## Documentation Index Access the complete documentation index at: https://www.zoho.com/us/books/help/llms.txt Use this file to discover all available documentation pages before proceeding. # Functions in Projects Let us have a look at some of the functions that can be performed in the Projects module. ### Log Time Once you create a task for a project, you can log time for the time spent on each task. * Select the project that you created from the **Projects** page. * Click on the **Log Time** button placed on top of the project dashboard. You can also log time in two other ways: * [Record Manually](/us/books/help/projects/functions.html#manual) * [Start Timer](/us/books/help/projects/functions.html#start-timer) #### Record Manually You can enter the time you’ve spent on a project manually. Here’s how: * Go to **Time Tracking** > **Projects**. * Select a **Project**. * Click **Log Time** from the top of the page. ![log timer](/books/help/images/projects/log-time.png) * Enter the **Date**, select the **Project** and the **Task** you’re associating it with. * Enter the **Time Spent**.   or Choose the start and end time by clicking the **Enter time duration instead** option.  ![Projects Time Spent](/books/help/images/projects/time-spent.png) * Check the **Billable** box off if you do not wish to bill the task and select the **User**. ![New Entry](/books/help/images/projects/new-entry.png) **Insight:** The option to select users will be available only for **Admins**. * Click **Save**. #### Start Timer You can log time for a particular project using the timer. Here’s how: * Click **Start** in the top right of the page or using the keyboard shortcut **Ctrl/cmd + t**. ![start timer for projects](/books/help/images/projects/start.png) * Enter the **Note** and click **Start Timer**. ![Start timer](/books/help/images/projects/start-timer2.png) * The timer will run on the left sidebar and you can choose to **Stop, Pause** or **Discard** the entry. ![disable timer](/books/help/images/projects/disable.png) Once you stop the timer, you can enter the project details in the following popup. ![Associate Projects](/books/help/images/projects/associate-project.png) **Insight:** For Daily Rate projects, time entries are logged in days, **Full Day** or **Half Day** instead of hours. A full day equals the number of hours configured in the **Hours Per Day** field, and a half day equals half of that value. Only one time entry is allowed per user per day for Daily Rate projects. ### Track Project Cost and Revenue When accounting for a project based company, you might want to track the project’s cost and revenue, and also summarize it accordingly.  In Zoho Books, this process can be done by associating projects with transactions. Once the projects are associated with transactions, you can view the summary of the project’s profitability from the Reports module. #### Create and Send Project Quotes   Before you begin working on the project, you can send a quote of the project and the prices to your customers. They can either accept, reject, or comment on the quote. After a quote is confirmed, it can be converted into an invoice. To create a quote for a project: * Go to **Time Tracking** > **Projects**. * Select the project for which you want to create a quote. * Click **New Transaction** from the top right corner of the page. * Select **Create Quote**. ![New Quote](/books/help/images/quote/projects-new-quote.png) * Enter all the necessary details.   * Click **Save**.  You can also create a quote from the Quotes module and associate a project to it. Here’s how: * Go to **Sales** > **Quotes**. * Click **\+ New** on the top right corner of the page. * Fill in the customer details, item details, and other required fields. * Click the **Project Name** drop down and select the project with which you want to associate the quote. ![Select project to associate with the quote](/books/help/images/quote/select-project.png) The total expense will be created and the projects details will be available in the timesheets module. #### Invoice customers for projects   You can create an Invoice and send it to your customers for partial or full completion of a project.  **Insight:** You can associate multiple project to an invoice.    You can create an invoice for a project from the Project details page. Here’s how: * Go to **Time Tracking** > **Projects**. * Select the project for which you want to raise an invoice. * Click **New Transaction** from the top right corner of the page. * Click **Create Invoice**. ![New Invoice](/books/help/images/projects/invoice.png) ![Invoice Projects](/books/help/images/projects/new-invoice.png) * In the **Bill up to** field, enter the date up to which you wish to bill your customer. * Select the method in which you like the data on invoice to be sorted from **How to sort data on invoice** dropdown. * Click **Add**. * Make the necessary changes to your invoice. * Click **Save and Send**. Billing Method Available Options **Fixed Cost for Projects** Only **Single line for the project** option will be shown. **Based on Task Hours** The option **Group by users** will not be shown. **Based on Staff Hours** The option **Group by users** will not be shown. **Based on Project Hours** All the options will be shown. Similarly you can associate other sales transactions such as Sales Orders and Credit Notes to a project. #### Record Project Expenses Projects have certain expenses. It can be anything from buying a coffee for your user to purchase tools for a task.  