Money

Money at a glance

Where proposals, invoices, change orders, price requests and vendor bills live.

Where The Finance menu, and a project's Propose, Order and Invoice tabs

Money follows the job. The client accepts a priced proposal before anything is ordered; you buy from vendors on purchase orders; you bill the client on invoices and record what they pay; and anything that changes after the client agreed goes on a change order.

• Proposals — Finance → Proposals, or a project's Propose tab. See Proposals.
• Invoices — Finance → Invoices, or a project's Invoice tab. See Invoices and Payments and pay online.
• Change orders — Finance → Change orders, or a project's Propose → Change orders tab. See Change orders.
• Price requests (RFQs) — Finance → Price requests (RFQs). See Price requests (RFQs).
• Purchase orders — Finance → Purchase orders, or a project's Order tab. See Purchase orders.
• Vendor bills — Finance → Vendor bills. See Vendor bills.

Quotes, change orders and pick lists have their own pages under Finance. A proposal, purchase order or invoice opened from a project keeps the project's header and tabs at the top with its phase lit; the Finance menu's firm-wide lists reach the same pages.

Who can see and raise these is set per role by an administrator — see Who sees money. When a job is finished, settle its invoices before archiving it — see Archiving a project.

Who sees money

Four grants decide who sees prices, cost and the firm's figures; one more lets them change invoices.

Where Firm → People and roles → Roles

Four grants under Firm → People and roles → Roles decide it, and the plain-words reading under the grid changes as you change it.

Without See cost, markup and margin a person sees prices and invoices but not the firm's take — except that whoever may raise orders sees what each item costs from its vendor, on its orders and vendor bills and their file, since an order is written at cost.

Changing money

One grant changes money rather than showing it: Record payments and change invoices (accountants and up) — an invoice's status, payments and pay links, vendor bills, and sending records to QuickBooks or Xero. Changing what an invoice bills (its lines, tax rate and freight) also needs Raise POs, invoices, quotes and RFQs. Without it a person may still raise invoices and orders but not take payments on them.

On an invoice, cost, markup and margin show only to those who may see them; everyone else sees the prices the client sees.

The accountant

The Accountant keeps the books: payments, vendor bills and credits, aging, tax, Month-end and the exports, and the expense queue. By default an accountant does not edit specifications, prices, projects or boards, ask for approvals, raise orders or invoices, or update expediting; an administrator can give any of it back on the grid. Settings shows an accountant the firm's tax, currency and invoice layout, read only.

Three things an accountant does as staff, by the firm's choice: reads a project's private notes and internal reviews like any colleague; can show a project file to the client (the eye on a file, as anyone who uploads files can); and sets where expense reports are emailed, which may be an outside bookkeeper's address.

Proposals

The priced, illustrated document the client accepts before anything is ordered.

Watch the video · 1:17Proposals and invoices

Where Finance → Proposals, or a project's Propose tab

Finance → Proposals lists them all, filtered by client or bill-to, project and year as well as by status (so is Finance → Invoices): last year's proposal to the same client is two choices away. The project's Propose tab lists every proposal on the job.

Finance → Proposals: every proposal, filtered by client, project, year and status.

Making one

• A discount is a line written with a minus, like −250, and may not take the proposal below nothing. An invoice takes the same line.
• The standard terms promise no deposit or price hold you have not set.
• A draft never sent can be removed with Delete draft.

A proposal is drafted from checked items in the same way as an order or invoice (see Raising from items), and its prices can be adjusted on the draft before it is sent.

A proposal on the example hotel: pictures, prices, the deposit and the terms.

What the client does

They get a link that opens without signing in, with pictures and prices. They Sign and accept by typing their name, or decline with a note; the name, date and time are recorded. The client's page and PDF mark the lines that carry no tax and say what the tax is on.

On acceptance every item shows as client-approved on the Approvals tab, and a deposit invoice is drafted for you to review and send. The invoices raised later keep the accepted proposal's tax choices line by line. You are alerted either way.

