How Does Project Profitability Work?

Project Profitability allows you to track your non-internal Projects’ performance to see how profitable they are. Project Profitability also helps you better manage team members and see how time and expenses are being tracked to help you make better business decisions.

• Team Cost Rates
• Project Estimates
• Project Expense Markup
• Profitability Graph

Team Cost Rates

Team Cost Rates are how much you pay your Team Members for the work they do. By managing the cost of each of your Team Members, you’ll be able to see time costs for each of your Projects to measure project profitability.

Team Cost Rates are separate from your Team Member Rates which is used for rebilling the Team Member’s time to a Client on an Invoice.

Setting your Team Member’s Cost Rate can be done from either of these two areas:

• Go to the My Team section, then click on a Team Member and click on Set Cost Rate
• Go to the Projects section, edit or create a Project, and click on Set Cost Rate

Set Cost Rates

• Once a Cost Rate is entered in either My Team or in a Project, this becomes the new default for that Team Member
• To update the Cost Rate for all past Time Entries, ensure Apply to all time entries is checked off when updating the Cost Rate
• Click on See Past Cost Rates to see previous Cost Rates for a Team Member

Project Estimates

Use a Project's Estimate Type and choose between Total Hours or Hours Per Service to compare the hours logged against the amount specified. In your Project Overview, click on the Services sub-tab, and depending on which Project Estimate Type is selected, you will see either: 

• Total Hours - The total hours for each Service tracked is displayed with a grand total at the bottom
  
  
  
  
• Hours Per Service - Percentage to Budget is displayed along with the Estimated and Actual hours tracked for each Service
  
  

Project Expense Markup

A percentage markup can be added automatically for all Expenses associated to a Project. To set the Expense Markup, use these steps while editing or creating a new project: 

1. Go to the Projects section
2. Either click on: 
   1. Any existing Project, then the Edit button
   2. Or click on the Create New... button and create a Project
3. Under Settings, click on Set Expense Markup
4. In the field next to % of expense grand total, enter the percentage you want to mark up
5. Click Done
6. Continue editing the rest of your Project as needed, then click Save to finish. The markup will now be used on all new Expenses assigned to that Project moving forward.

To assign an Expense to a Project and mark it up, use the steps here.

Notes: 

• The percentage markup will apply the next time you create an Expense assigned to this Project
• Rebilling the Expense back to a Client on an Invoice is optional, meaning you can have both non-billable and billable Project-related Expenses

Profitability Graph

The Profitability graph can be accessed with these steps:

1. Click on the Projects section
2. Then click on a Project
3. Next, click on the Profitability tab next to Hours Logged.

The Profitability graph will show you the below:

• Billed - Includes all billed Income (all Draft, Sent, Viewed and Paid Invoices and Flat Rate Projects) and also displays any unbilled Income beneath (Flat Rate Projects, unbilled Time Entries and Expenses), Taxes are excluded except for any rebilled Expenses that may have had Taxes added to them
• Costs - Includes all your Team Members’ costs (time tracked multiplied by Cost Rate), and Expense costs (billed, unbilled and non-billable Expenses, not including markup), Taxes are excluded
• Profit - The resulting total after subtracting Costs from Income
• Profit Margin - Calculated as ((Income - Cost) / Income) * 100%, if there is no income but there are costs, the Profit Margin is - % instead

You can also review Profitability on each specific Time Entry by running a Time Entry Details Report, or by Project by running the Profitability Summary Report if available in your account.