To record expenses for a project: * Go to **Time Tracking** > **Projects**. * Select the project for which you need to record an expense. * Click **New Transaction** from the top right corner of the page. * Click **Create Expense**. * Fill in the required details in the Expense creation page. * Click **Save**. **Insight:** The Customers and Projects fields will be automatically populated.   ![Projects Expense](/books/help/images/projects/expense.png) You can also create an expense for a project from the Expense module. Here’s how: * Go to **Purchases** > **Expenses**. * Click the **\+ New** button in the top right corner. * Fill the required details. * Select the **Customer Name** from the dropdown. The **Project** dropdown will appear on selecting the customer name. * Mark the **Billable** checkbox if you want to bill this customer for this expense. * Click **Save**.   ![ Projects Expense](/books/help/images/projects/expense2.png) #### Create Retainer Invoices for Projects At times you might have to take an advance payment to arrange the resources for the project you are going to work on. Create a [retainer invoice](https://www.zoho.com/us/books/help/retainer-invoice/) for the project and accept advance payments. You can later adjust them with the invoice you create from the project. To record an advance payment for a project: * Go to **Time Tracking** > **Projects**. * Select the project for which you need to create a retainer invoice. * Click **New Transaction** from the top right corner of the page.  * Click **Create Retainer Invoice**. ![Projects Retainer Invoice](/books/help/images/projects/retainer-invoice.png) * Fill the required details in the following page. * Click **Save** or **Save and Send**. You can also record advance payments from the Retainer Invoices module. Here’s how: * Go to **Sales** > **Retainer Invoices**. * Create a new transaction or edit an existing one. * Select the project from the **Project Name** dropdown. ![Retainer Invoice Projects](/books/help/images/projects/new-ri.png) * Enter the other required details. * Click **Save**. **Insight:** All the sales transaction can be viewed in the Sales tab under the respective module names. Once the Retainers are in the paid status, you can choose to apply them to your invoice. Here’s how: * Go to **Time Tracking** > **Projects**. * Select the project for which you have created a retainer invoice and recorded payment. * Go to the **New Transaction** drop-down and click **Create Invoice**. * In the Project Invoice Information page, mark the **Would you like to apply the retainers collected to the invoice** checkbox. * Click **Add** and you will be taken to the invoice creation page ![Apply retainers to projects](/books/help/images/projects/apply-retainers-projects.png) * Enter the necessary invoice details and click **Save and Send**. The retainer amount will be deducted from the invoice. You can then view this in the total section. ![Deducted in the Invoice](/books/help/images/projects/ri-deducted.png) #### Bill the Vendors for a Project When you are working on projects for your customers, you may incur various bills purchase of a software, tool etc. You can associate customers and projects to these bills and mark them as billable. Here’s how: * Go to **Purchases** > **Bills**. * Create a new bill or edit an existing one. * In the **Items Details** section, select the **Customer** from the **Customer Details** dropdown. * Click the **Edit** icon next to **Non-Billable** and mark the billable checkbox if you want to bill this item. * Select the project name from the dropdown. * Click **Update**. ![Bill Projects](/books/help/images/projects/bills.png) Similarly you can associate other purchase transactions such as Purchase Orders and Vendor Credits to a project. To do this: * Click the **More** icon next to the line item. * Select the **Project** from the dropdown. * Click **Save**. #### Manual Journals You can create journal entries to keep of other transactions associated with this project manually. Here’s how: * Go to **Time Tracking** > **Projects**. * Select a project for which you want to create a journal entry * Click the **More Transaction** button in the top right corner of the page. * Select **Create Manual Journal** from the dropdown. ![Manual Journa Projects](/books/help/images/projects/manual-journal.png) * Enter the necessary details. * You can associate a project to each entry by clicking the **More** icon next to the row. ![Journal Projects](/books/help/images/projects/journal.png) * Select the project from the **Associate Project** dropdown. * Click **Save**. ![Additional info Projects](/books/help/images/projects/additional-info.png) * Click **Save and Publish**. #### Bulk Update Line Items You can bulk associate projects to line items of an invoice. You can select multiple items and associate projects easily in just one click.  