Any approval request still open on the proposal's items closes as Approved with the proposal, and any internal review still open closes as Closed: the client accepted proposal …, which never says the colleague approved it. A note on either is kept as a comment on the item, and each person who sent or was asked for one gets a single alert listing them. Requests and reviews on items not on the proposal stay open.

Each proposal has a PDF and a Client view.

See also Deposits and retainers · Invoices · Change orders

Raising from items

Orders, invoices and proposals are built from checked items, and show what is already done.

Watch the video · 1:17Proposals and invoices

Check the items (an order goes to one vendor). Each line copies the specification as it reads at that moment, so later edits to the specification never rewrite what was ordered or billed.

• Where an item has no sell price, it is worked out as cost × markup.
• An item that would go to the client at cost (a cost and no markup rule) is flagged at cost, so the firm's cost is not billed by accident.
• Raise purchase order and Raise invoice, on the project's Order and Invoice tabs, pick specifications and build the document.

What is already done shows on the picker

Raise purchase order, Raise invoice and Raise proposal show each item's standing — 6 on PO4, 2 to order, invoiced on INV1 (6), accepted on PR1 — and the client's word on it.

• An order carries only the part not yet ordered.
• An invoice bills only what is not yet billed, asking before billing an item again in full.
• A proposal asks before offering the client items they have already accepted.
• An item the client has not agreed to is marked on the order picker, with a warning if you pick it. The invoice picker warns the same way for an item the client sent back or turned down.

See also Purchase orders · Invoices · Proposals

Invoices

Raising, correcting, sending and voiding invoices.

Watch the video · 1:17Proposals and invoices

Where Finance → Invoices, or a project's Invoice tab

Raising one

Raise invoice on the project's Invoice tab picks specifications and builds the invoice (see Raising from items).

• An item the client accepted on a proposal is invoiced at the price and quantity they signed; a line discounted on the proposal stays discounted.
• The invoice takes the project's whole Bill to, address included.
• Blank invoice, beside it on the Invoice tab, opens a draft with no lines for the bill the specifications cannot derive — a design fee, a reimbursable, a correction.

Raise invoice: check what to bill; each item shows what is already invoiced.

Changing the lines

On any draft or sent invoice with nothing received, every line's quantity and price can be changed, a line written by hand can be reworded, any line taken off, and Add a line writes one. A new line is taxed to start with, as a proposal line is; uncheck Taxed for a fee or a service that is not taxed. The tax is reworked each time.

Once a payment is on it the lines stand, and a credit or a new invoice carries the change. A deposit applied is not a payment for this, so an invoice holding only a deposit can still be corrected.

Each line's total is rounded to the cent before the invoice adds them up, so the lines always foot to the total.

Revised invoices and questions

An invoice changed after it was sent — a line added, changed or taken off, the tax or the freight — is marked Revised, with its revision number on the client's PDF, and the page offers Send the revised invoice….

A client can Question this invoice from their home page. It reaches whoever raised it and the project's managers, and stays on its history.

A credit is recorded with no payment method. The client's PDF lists a deposit applied, a credit and money paid on lines of their own.

An invoice: its lines, Bill to, Due, payments and the actions to send it.

Bill to and sending

An invoice's Bill to is edited on its page (Save Bill to). It holds the address the invoice email goes to when the client has no portal sign-in.

Marking a draft Sent shows the email first — to whom, the subject, the words, the PDF — with three plain choices:

• Mark sent and email it
• Mark sent (I sent it myself)
• Cancel

With nobody to send it to, it asks for an address, which is kept in Bill to. The page says who it was emailed to only when the email went, and says so when outgoing email is paused and it is held. Two people marking it sent at once send it once.

Due dates

Every invoice gets a due date from its terms, else the firm's terms under Settings → Money → Invoice layout (Net 30, Payment within 14 days, Due on receipt; thirty days when they say nothing), counted from the invoice date. A deposit or retainer is due on receipt.

