archived projects, but as an admin, you still have insight into these projects.
Filter by 'Archived' instead of 'Active' to find all archived projects. Here you can also delete projects by clicking the 'Actions' button and selecting 'Delete.'
Note: When you delete a project, all logs, invoices and quotes created for that project are permanently deleted and cannot be restored. Archiving a project has no effect on any logged hours/expenses/milage, invoices or quotes.