To create a blank project you could either click on the “+” icon on your menu…

…or on the project grid “create new project”

Project Settings

When creating a blank project you need to enter the project settings.

Automatically, it generates a project number. You can change it and you could also edit the default number groups for project. More here ➜

Also, you need to add project name and you could add a internal project description. Further, you need to pick a client. A project could be internal or for one client. Internal project cannot be invoiced. At last, add the repsonsible manager to the project. You could also add a substitute for the project manager.

You can change this data anytime in the project informations.

Project Options

On the project options you can make settings for communication and invoicing.

You can add this project to a slack or Microsoft Teams channel.

Further, you can set the project currency, default mileage rate, start and end date. Additionally, you can set the default view of your project either to board or list view

Regarding invoicing, you could set a prefix for the project’s invoices similar to client’s invoice prefix.

You could also enable to automatically round time records made with the time.

By default the unit in invoices for projects would be “hours”. However, you could also use “days” as unit. When using personal day as task unit you could set up how many hours equals one personal day. E.g. if you type it 8:00 hours equals a personal day and you’d tracked 16:00 hours to a task on the invoice you’d see 2 days.

Staff

You could add staff one by one, choosing departments or adding all staff members to a project.

Please note that staff added to the project is not automatically assigned to any task. However, if there’re task on the project you could either assign a person to all tasks or remove the person from all tasks with one click

Learn more about assign staff directly on a task ➜

That might be also helpful

Project billing methods ➜

Project budget ➜

Project custom fields ➜

A Project billing method is a way in which your project costs will be calculated and invoiced to your clients. You can choose or change a project billing method on the “Update Project” page. Note:  You will not be able to change the project billing method after the creating an invoice based on this project’s expenses (more details here).

There are fife types of billing methods:

• Hourly Task Rate: Amount of logged hours multiplied by task rates
• Hourly Staff Rate: Amount of logged hours multiplied by staff rates
• Hourly Project Rate: Amount of logged hours multiplied by project rate
• Flat Project Amount: This method is also known as a fixed price or fixed fee model, where the entire project is billed at a predetermined cost, regardless of the number of hours logged.
• Task/Staff Day Rate: You charge your client in day rates

There are several project billing types (or project billing type) available, including fixed price, time and materials, milestone billing, and retainer billing. Each project billing type offers different advantages depending on your project needs and client agreements.

Other common project billing types include:

• Milestone billing: Payments are tied to the completion of specific project milestones or phases, supporting cash flow and reducing payment risks.
• Retainer billing: Clients pay a fixed fee on a recurring schedule (such as monthly) for ongoing access to services.
• Time and materials: Clients are billed based on actual hours worked and resources used, offering flexibility for evolving project scopes.
• Cost plus billing: Common in construction, clients pay for direct costs plus a fixed percentage fee for the contractor.

A project billing scheme can also be set up, where payment schedules are tied to project milestones or phases to help manage cash flow and ensure steady revenue.

Selecting the right billing method is important to address project billing challenges such as scope creep, cash flow issues, and client disputes.

Introduction to Project Billing

Project billing is a cornerstone of professional services, ensuring that every project and service provided is accurately priced, tracked, and invoiced. An effective project billing process is vital for maintaining a healthy cash flow, securing timely payments, and fostering strong client relationships. By understanding the different types of project billing and implementing a structured billing process, service providers can avoid common pitfalls such as delayed payments or underbilling. Accurate time tracking and a clear grasp of project costs are essential for creating fair and transparent invoices. In this guide, we’ll explore the various types of project billing, outline the project billing process, and share strategies for improved project billing that support both your business’s financial health and your client relationships.

Project Billing Process

The project billing process is a series of coordinated steps that ensure your services are billed accurately and efficiently. It begins with thorough project planning and resource allocation, where project managers define the project’s scope, set a billing rate, and agree on a budget with the client. As the project progresses, it’s crucial to monitor project progress and stay within budget, making adjustments as needed. Generating invoices is the next step, where detailed records of work performed and expenses incurred are compiled into clear, professional invoices. These are then sent to clients, and the final stage involves collecting payments to maintain positive cash flow. Leveraging project billing software and time tracking software can greatly streamline these billing processes, reduce manual errors, and provide real-time insights for project managers and service providers. By following a structured billing process, you can ensure transparency, improve client satisfaction, and support the financial success of your projects.