Change it in the Due box on the invoice. An older invoice with none takes one when it is marked sent; Aging names any still without one, since they can never show as overdue.

Lists a page at a time

Invoices and Purchase orders come a page at a time when they are long, newest first. The foot says where you are and how many there are (Page 2 of 9 · 412 invoices), with Newest, Newer, Older and Oldest. The filters stay set as you move through the pages, and the heading counts the whole list, not the page. A project's own Order and Invoice tabs page the same way.

Voiding

Void asks why, and keeps the reason on the invoice's history. A void invoice stays void; its hours and expenses are free to bill again.

See also Payments and pay online · Tax · Markup and cost

Payments and pay online

Recording payments, credits and refunds, and letting the client pay by card.

On an invoice, the Payments card lists every payment, credit and refund and records new ones (amount, date, method, reference), and says so if a removal is refused.

• The same payment twice (same amount, day and reference) is asked about before it is recorded.
• Recording more than is owed asks first: the excess stays on the invoice as the client's credit on account, shown as such on the statement, on Budget and margin and in the Overview's money line.
• A refund gives back no more than was received on the invoice. Refunding an overpayment takes back the part over first, so the sales tax and commission reports on a cash basis still count the invoice as paid.
• Stripe, QuickBooks and Xero payments record themselves, each once.

Pay online

An invoice gets its own Pay online address when it is marked sent (or with Make a pay-online link on its page). It goes on the client's PDF, in the invoice email and on the client's home page.

Each click opens the payment page for the balance due at that moment — after a part payment it asks for what is left, and a Stripe page never goes stale — until the invoice is paid, when the link is taken off.

An accepted proposal shows a Pay the deposit button to the client once the deposit invoice has been sent.

See also Deposits and retainers · Statement

Deposits and retainers

Asking for money up front, holding it, and applying it to an invoice.

• A proposal's deposit invoice is drafted on acceptance, addressed to the person the proposal was sent to, for you to review and send.
• Request a retainer… on the project's Invoice tab drafts an invoice for a stated amount, marked retainer or deposit.
• A deposit applied to a draft invoice leaves it a draft, to be sent as any other.

A project's Invoice tab, with Request a retainer… and Blank invoice beside Raise invoice.

Money held

A paid deposit or retainer invoice is money held on the project. Apply deposit on a standard invoice moves it across, and the statement shows both sides.

Budget and margin (on the Invoice tab) shows client deposits asked (with their tax) and received.

Deposits under VAT or GST

Under VAT or GST — a firm or a project whose currency is not US dollars, or whose tax is named VAT, GST, HST, IVA, TVA and the like — a deposit is a tax point:

• A retainer adds the tax to the amount you type; the form says so before it is raised.
• A proposal's deposit is split into what it is on and the tax it carries.
• The Sales tax report counts that tax with the deposit and not again on the invoice it is applied to.

US sales tax waits for the sale.

Statement

The client's account on a project, with a running balance.

Where A project → Invoice → Statement (and the client's own home page)

The account chronologically with running balance and deposits held, the open invoices, any credit on account, and the balance due — as a page and a PDF on the invoice letterhead.

Send statement emails the client the balance and the link.

A project's statement: every invoice and payment with a running balance.

Change orders

What changes after an order is agreed, accepted by the client and billed once.

Where Finance → Change orders, or a project's Propose → Change orders tab

Propose → Change orders lists the project's own change orders, with + New change order for this project; the firm-wide list is Finance → Change orders.

Approve applies every line to its item in one go (quantity and price, noted in the item's history). An approved change cannot be moved back.

A change order the client sees says when tax is on top of what it adds.

A change order: what it changes, line by line, and what it comes to.

Billing a change

Raise invoice then offers the approved change orders under Approved change orders. The change is billed once, as the change order's own line, while the item's own line bills only what it was before the change — whichever is invoiced first.