To bulk update projects: * Go to **Sales** > **Invoices**. * Click **+ New** in the top right corner of the page. * Enter the other required details. * Click the **Bulk Update Line Items** option above the **Item Details** table on the right. ![Bulk Update Line Item](/books/help/images/projects/bulk-update-li.png) * Click **Update Projects**. ![Update Projects](/books/help/images/projects/update-proj.png) * Select the projects to update from the **Projects** dropdown. * Click **Update**. ![Update Projects](/books/help/images/projects/update-li.png) #### Tracking Transactions The transactions that you’ve recorded for a project can be tracked in the project module. Here’s how: * Go to **Time Tracking** > **Projects**. * Select the project for which you wish to see the transactions. * You can view all the sales transactions under the **Sales** tab and all the purchase transactions under the **Purchases** tab. ![ Projects Sales](/books/help/images/projects/sales.png) ![Purchase Projects](/books/help/images/projects/purchase.png) #### Project Reports (Project Profitability) You can customize reports and filter them based on the projects associated with different transactions. The overall profitability of a project can be viewed from the Profit and Loss report and the transaction based project details can be viewed from the transaction specific reports. ##### Profit and Loss Report Project profitability can be customized and read from the Profit and Loss report. You can tailor the report and view them based on specific projects. To do this: * Go to the **Reports** Module in the left sidebar. * In the **Business Overview** section, select **Profit and Loss**. * Click **Customize Report** in the top left corner of the page. ![Customize Projects Reports](/books/help/images/projects/cust-reports.png) * Select **Projects** from the **Advance filter** dropdown and select the name of the project from the adjacent dropdown. ![Reports Projects](/books/help/images/projects/cust-reports2.png) * Click **Run Report**.   **Insight:** You can view the project’s profitability in a chart format right in the project’s Overview page by clicking the Profitability Summary. You can directly go to the specific project’s Profit and Loss report from this page by clicking Profitability Report below the chart. ##### Other Reports You can view the reports of transactions created for a project. These reports include: 1. Purchase Order Details Report 2. Invoice Details Reports 3. Quote Details Report 4. Sales Order Details Report 5. Bills Details Report 6. Expense Details Report 7. Debit Note Details Report For instance, to view the projects associated with bills: * Go to the **Reports** module in the left sidebar. * In the **Payables** section, select **Bills Details**. * Click **Customize Report** in the top left side of the page. * Select **Projects** from the **Advanced Filter** dropdown, and select the name of the project from the adjacent dropdown. * Click **Run Report**. ### Track Project Cost for Staffs A project can have multiple users working on it. Each user will spend a specific amount of time working on the project, and each user can have a different cost for every hour each works on the project. **Scenario:** For example, Brandon and Miles are two users who are working on a project. The cost for Brandon is $10 per hour, and for Miles, it is $12 per hour. If both work for 4 hours each, then the cost for Brandon would be $40 (10_4) and for Miles, it would be $48 (12_4). Using the Cost Tracking feature in Zoho Books, you can allocate cost to a user, record time logs for them and track the cost incurred from the reports. #### Enable Cost Tracking Before you create a project, you will have to enable the **Cost Tracking** option. **Notes:** Only an admin of the organization can enable cost tracking. To enable: * Go to **Settings** on the top right corner of the page. * Select **Timesheet** under _Preferences_. * Scroll down and select **Timesheet** under Time Tracking. * Check the **Track costs for time entries** option. * Click **Save**. ![Enable Cost Tracking](/books/help/images/projects/enable-cost-tracking.jpg) #### Allocate Cost to the Staff You can set a predefined cost per hour for each user. To enter the cost: * Go to the **Settings** on the top right corner of the page. * Select **Users** under _Users and Roles_. * Click **Invite User** on the top right corner of the page. * Fill in the details and enter the predefined cost in the **Cost Per Hour** field. * Click **Send**. ![Add Cost Per Hour](/books/help/images/projects/add-costperhour.jpg) To edit the cost for an existing user: * Go to the **Settings** on the top right corner of the page. * Select **Users** under _Users and Roles_. * Click the **Gear** icon next to the user. * Click **Edit** at the top. * Enter the cost per hour for that user. ![Edit Cost Per Hour](/books/help/images/projects/edit-costperhour.jpg) The **Cost Per Hour** will be pre-filled in the new projects based on the amount specified for the user in the **Users and Roles** section. The updated cost per hour for the staff will not affect the existing projects or time entries. On the other hand, if you missed to update the **Cost Per Hour** for a user before project creation, an admin can edit the project and specify the \*\*Effective From \*\*date. All the time entries created for the project