Project Costs

Project costs encompass all expenses incurred throughout the life of a project, including labor, materials, equipment, and overheads. Accurately estimating and tracking project costs is fundamental to successful project management and fair project billing. Project managers must carefully consider the project scope, required resources, and timeline to develop realistic cost estimates. Utilizing project management tools and analyzing data from past projects can help service providers refine their cost projections and avoid unexpected overruns. By maintaining a clear understanding of project costs, service providers can set appropriate pricing, ensure profitability, and deliver value to clients while staying within budget.

Hourly Task Rate for Billable Hours

Choose this method and you manage tasks rates in the tasks list as it follows:

This method requires tracking all tasks completed, time spent, and actual time spent on each task to ensure accurate invoicing and detailed invoices. By default, it’s the task price which is taken from the Update Task pages (Sales -> Products List -> My Tasks -> “Price” field on the Update Task page). However, you can manually edit it here – just enter a new rate instead of the default one. This project’s price will be calculated as logged hours (by project members) multiplied by related tasks rates, ensuring that billable hours are properly recorded and differentiated from non-billable activities. To learn more about “How to invoice the project”, click here.

This approach is commonly used in time and materials projects, where billable hours are tracked for each task.

Hourly Staff Rate

When you choose this method, you will see your project members’ rates in the member’s list:

Accurate billing depends on tracking the actual time spent by each member of the project team, especially when they are working on multiple projects. By default, it’s a rate taken from the “Edit Staff” pages (Contacts -> Staff -> “Rate” field on the “Edit Staff member” page), but you’re free to manually edit it at any time – just enter a new staff rate instead of the default one. This project’s price will be calculated as logged hours (by project members) multiplied by related members’ rates, ensuring that the actual time and time spent on each task is properly accounted for. Read here more about “How to invoice the project”.

If you want to change the hourly rate, without changing the rate in already tracked time, follow these steps:

The hourly rates affects all hours which are not billed (invoiced). You need to create an invoice that includes all hours that shouldn’t be affected by the new rate. Whether the invoice will be sent immediately or you set a longer due date – it is your decision. The last invoiced (billed hours) is the moment for the rate change.

• All hours already charged keep the old hourly rate.
• All hours not charged will receive the new hourly rate.
• If you delete or cancel an old invoice, the hours will be released again and charged to the current (new) hourly rate.
• For accurate project billing, it is important to carefully differentiate between billable hours and non-billable hours for each staff member.

Hourly Project Rate

This method will allow you to enter one rate for each of the hours logged to this project:

A project’s total price, or project fee, will be calculated as a sum of the actual time spent (logged hours for this specific project) multiplied by the project’s rate. This approach ensures that the project fee reflects the actual time dedicated to the project, supporting accurate project accounting and enabling precise tracking of project revenue.

Flat Project Amount (Fixed Fee)

This method is a fixed price or fixed fee approach, where the client is charged a set amount for the entire project, regardless of the number of hours worked. The final project price is agreed upon upfront and covers all project deliverables.

A clear payment schedule can be established, with payments tied to predetermined project milestones or the completion of specific project deliverables. This ensures that payments are made as the project progresses and aligns with key stages of the work.

Using a fixed price or fixed fee model helps manage financial risk and supports the project’s profitability by providing predictable costs for both the client and the agency.

You can still mark hours as billable or non-billable for reporting reasons. Please note that if you create an invoice for a project with a flat amount, all tracked hours for that project will be marked as billed.

Flat Amount for Tasks

This is similar to Flat Project Amount but you set the flat amount for each task in your project. This method allows you to tie billing to specific project deliverables and tasks completed, which should be clearly documented in detailed invoices. This amount will not depend on the number of hours logged to tasks. You can still mark hours as billable or non-billable for reporting reasons. Tracking project expenses at the task level is important for accurate billing and helps ensure all direct and operating costs are included. Please note that if you create an invoice for a project with flat amount for tasks all tracked hours for that project will be marked as billed.

If you add “total project cost” as budget method, the task “flat amount” will be summed up and will create the total budget automatically:

Staff Day Rate

The “staff day rate” interacts as a full day rate or half day rate. The billing is based on the daily rate of the staff. For streamlined handling of staff absences, find more infos here.

Task Day Rate

This billing method interacts as a full day rate or half day rate. The billing is based on the daily rate of a daily Task summary . Find more infos here.

Creating Invoices

Creating invoices is a pivotal part of the project billing process, directly impacting your cash flow and client relationships. Each invoice should clearly detail the work completed, expenses incurred, and agreed-upon payment terms, leaving no room for confusion. Using zistemo.com as a billing software to automate the creation and delivery of invoices can help service providers minimize errors, save time, and ensure consistency. Detailed and accurate invoices not only facilitate timely payments but also provide a transparent record of project progress and value delivered. Regular invoicing allows you to monitor the financial health of your projects, address any discrepancies early, and make informed adjustments to your billing process as needed.