Markup and cost

Where cost comes from, the markup rules, and re-pricing a project.

A project's own cost

An item's cost comes from its library product, and a project can have its own: a volume discount, a special price the vendor gave for this job. Set it as Unit cost, this project when editing the item. The library keeps its cost, and the item says whose cost it is.

Only people who may see cost and margin see or set it, and the price to the client does not move with it.

Markup rules

Settings → Money → Markup rules sets cost-plus percentages by category for the firm (and one for everything else). A project overrides them under Invoice → Budget and margin → Markup rules.

• A new specification with a known cost is priced by the rule for its category.
• A vendor's quote applied from an RFQ re-prices the item by its markup.
• Price the unpriced specifications / Re-price every specification on the project's Budget and margin page apply the rules across the project, logged on each item.

On a job copied from last year's, items whose cost is behind the library's say so ("the library has $1,229.60", with Take it), and Take the library's current cost on N items does them all — then re-price.

Typed prices and the library

On a library product, changing the cost or markup moves a sell price that followed the markup. A sell price typed by hand stays, and the product and the Budget and margin lines say the markup it really carries (marked *).

Markup on an invoice

A specification takes cost × the rule in force when it is made, and an invoice line takes the specification's cost, markup and price — so the markup on an invoice is the rule that applied when the item was specified. The invoice's working view says so under its lines, with a link to the project's Budget and margin; hover a price to see where it came from.

While an invoice is open, each specification line's Markup % can be changed (the price follows). Apply the project's current markup reprices every specification line from the rules as they stand now — the invoice only. The specification keeps its own price; changes to the item itself are made on the specification.

See also Budget and margin · Price requests (RFQs)

Tax

Rates per project, per line and by ship-to.

Per project, and per line

• A project's own rate under Edit project wins over everything: a Las Vegas job and a California job can each carry theirs.
• On an invoice or proposal each line has a taxable checkbox.
• Hours invoiced from time sheets start untaxed, since labor is untaxed in California and taxed elsewhere.

By ship-to

Settings → Money → Tax and currency holds the default rate and, under Rates by ship-to, rates by region and postcode prefix (a county or city rate beats the state's).

Give a project a Ship to address with its region and postcode under Edit project, and invoices, retainers and proposals raised on it take that rate unless the project has a rate of its own. Project details shows which rate applies and why.

See also Sales tax report · Deposits and retainers

Budget and margin

A project's budget against purchased, invoiced and collected.

Where A project → Invoice → Budget and margin

Budget and margin on a project (Invoice → Budget and margin) shows the budget against:

• purchased (at cost);
• invoiced — shown with tax, the before-tax figure beside it;
• collected — cash in: payments and deposits received, refunds out, as the statement and Profitability count it;
• what is outstanding, invoice by invoice, as the statement counts it (with any credit on account named apart);
• estimated versus actual by category.

It also shows client deposits asked (with their tax) and received, vendor bills, what is owed, and the actual margin (invoiced less vendor bills). The figures of Profitability sit here too, under Margin after time and expenses, beside the budget-against-actual report by area.

Budget and margin on the example hotel: budget against purchased, invoiced and collected.

See also Add-on charges and budget against actual · Markup and cost · Profitability

Add-on charges and budget against actual

Freight, crating, installation and the rest, on each item and each order.

Budget add-on charges — freight, packing / crating, installation, sales tax, contingency, customs / duty, other — sit on each item's Budget and actual card (in the Budget tab of the item's page; Budget vs Actual on the tabbed layout's Pricing tab — Budget with Pricing off — and under the project-first form). Those who see project money see them; those who also edit specifications change them.

Each is a percent of the goods or an amount, with the usual purchasing checkboxes:

• taxable — the sales tax charge reaches it;
• in deposit — counted in what a deposit is asked on, shown as the deposit base;
• marked up — sold at the item's markup. Not offered with Pricing off, where the item carries its budget alone.