after the selected date will be updated with the new cost. ![log timer](/books/help/images/projects/cost-per-hour-effective-from.jpg) #### Edit the Cost Per Hour While Logging Time While logging the time, an admin can edit the Total Cost or Cost Per Hour by clicking the **Edit** icon. To edit: * Click the **Edit** icon next to the **Total Cost** and click the **Edit** icon next to **Cost Per Hour** in the popup. * Enter the new cost per hour. * Click **Update** and the changes will reflect in the **Total Cost** section. ![Edit cost per hour log time](/books/help/images/projects/edit-costperhour-logtime.jpg) Next, click **Save** in the New Log Entry. To view the timesheet of a project with the Total Cost: * Go to the **Project** and select **Timesheet**. * Set the VIEW BY **Status** and **Period** as **All**. You can view the total cost of each entry in the **Total Cost** column. ![View total cost](/books/help/images/projects/timelog-total-cost-.jpg) #### Project Cost Summary Report This report gives you a summary of all the expenses incurred for projects. Often, when you take a project for a client, you will spend on certain resources for the completion of the project. The purchases of the resources can be tracked in the form of bills, expenses, self-billed invoices, manual journals etc. These costs spent on each project can be viewed in the form of a report in Zoho Books. To view the Project Cost Summary report: * Navigate to the **Reports** module on the left sidebar. * Click **Projects Cost Summary** under the **Projects and Timesheet** heading. ![Project Cost Summary Report](/books/help/images/projects/project-cost-report.jpg) The report will show the project name, description, customer name and the total cost from transactions, the cost amount from tiemsheet, and the budget amount. You can pick the date range from the calendar dropdown and view the report accordingly. To customize the report, click the **Customize Report** option at the top bar. Under the **General** section, the report can be filtered based on **Project Name**, **Project Status**, **Project Billing Method** and **Customer Name**. ![Customize Project Cost Report](/books/help/images/projects/customize-projectcost-report.jpg) You can choose to include the columns that you want to have in the report. To include columns, click **Show/Hide Columns** to add or remove the columns from the **Selected Column** box. ![Show or Hide Columns Project Cost Summary](/books/help/images/projects/projectcost-showhide.jpg) * Click **Run Report** to generate the report. Once you run the report, the **Cost From Transactions** will be shown. Clicking the cost of a project, you can view the drilled-down report with the list of transactions created for the project. You can customize this report by clicking **Customize Report**. You can filter it based on **Transaction Type**, **Vendor Name** and **Account Name**. **Transaction Type** includes five filters (Bills, Vendor Credits, Expenses, Journals and Self Billed Invoices). Also, you can customize the columns by clicking **Show/Hide Columns**. ![log timer](/books/help/images/projects/projectcost-drilldown.jpg) Also, you can export the report to Zoho Sheet and in PDF, CSV, XLS, and XLSX formats. #### Projects Revenue Summary Report Based on the project you’ve worked on for the client, invoices are raised along with the progress of the project. The total revenue raised on each project can be viewed in the form of a report in Zoho Books. Here’s how: * Navigate to the **Reports** module on the left sidebar. * Click **Projects Revenue Summary** under the **Projects and Timesheet** heading. ![Project Revenue Summary Report](/books/help/images/projects/project-revenue-report.jpg) The report contains the following fields such as **Project Name**, **Description**, **Customer Name**, **Actual Revenue**, and **Budget Amount**. You can pick different date ranges from the calendar dropdown. To customize the report: * Click the **Customize Report** option at the top bar. ![Customize Project Revenue Summary](/books/help/images/projects/project-revenue-customize.jpg) * Under the General section, the report can be filtered based on **Project Name**, **Project Status**, **Project Billing Method** and **Customer Name**. * You can also decide the columns that you wish to have in the Report. To do so, click on **Show/Hide Columns** to add or remove the columns from the **Selected Column** box. ![Show or Hide Columns Project Revenue Summary](/books/help/images/projects/projectrevenue-showhide.jpg) Once you run the report, the **Actual Revenue** will be shown. By clicking on a revenue amount of a project, you can view the drilled-down report with the list of sales transactions created for the project. ![Project Revenuew Summary Drilldown](/books/help/images/projects/projectrevenue-drilldown.jpg) Also, you can export the report to Zoho Sheet and in PDF, CSV, XLS, and XLSX formats. * * * **Next >** [Manage Projects](/us/books/help/projects/manage-projects.html) **Related** * [Overview - Projects](/) * [Basic Functions in Projects](/us/books/help/projects/basic-functions.html) * [Other Actions in Projects](/us/books/help/projects/other-actions.html) * [Projects Preferences](/us/books/help/projects/preference.html)