Scope Creep

Scope creep is a common challenge in project management, occurring when a project’s scope gradually expands beyond the original agreement—often leading to increased costs, delays, and reduced profitability. This can happen when clients request additional work or changes without adjusting the budget or timeline. To prevent scope creep, it’s essential to define the project scope clearly at the outset and establish firm payment terms. Effective project billing and accurate time tracking help service providers identify when work is exceeding the agreed scope. Implementing a change management process, where all changes are documented and approved by the client, ensures that any adjustments to the project are properly accounted for. By maintaining open communication and using project billing software to track changes, service providers can control scope creep, protect project profitability, and deliver successful outcomes for both parties.

1. Create a project from an estimate

You can create a project based on your estimate data.

To do this go to, estimate grid ➝ choose ‘Convert to Project’ on the row end menu ➝ enter the project name and click ‘Create Project’.
Note: If your estimate has a title, then the ‘Project Name’ field will have this value.

The project will include all tasks from the estimate.
Also, the tasks hours will be copied to the project as tasks budget hours (read more about project budget here).

2. View or edit a project

To view simple project reports and general project data go to, project grid (‘Time & Projects’ ➝ Projects) and click on a project name.

By clicking ‘Edit Project’ you can open and update the project page and change the project data.

3. What happens when I archive/delete a project?

You can archive/delete a project by marking the checkboxes of projects on the grid and clicking ‘Archive’ or ‘Delete’.

Staff members will not be able to log hours to archived or deleted projects.
The data and amount of archived projects will be included in your reports. Data from deleted projects will not be included in your reports.

zistemo makes your business data more visually-friendly. That’s why, if you go to ‘Time & Projects’ -> ‘Projects’, you’ll notice the ‘Projects’ table includes general information about existing projects that are very accessible and easy to understand.

– The first column – ‘Project Name’ – shows project names, assigned clients and project number.
– The columns ‘Spent’ and ‘Budget’ display a progress line with budget amount and total spent costs or hours. Please Note: “Total spent amount on project grid don’t have any relation to invoices. Because in invoice you can change quantity, price, add taxes, add some tasks manually to the invoice. Summary will be equals only if you will never change task rate in project, and will never add changes to the invoices that you generated from this project.”
– ‘Remaining Budget’ shows the difference between budget and spent amount.
– ‘Costs’ column includes information about the Expenses Amount (assigned to this project), Staff Costs (staff members’ rates multiplied by spent hours) and Total Amount.
More details on the ‘Costs’ column:
– Expenses – refers to all expenses assigned to this project. You can assign an expense to a project on the ‘Expense Edit’ page:

–  Staff Cost – money spent on working hours (in other words – salary) – working hours multiplied by staff cost.
Each of your staff members has their costs, which you can set on the ‘Edit Staff’ page:

Or if you import your timesheets, then the staff cost will be taken from your imported CSV file (learn more from here). Also, you can review your staff cost information in Cost Report.
– Total Cost – The sum of ‘Expenses’ and ‘Staff Cost’.

Print list of projects

On the ‘Projects grid’ page the ‘Print’ button will help you print your list of projects.

This list will also include all other information available on the Projects table, such as spent hours, budget, remaining budget, costs.

In case you are using filters, then this list will only include the projects that meet your filter criteria.

Search Projects

If you want to find specific projects, you can filter the projects list by using the ‘Search’ option:

The search is saved as a cookie, so the system remembers your last search.

– Fill the ‘Project Name’ field to see all projects which include the words you’re looking for in their name
– ‘Client’ – enter project’s client name
– ‘Application’ – select the application your want to search in
– Billing method – choose one of project billing methods
– Budget method – choose one of project budget methods
– Manager – Select a project manager
– Project number – you can find a project with a specific number
– Assigned to – choose one or several team members to see all the projects assigned to them.
Note: if you select a team, then zistemo will also display all projects assigned to at least one of this team’s members.

Projects can have any of the following statuses:
1. Not started – if you just create it and then do nothing with it.

2. In progress – if you or your staff members are working on this project (for instance they log hours for it).

3. Overdue – in case you have set an ‘End Date‘ for your project, when this day comes and the project is not yet ‘invoiced’, the Project status will be ‘Overdue’.

4. Invoiced – A project is ‘Invoiced‘ if all hours logged to it are billed (included in an invoice).

Assign member on the Staff page

Please note that this feature is only available up to 50 projects. If you’ve more than 50 projects you can’t assign staff to projects on the staff page.