The card sets the budget — the estimated cost where the firm sells and you see cost, else the budget price — beside the actual: what its orders cost (not drafts or canceled ones), with its share of each order's charges (an order's freight shared by each line's goods), its tax and what is left.

An order's own charges

An order's own Charges (the order's page, beside its bills) are the vendor's freight, packing, customs and the rest, with the same checkboxes. They print on the order's PDF and the vendor's copy, go into the order's total, and show on the project-first layout's P.O. Detail → PO Costs/Deposit with the total for the deposit.

The P.O. Items List sets each line's budget beside its cost of goods with the variance, and Reports → Budget against actual gains Budget charges and PO charges.

Fund requests, the approval chain and the accounting exports

For a firm buying as the client's purchasing agent.

For a firm buying as the client's purchasing agent (the project-first purchasing screens' work, in every style).

Fund requests

Where A project's Order menu → Fund requests, beside its purchase orders

A fund request asks the client for the money for orders before they are paid.

A draft can be removed; one sent stays as the record. The client's project tabs show Fund requests once one is sent. The project-first layout's P.O. Detail → Fund Requests lists those that name the order.

A project's fund requests: made from issued orders, sent, received and applied.

The approval chain

An order's page has Approval chain: the dates the purchasing agent, the designer and the client approved it, it was sent to the client, and the vendor accepted it, with the next step marked. These are the columns of a purchasing program's P.O. List, which the project-first layout's P.O. List shows, with each order's Flag.

Yardi and P3 exports

A project's purchase orders page offers Yardi purchase orders (all, or flagged only) and P3 accounts payable (from its vendor bills) as CSV files in their usual layouts. The project-first layout's P.O. List offers them for the Active Project.

The codes they carry are set once under Settings → Accounting → Codes for the Yardi and P3 exports: per vendor (Account number on its card) and per project (Property code under Areas and rooms).

Some columns are inferred from existing files rather than from Yardi's or P3's own specifications; ask support for the column list if the client's accountant needs it.

QuickBooks and Xero

Sending invoices, orders and bills to your books, and payments coming back.

Accounting, both ways

With QuickBooks or Xero connected under Settings → Money → Accounting, invoices, purchase orders and vendor bills go across with one button on their pages. Payments recorded there against sent invoices come back onto the invoice and the statement every night, or at once with Pull payments now.

CSV for QuickBooks

Every sent invoice has CSV for QuickBooks in QuickBooks Online's import layout:

• Each line under the item for what it bills: FF&E, Design fees, Design time, Reimbursable expenses, Deposits, Freight. A line written by hand for delivery or shipping goes under Freight, and a change order's line under its item.
• The tax on a line named as the job names it (GST on a Canadian job). The invoice PDF says what it was charged on, VAT (20% of £3,450.00), and marks lines not taxed.
• The terms by QuickBooks' own names (Net 30, Due on receipt).
• A credit given on the invoice comes out as a negative Credits given line, with its share of tax off the tax line, so the books take it off the sale.
• A deposit applied to an invoice comes back off it as a negative Deposits line, with the deposit's share of tax taken off the tax line, so the deposit invoice and the invoice it was applied to are not both booked in full.

A draft or void invoice has none: it is not a sale. Month-end takes every invoice of a period in one file. The files open in Excel with accents intact.

The vendor bills recorded on an order come out as Bills CSV for QuickBooks in the bill import layout, and credits apart as vendor credits; Vendor bills exports them all at once.

Send to QuickBooks

If the portal is connected under Settings → Money → Accounting, Send to QuickBooks creates the invoice (with its customer and those service items) or the purchase order (with its vendor) in the company file and remembers its number.

A vendor bill sent this way is split as in the file: the goods net of the vendor's tax on the purchases account, and the tax on its own line to VAT reclaimable (or your tax's name), which it makes if the company file has none.

Reports and printouts

Every printout and export of a project, on one page.

