Projects

A project is a named job or engagement that you tag expense claims, claim lines and advances with, so that you can tell which spend belongs to which piece of work and group billable spend per customer and project when you rebill it. You set up projects once in the expense settings. People then pick a project on a claim or a line, and Compute Recharge on a claim totals its billable lines per customer and project.

Overview

A project record holds a name and code, the company, business unit and branch it belongs to, an optional customer, start and end dates, a description and a status.

A project is a label, not a budget or a control. It matters in these places:

• On a claim line. The line's Project decides which project that line's billable cost is grouped under when Compute Recharge runs on the claim.
• On the claim header and on an advance. Project is recorded for reference. Nothing copies it to the lines, and no process reads it.
• In analytics. The Expense Claim Lines data model carries each line's project, so reports built on it can group spend by project.
• On financial projection lines. A financial projection line also has a Project field. It is recorded only.

What a project does not do:

• It is not posted. Expense journal lines have no project, so the general ledger and the financial statements cannot be split by project. Use cost centers or business units when you need the split in the books.
• Its Status, Start Date and End Date are not checked. A project you mark Closed, or whose end date has passed, can still be picked on new claims, lines and advances.
• Its Customer Account is not copied anywhere. The customer a billable line is recharged to is the Customer Account on the line itself.

When to use it

Create a project when you need to answer "what did this piece of work cost us in employee spend" or when you rebill a client for expenses incurred on a job, and want those rebilled totals split per job.

If you only need to report spend by department or team inside the books, a cost center is the better fit, because it reaches the journal.

How xMatix handles it

• Compute Recharge on a claim takes the claim's lines that have Is Billable To Customer ticked and a Customer Account filled in. It marks each one pending billing and returns one total per customer and line project: the cost (amount plus tax) and the recharge (cost plus the line's Markup Percent). Lines with no project are grouped together for their customer. See Expense accounting and recharge.
• A project is soft-deleted when you delete it. Claims and lines that already point at it keep the link.

Prerequisites

• Access to the Expenses app and the project list (see Permissions).
• The companies, business units, branches and customer accounts you want to link must already exist.

Procedure

Step 1 — Open the project list

Open the Expenses app, choose Settings, and select Projects under Dimensions. You can also open Expense List from the App Launcher and choose Projects.

The list opens on the All Project view. Its columns are Name, Code, Partner Account, Business Unit, Branch, Start Date, Status, End Date, Created By, Created Date and Modified Date.

Step 2 — Create a project

1. Select New. The Create Project form opens.
2. Fill in Name. It is required, and the save fails with "Name is required" without it.
3. Fill in Code if you use short job codes (up to 40 characters).
4. Choose Partner Account (the company), Business Unit and Branch if you want to record who runs the project. All three are optional. On a tenant that runs one company or one location, Partner Account or Branch may be hidden.
5. Choose Customer Account if the project is done for a customer.
6. Under Additional Information, enter Start Date and End Date if you want to record them.
7. Select Save.

The project opens on its record page and appears in the list with Status Open.

Create projects on the web. The standard mobile project form has no Name field, so a project saved from it is refused with "Name is required".

Step 3 — Add a description or change details

On the project's record page, the details card shows Start Date, End Date, Customer Account and Description. Select a field to change it in place. Description is only on the record page, not on the Create Project form.

To change Name, Code, Partner Account, Business Unit or Branch, select Edit in the page header, or Edit on the project's row in the list. Edit opens the Create Project form with the current values.

Step 4 — Tag claims, lines and advances

• Claim header. On a new or existing expense claim, choose the project in Project on the Cost Allocation tab. See Submit and approve expense claims.
• Claim line. On each line, choose Project. Set it on every line that belongs to the project, because the header project is not copied to lines and only the line's project is used by Compute Recharge.
• Advance. On an advance's record page, choose Project. See Employee advances.

The project picker lists every project that has not been deleted, whatever its status or dates.

Step 5 — Rebill a customer for a project

1. On each line to rebill, tick Is Billable To Customer, choose the Customer Account, and optionally enter Markup Percent. Choose the Project.
2. Run Compute Recharge on the claim. The standard claim page header does not show this button; an administrator adds it (see Configuration).
3. Raise the customer invoice through your usual sales flow, then run Link Recharge Invoice to mark the lines billed.

Step 6 — Close or delete a project

The standard forms have no Status field, so new projects keep the status Open. To record Closed or On Hold, an administrator adds Status to the project forms (see Configuration). Status is free text and only informative: it does not stop anyone choosing the project.

To delete a project, select Delete in the record page header, on its row in the list, or select several rows and use Delete in the list header. Confirm the prompt. Claims and lines that use it keep the link. Prefer leaving old projects in place so their history stays readable.

Fields

Business rules

• Name is required on every save. There is no numbering setting for projects, so the name is always the one you type.
• No uniqueness checks on Name or Code.
• Status starts as Open and is never changed by the system.
• No date or status checks. Closed or ended projects remain selectable on claims, lines and advances, and no claim is refused because of its project.
• No copying. Neither the header project nor the project's customer is copied onto claim lines.
• No posting. Expense posting does not put the project on journal lines.
• Recharge grouping. Compute Recharge groups billable lines by the line's Customer Account and the line's Project.
• Clone is not on the standard record page. If an administrator adds it, it copies the project header and keeps its status.

Example

Your firm is fitting out a client's new office and the site team travels for it.