On the ‘Edit staff’ page you can use the ‘Assigned projects’ tab to assign projects (or un-assign) to this specific team member.

Just choose one and click on the ‘Move’ button:

Or even add all:

If the staff member has already logged hours on some project, you will not be able to move that project to the ‘Unassigned’ column (such projects are gray on the list), as you can see in the screenshot below:

When you save the changes you made, this staff member will appear on the Project page as a project member and he will be able to log hours onto this project.

Assign member on the Project page

You can also assign/un-assign members on the ‘Edit Project’ page (Time&Projects -> Projects -> choose a project and click ‘Edit project’):

In the ‘Staff’ block, pick members from the ‘Select a team member’ dropdown.
Note: you can un-assign someone by clicking the cross icon at the end of the line, but if the member has already logged hours to this project – you will not be able to un-assign him/her.

Notify staff member if assigned to project

You can set up that a user will receive a notification when he/she was assigned to a project. First, you can go to the preferences/defaults and activate “user assigned to project”. You can select if your staff should receive the notification via Email, Slack or Bell Notification. These are the default setting (fallback) wich can me overwritten for each staff member individually.

Second, you can go to the staff members page and manage these notifications individually on the staff details “Assigned projects” tab. You can switch it on/off or select other/multiple channels.

Please note that the setting on the staff member page will overwrite the preferences.

NOTE: If you create a team member, it is by default disabled. So your team member can’t see any financial data.

To enable or disable this feature, go to ‘Contacts’ -> ‘Staff’ -> ‘Show financial data on projects’:

If you enable the option, your team member will see following data on the project dashboard:

If you disable, the team member will not see any financial data on the project dashboard. The dashboard is only provided with team members data for the project.

On project overview page. If you enable the option, your team member will see following data on the project dashboard:

If you disable, the team member will not see any financial data on the project dashboard. The dashboard is only provided with team members data for the project.

If active, you can create now for projects that are added to a recurring invoice manual invoices. In the following two screenshots you will see the difference whether you enable this feature or not.

If not active, you can only click “show recurring invoice” – it is not possible to create a manual invoice for that projects:

If active, you can generate an invoice as if there isn’t any recurring invoice:

You need to activate “Enable project managers to approve all of their project timesheets” on the Preferences/Approve Timesheets. Please make sure that approve timesheets is active.

Then, the project manager can see all the approvals of his projects on the approval overview…

…and on the weekly timeheet

Note that project managers now can also unapprove timesheets. If you don’t want them to do, go to Settings/Preferences/Approve Timesheet and active “Only admins and account owners can unapprove weeks”. If active, only Admins and Account Owner can unapprove timesheets/weeks.

Overview

Every project manager only sees timesheets that where tracked on a project where he/she is manager of. Admins still see all timesheets of the whole company. In the following figure you see what the single project managers are see and what the admin sees:

For a deeper understanding, you can see in the following flow chart who is able to do which actions within the approval process:

Let’s say you create a project escalation rule with a weekly sequence and day is Monday.

So, as long as the project budget >= 90%, is not closed and the escalation rules is active, the project manager will receive every Monday at 9:00 AM the escalation message. The escalation message won’t be sent if the project is closed or the escalation notification is no longer active. The first escalation message will be sent right after the escalation rule is met, e.g. if you reach 90% of the budget on Tuesday at 16:00 PM the first message will be sent on that time, all following message will be sent according to the escalation rules.

Add escalation rules on edit mode

Please make sure that the project have a budget. On the Advanced Details you can see the tab “Escalation Rules”. Click on it, and “enable notifications”. Then you can add a notification.

You can select who should receive the notification. You can either select user roles or dedicated users. You only can select one role or one user per notification. If you want more than one user or role to receive a notification you need to add new notification for each user/role. You can also select via which channel the user/role will receive the message. You can select Email, Slack or Bell Notification. You can select more than one channel per notification. If you want to use slack, please make sure that the user is connected to Slack Direct Messages.

Next, enter a value in % when the escalation message should be sent. This is the rule entry value. The Notification will be sent as soon as the project is reached your entered amount:

Last but not least,  select the sequence of the notification – how often it will be sent. You can select daily, weekly, every 2 weeks or monthly. If you select e.g. daily sequence you will receive every day a message as soon as the budget reached the rules entry value. You can also enter the time when the message should be sent.

The messages won’t be sent if the project is closed or if you disable escalation rules for a project.

Add escalation rules on project overview

You also can edit/add escalation messages when you are in the project settings. Here you can make the same settings as mentioned previously.