Create ongoing projects

Learn how to create ongoing projects in Kleer

What do you need to fill in when you create an ongoing project?

If you report hours on projects, ongoing projects are the most common format to use. Read more below about how to register such a project in Kleer.

Three routes to creating a project

As we have covered in earlier sections, a project can be created automatically when a new customer is added to the customer register. In that case you simply click into the project to start filling in the settings. Alternatively, it is created actively by you at the company. You can of course set up several projects linked to the same customer card.

Change an existing project

If a new project has been created together with a new customer being added, you simply go into the project and fill in the settings below.

Press the “New project” button

Create an entirely new project by pressing the “New project” button and filling in the settings below.

Create a copy of another project

If you already have a project with the same conditions as one you now wish to create, you can simply copy the project and its settings by ticking the box in front of the project name and pressing the “Copy” button.

What do the settings in the projects mean?

1. General

Remember that you can also create preliminary projects, for example if you are planning one but are unsure whether it will go ahead.

Customer

Here you fill in the customer the project belongs to. The invoicing details will then appear under the “Invoice settings” tab, where they can be changed or added to.

Fixed price project

A Kleer consultant needs to help you activate fixed price if that applies to you. Unsure how it works? Read Fixed price or ongoing billing? and decide from there.

Project name

Enter a name for the project. This will be visible when you report time, in the project follow-up and in the accounts.

Number

A project number is not mandatory, but the option is there if you need it for your follow-up. This is only visible in connection with time reporting and not on the customer invoices. Would you like the numbers to be generated automatically? Contact your Kleer consultant to activate the function.

A tick box is then added under the General tab when a new project is created. If it is ticked, the number field is locked and filled in with an automatically generated figure. Your Kleer consultant can adjust which number the counter should start from.

You also have the option of unticking the box if there is a project that should not be included in the automatic sequence of project numbers.

If you do not want an automatic counter for project numbers, you enter the desired project number yourself.

Internal notes

Intended only for the project administrator or project manager, to gather information about the project in one place.

Currency

The currency governs the pricing throughout the project. Costs that are passed on for invoicing are converted to the currency specified on the project when invoicing takes place.

If the project currency is different from the company’s accounting currency (for example USD when the accounting currency is SEK), the default prices set on activities, products or the user’s time reporting settings are not fetched into the project. The price must then be set directly on the project.

2. Invoice settings

Opening invoiced amounts

If you have recently started in Kleer, you can simply add opening values for income in this part of the project. Enter the sum excluding VAT in one field and the VAT in the column next to it.

Settings

Details about the customer under invoice settings are taken from the customer card and marked in blue; these details can be adjusted.

Reference number and standard note are fields that are shown on all invoices created from time reporting.

You can attach an invoice specification in both Swedish and English, which is automatically attached as an appendix when invoicing. The template for the specification will then pick up the time reported in the project and can be sorted by date, person and activity.

You can also decide how the information from the time report is shown on the invoice by choosing what should appear first and what should be included, for example user name, product and activity.

3. Activities

What do you set under the Activities tab? Read more below!

Report against all activities

Here you can either tick that the members of the project should be able to report against all activities. Whether the box is ticked or not from the start is set in your basic settings; contact your Kleer consultant if you would like to adjust the default suggestion.

Individual activities for the project?

If you instead want to control which activities are selectable when project members report time, the tick box under All should be unticked. You then choose “Add activity” to add an existing one, or “Create new activity” if that is needed.

If an activity in the project has been removed (made inactive), you can now create a new activity with the same name.

How is the price governed in the project?

The activity’s price hierarchy

The basic price setting belongs to the activity. If the invoiceable activity has a price and an employee reports on it, that is enough to create income and an invoiceable basis for the customer.
Do you want to use the same activities for different projects but with differing prices? In that case you add the activity to the project and choose a different price. That price is then the one that applies.

The employee’s price hierarchy

The employee’s price will always override the activity’s price, whether it is project-specific or not.

First and foremost, there is a price option in the user’s time reporting settings. That governs income per activity specifically for the user. This setting will take precedence over the activity’s general and project-specific settings.
On the project, the user’s price can be set per activity if it needs to be adapted to the project. This overrides all other pricing. In project v2 you can select several activities at once and set the price on them in one go, instead of one activity at a time.