1. An administrator creates a project: Name Harbour Street fit-out, Code PRJ-0412, Customer Account the client's account, Start Date 1 October, End Date 30 November.
2. A site engineer creates an expense claim for a two-day visit and picks Harbour Street fit-out in Project on the header.
3. They add two lines: a hotel stay of 6,400 and a cab fare of 900. On both, they choose the project, tick Is Billable To Customer, choose the client's account and enter Markup Percent 10.
4. After approval, finance runs Compute Recharge on the claim. The result has one row for the client and Harbour Street fit-out: cost 7,300 (plus any tax on the lines), recharge 8,030, two lines. Both lines are now pending billing.
5. Finance raises the client invoice for 8,030 and runs Link Recharge Invoice. Both lines show billed.
6. At the end of November, the administrator, who has added Status to the project form, sets it to Closed. That records the outcome; people can still pick the project, so the team is told to stop using it.

Training

Practice exercise

In a sandbox:

1. Create a project named Training project with code TP-01 and a customer account.
2. Create an expense claim with two lines. Give the first line the project, tick Is Billable To Customer, choose the same customer and enter Markup Percent 20. Leave the second line without a project but billable to the same customer.
3. Have an administrator add Compute Recharge to the claim page, then run it.

Expected result: two recharge rows for the customer, one for Training project and one with no project. Each row's recharge is its cost increased by that line's markup (the second row has no markup unless you entered one). Both lines are pending billing. The project's own Customer Account made no difference: a billable line with no Customer Account is left out entirely.

Quick reference

• Projects are under Expenses → Settings → Dimensions → Projects.
• Name is required, and duplicates are allowed.
• Description is edited on the record page; the other details through Edit.
• Set the project on every line; the header project is not copied.
• Billable lines need their own Customer Account; the project's is not used.
• Projects never reach the general ledger. Use cost centers for that.
• Status, Start Date and End Date are information only.
• Create projects on the web, not the mobile app.

Permissions

Projects are governed by the entity permission on Project in each security profile (create, read, edit, delete) and by the profile's action grants:

A user whose profile lacks a grant does not see that button. Anyone who can open an expense claim, line or advance can pick any project in its Project field. See Security profiles.

Configuration

• Menu. Projects are in the Expense List app, in the Dimensions group. In the Expenses app, Settings opens this list app.
• Adding Status to the forms. To let people mark projects On Hold or Closed, add the Status field to the Create Project form and, if you want, to the Project View record page in the layout designer. See Design a form layout. The field is free text, so agree the words (for example Open, OnHold, Closed) and type them consistently, because the list's Status column and any filter compare the exact text.
• Mobile form. If people create projects in the mobile app, add Name to the mobile version of the Create Project form first.
• Compute Recharge and Link Recharge Invoice buttons. The standard expense claim page header shows Evaluate Policy, Post, Edit and Delete only. Add Compute Recharge and Link Recharge Invoice to the claim's page header in the layout designer for finance users who rebill.
• Restricting the Project picker. The pickers on claims, lines and advances have no lookup filter, so they list every project. If you want them to show only open projects, add a lookup filter in Design Studio on the Project field of each of those entities, with a condition on the project's Status. See Expressions for how filter conditions are written, and test the picker afterwards: a filter that matches nothing leaves it empty.
• Data model. The project's lookups and fields are standard metadata. To add your own fields (for example a project manager), see Create an entity.

Common problems

"Name is required" when I save a new project

The Name box is empty, or you are saving from the mobile app, whose standard form has no Name field. Fill in Name on the web form, or ask an administrator to add Name to the mobile form.

I closed a project but people still pick it

Status is information only and the Project pickers have no filter. Ask an administrator to add a lookup filter on the Project field (see Configuration), and tell the team the project is closed.

Compute Recharge shows no project for my lines

The lines have no Project of their own. The header project is not copied to the lines. Set Project on each line and run Compute Recharge again.

A billable line is missing from the recharge totals

The line needs Is Billable To Customer ticked and its own Customer Account. The project's Customer Account is not used. Fill in the line and run Compute Recharge again.

I can't find the Compute Recharge button on the claim

It is not on the standard claim page header. An administrator adds it in the layout designer.

I can't see project figures in the trial balance or income statement

Projects are not posted to the ledger. Use reports built on the Expense Claim Lines data model to group spend by project, or use cost centers when you need the split in the books.

Common questions

What is the difference between a project and a cost center?

A cost center is a part of the organisation, such as a department or team, and it is posted: expense journal lines carry the cost center, so the books can be split by it. A project is a piece of work, often for a customer, and it is a tag on claims, lines and advances only. Its main use is grouping rebillable spend per customer and project when you run Compute Recharge, and grouping spend in analytics. Many organisations use both: the cost center says whose budget pays, the project says which job the spend was for.

Does a project's end date stop late claims?

No. Start Date and End Date are recorded for information. Claims, lines and advances dated outside them are accepted, and the project stays in the pickers. If you need to stop people using an ended project, add a Status field to the project form, set it to Closed, and add a lookup filter on the Project pickers that hides closed projects.

Why doesn't setting the customer on the project fill in the customer on my lines?

The project's Customer Account is a record of who the project is for. Nothing copies it onto claim lines, and Compute Recharge uses each line's own Customer Account. Set the customer on every billable line. This also lets one project's spend be rebilled to different customers if needed.

Can I see a project's total spend?

There is no project summary on the project record page, and no standard report groups spend by project. Build a report or dashboard on the Expense Claim Lines data model, which carries each line's project, and group by it. For rebillable spend on a single claim, run Compute Recharge, which returns one total per customer and project.

Related topics

• Submit and approve expense claims
• Employee advances
• Expense accounting and recharge
• Cost centers
• Business units
• Financial projections
• Configuring Expense Management
• Project entity reference