What are projects?

Projects are a great way to collaborate with clients and your team members inside your FreshBooks account. It's also helpful for communicating with your clients beyond invoices - you can review all time tracked from you and your team members, as well as review all invoices and expenses associated with a specific project.

• Create a Project
• Project Overview
• Discuss and Collaborate on Projects
• FAQs

Create a Project

There are multiple ways to create a new project: 

• Select the Projects section and select the New Project button
• Select the Clients section, select a Client, then select the Projects sub-tab, and select the + button (this will create a project assigned to this client)
• Select the Estimates section, check the box off next to any estimate or proposal and select Convert to Project

 

Select whether you want Flat Rate Project or Hourly Project (review What are billing methods? if you're not sure which project type to use), then you can customize your new project:

Here's what you can customize in your project: 

 

Project Details

• Project Members - In the top left corner, select the + button to add existing team members or invite new ones, as well as assign a Project Manager
• Assign a Client - In the top right corner, select to assign a client or internal client to the project
• Project Name - Enter a name for your project, up to 255 characters
• Project Description - Enter a brief description of the project, up to 750 characters
• End Date - If needed, enter in an end date or deadline for your project
• Total Hours - If needed, add a budget to track the estimated time for this project
• Flat Rate - If you select Flat Rate Project as your Project Type, indicate the rate you'd like to charge for this project
• Services - Add or remove services you'd like to use for tracking time (or set up your default services to apply automatically to every new project with the steps in What are services? here)

 

Project Settings

• • Project Type - Choose between Flat Rate Project (always bill a flat rate regardless of how much time is tracked) or Hourly Project (to charge by a specific rate instead)
  • Estimate Type - If Project Profitability is available, and the project is not an internal client, choose between:
    • Total Hours - Track how much time can be allocated to the project itself
    • Hours Per Service - Track how much time can be allocated to each service 
  • Set Billable Rates - If Hourly Project is chosen as the type, choose between Single Hourly Rate, Team Member Rates or Service Rates for this project - review what each Billing Rate does
  • Set Cost Rates - If Project Profitability is available, choose the Cost Rate for your team
  • Set Expense Markup - If Project Profitability is available, choose the Expense Markup for any expenses assigned to this project
  • Apply Time to Retainer - If the client has any active retainers, choose whether time entries from this project also apply towards the retainer

 

Project Overview

Any project's details can be viewed by going to the Projects section and selecting any project. You’ll be on the project review tab by default:

In the Review section, under the Hours Logged tab, you can find the below information:

• Project Folder - All assigned Project Team Members are displayed with their icons (or initials), along with the Project Name, the Client the project is assigned to, and an End Date for th project if specified
• Project Services - Lists all services assigned to this project
• Hours Logged - Choose between By Team Member, By Service or By Status for a quick snapshot and hover over each bar for details
• Remaining in Budget - The remaining budgeted hours left (if specified) - this is also displayed as the total number of hours next to the project when viewing your list of projects
• Unbilled Time - The remaining time entries that have yet to be billed onto an invoice
• Unbilled Expenses - The remaining value of expenses that have yet to be rebilled onto an invoice
• X Days Until Due - If a Project End date is specified, the number of days remaining will be displayed

To learn more about the Profitability tab, review How does Project Profitability work? here.

Selecting the More Actions button will allow you to either:

• Generate Invoice - When you’re ready to bill the client, an invoice will be generated with all project-related time entries automatically added for you based on the billing method chosen
• Duplicate - Quickly copy an existing project and modify the new project as needed
• Archive - If the project is completed and you/your team no longer needs to track time to it, move the project into your archived list of projects
• Delete - Move the project to the deleted folder

Anytime you need to edit the project, select the Edit button in the top right corner.

 

Below the project overview are a set of sub-tabs that allow you to easily review all of your project’s information in one place:

• Time Tracking - Review all time entries, including your team member’s logged that are assigned to this project only
• Invoices - Review all invoices containing your project’s billed time entries only, including manually assigned invoices
  • Full Amount total includes non-project related items (unless also added to invoice when generating from project) and sales taxes
• Expenses - Review all expenses assigned to your project only
• Services - Review all services assigned to your project, select the Total Hours next to any service for a list of time entries making up that total
• Reports - Quickly view the Time Entry Details report, Expense report, Profitability Summary report and Profitability Details report with filters set to this specific project

 

Discuss and Collaborate on Projects

You can collaborate on any project by sharing files, attachments or comments with your client and team members. Use the below steps to access the discuss section of your project:

1. Select the Projects section
2. Then select a Project
3. Next select the discuss sub-tab at the top.

In the Discuss tab, you and all invited project members (like your team members and client) can post and review each other's posts of:

• Comments
• Files - Images, gifs, PDFs, documents, spreadsheets (50 MB per file, up to 40 files per post)
• Links

Note: Any posts made are permanently saved to the project discussion with no option to delete afterwards.

 

FAQs

How do I manage my projects?

From the Projects section, hover over any project to quickly perform any of these actions:

• Edit - Select the pencil icon and you’ll be taken to the edit screen of the project where you can adjust and save afterwards
• Duplicate - Select the two papers icon to copy an existing project and modify the new project as needed
• Generate Invoice - Select the invoice icon to generate an invoice for that project
• Archive - Select the box icon to move the project to your archived projects list
• Delete - Select the trash can icon to delete the project. You can view all deleted projects by selecting the deleted link at the bottom of the list

 

How do I add people to my project?

To add people to your project, follow these steps: 

1. Select the Projects section
2. For existing projects, select it, then select the Edit button
3. For a new project, select the New Project button
4. Select the + icon under Team Members in the top left
   1. Select your team members by using either:
   2. The Select All checkbox
   3. Individually checking off boxes next to the team member(s)
   4. The Search field and/or Filter by Role option to check off specific boxes
   5. Then select the Save or Update Team Members button to send the invites.
5. Or use the Invite an Employee or Invite a Contractor button to invite a new one
   1. Enter in the email address in the To: field
   2. If needed, write a personal message
   3. Then select the Send Invitation button. The invitation will be emailed, and the recipient can accept it to have access to the project.

Note: If you add a client to a project, they will only be able to view the Discuss tab. If a client needs to review time tracked so far, you can either send them an invoice with the time entries, or run a Time Entry Details report filtered to that client and/or project.


How do I remove people from my project? 

You can remove team members from your project with the below steps:

1. Select the Projects section on the left side
2. Then select the project you want to edit
3. Next, select the Edit button
4. Select the + icon under Team Members in the top left
5. Uncheck the box next to any existing team member
6. Select Done and any unselected team members will be removed from the project.

 

How do I change the client on a project?

1. Select the Projects section on the left side
2. Then select the project you want to change the client for
3. Next, select the Edit button
4. Select the client's name and then select Change Client
5. Choose the new Client
6. Select Save.

Note: If you have time entries already billed on an invoice belonging to the original client, the invoice will not change clients and remain as is. Both billed and unbilled time entries will be reassigned to the new client.

If the original client has a retainer, time entries will be removed from the retainer and reassigned to the new client instead. If the new client has a retainer as well, the time entries from the old client's retainer will move to the new client's retainer.