What should be filled in if activities are added specifically to the project?

The name of the activity, the description, currency and margin will be shown for the activity, and the four items below can then be filled in specifically for the project

Text on the invoice

If you would like a different text from the activity’s name on the invoice when you do invoice, you can write it here.

Customer invoice price/hour

If the price should differ from the basic settings for the activity, it is entered here.

Self-billing price/hour

If you have our subcontractor module enabled, you enter the price to appear on the self-billing invoice here.

Category tagging of salary costs

Choose whether salary costs for hourly paid staff should automatically be category tagged with the project or not. The choice affects the result follow-up for the project.

The default setting is that salary costs are category tagged in cases where an internal cost is missing in the time reporting settings.

4. Project manager

Here you can give one or more users authorisation and rights to a specific project as project manager. This means they can view, change and approve time for project members as well as invoice the hours in their project.

You also choose whether the project manager should be able to see the underlying data behind the figures in the income statement or not. You can also control whether they should see the project members’ internal costs.

5. Project members

Tick All if all users who have access to time reporting in the company should be able to report time on the project. The default value in the tick box is taken from the company’s basic settings. Contact your Kleer consultant if you want to change the default value.

Project members and pricing

If you instead want to control pricing per project member, the tick box under All should be unticked.

The pricing suggested for the project member is taken from the user’s time reporting settings, see the section on time reporting settings. The price can be changed for each project member and activity directly in the project.

Income distribution

Income distribution is available as an option in Kleer and is used when you want to distribute income between a user and the company. Settings for income distribution are made in the user’s time reporting settings but can be changed on the project, see the section on time reporting settings.

On the Project members tab you choose, per member, whether the income distribution should follow Standard (the user’s time reporting setting) or Override in this project with its own percentage.

6. Budget

A project manager can now see actuals against budget in the Income statement in the left-hand column in Kleer.

On the one hand, we have developed the function so that anyone can see an income statement for a category if it is assigned to the user. It is now also possible for a user who has access to an income statement for a category to compare against budget, if one has been set up in Kleer’s budget function. This function is separate from the project module itself.

There are, however, two variants of simpler budgets that can make follow-up within the projects themselves easier; these cannot be produced in the income statement outside the project.

Simple income budget

With a simple budget, you enter estimated hours and income for the project. This budget is then shown in the overview in the project view but cannot be compared against in the Results tab or in the income statement.

Detailed income budget

Here further information about budgeted hours, income and costs can be filled in. These income and cost figures can then be compared against the actuals in the Results tab, but not in the income statement in Kleer.

7. Continuous overview

Choose a date range for the overview. By default, everything from the start of the project up to today’s date is shown.

Reported time

Here a summary of the reported time is shown, sorted by activity, project member, hours including what has been reported, invoiced and so on, as well as the amount.

Onward invoicing

By default, costs to be invoiced onward are shown here. You can also see what has already been invoiced.

Customer invoices

Here you see an overview of all customer invoices sent for this particular project.

8. Results

The Results tab in the project shows an income statement belonging to the project. This is possible thanks to the category for the project that is generated automatically. In this way all income and costs in the company can be tagged with the project if needed. This can be supplier invoices, customer invoices both from time reporting and otherwise, receipts and more. The report can be exported to PDF or Excel.

In addition to choosing a date range, you can also sort the project’s income statement using the following functions:

Compare

Compare month by month, for example, to see the result per month.

Include internal cost

Choose to include or exclude internal cost by selecting in the drop-down list. Please note: internal cost is posted to the project based on the price setup in the time reporting settings and at the point when the time report is approved.

Show transactions

Choose to show all individual transactions relating to the project by ticking Show transactions. All transactions on the accounts in the income statement are then shown in a list below the report.

Can the project settings be edited?

The customer that the project is linked to can be adjusted until time has been approved on the project. The remaining settings can always be adjusted over time.

Register an internal, non-invoiceable project

It is common for companies to also want control over their internal time. To get help keeping track of this, you set up what is known as an “internal project” in Kleer.

You set the project up as above but skip the customer field and simply enter a project name. For example “internal time”.

The Invoice settings tab will then be switched off, since no time is to be invoiced. The other settings work in exactly the same way as when you set up an invoiceable project. The difference is that you only use activities that are not invoiceable.