Watch the video · 1:37Reports and printouts

Where Specify → Actions → Reports and printouts…, and the link at the head of Reports

Every printout and export of a project is on its Reports and printouts page: every report the project-first layout and its purchasing screens offer, drawn on the firm's letterhead (the project's letterhead, or the one a link asks for), in every workspace style.

The page groups them as your style's menus do:

• In the project-first layout, under Spec Reports, Project Summary, Reference, Finish Schedule and Correspondence (also listed under Spec Reports above the list, and the Main Menu's Reports & Printouts tile), with the purchasing menus P.O. Reports, Invoice / PO Costs, Tracking, Fund / Payment Requests and Export PO / Invoice (the Main Menu's P.O. Reports).
• In the tabbed layout, under Reports and Accounting reports (linked from the head of every Accounting screen).
• In PortSpace's, under specifications and under budget, purchasing and accounting.

Each has its options (flagged only, an area heading, an area, a first page number, a title…) and its PDF, Excel or CSV.

You see only what your seat allows: anything with money for those who see project money, cost and markup only for those who see margins (and never with Pricing off), the purchasing ones with Procurement on. Clients and contractors get their printouts where they always did.

Reports and printouts on the example hotel, grouped as your style's menus are.

The project reports

On every project (Specify → Actions → Schedules…), and under Finance → More reports. That page is two choices and a button: which project (type to find it, or one of yours from the chips) and which report (the seven, each with a line on what it holds), then Open the report on the page or Download Excel.

• the FF&E schedule, by area or by trade;
• the room schedule — what goes into each room type, per room and extended, from the takeoff;
• the finish schedule by area, and the finish legend by material (carpet, wallcovering, paint, stone, tile, wood, glass, fabric and the other interior finishes, each once with everywhere it is used);
• budget against actual by area — estimated cost and sell, on purchase orders, invoiced, still to invoice;
• the lead-time schedule of everything on order by delivery week, with late items flagged.

Each is drawn on the page and downloads as Excel in the same layout; prices show only to those who may see them.

Finance → More reports: pick a project and a report, then open it or download Excel.

See also What each printout holds

What each printout holds

Spec sheets, budgets, revisions, orders, indexes, finishes, labels, letters and exports.

Watch the video · 1:37Reports and printouts

Where A project → Specify → Actions → Reports and printouts…

Spec sheets

The spec book page adds these options:

• the item's Δ lines (each issued revision: Δ, rev, date, Revision or Addendum, reason), with the revised fields shaded;
• its instructions;
• a Required for approval row (seaming diagram, strike-off, finish sample, cutting, shop drawings, prototype, flame certificate) with Prepared by;
• lead time, ship to and drawing #;
• the maker's block beside the source's (phone, mobile, fax, account #);
• area and room quantity lines (with the room numbers when asked);
• the item's components as References;
• the project's spec note at the foot of every sheet, and each item's own page count.

Switches hide the quantity, source, model, instructions, Δ lines, approvals, prepared by and page numbers, or show the category and area heading. Label on every page and First page number set the rest. Which items narrows by area heading, category, manufacturer or source (the Flag, Public / Guest and the area carry over from the list).

Request for quotation prints no prices and a quote block on every item. Ship to, drawing #, prepared by, the approval checkboxes and LEED are set on the item's On the spec sheet card.

Spec sheets, one PDF each

Each spec as a PDF, zipped on the spec book page (PDF Individual Specs in the project-first layout): every spec the page would print, with its options and filters (flagged only, an area, a category, a maker…), as its own PDF named by its printed item number (L-101.pdf), all in one zip with no cover or index.

A few download at once. A big project is made in the background with a count (Making 120 of 400 sheets…), and the download appears there, and in your alerts, when it is ready — leave the page and come back, it carries on. The zip is yours alone and stays on the server for a week. Whoever may open the spec book may make it, with what their seat may see.

Budget

Items under their area headings and areas with Manufacturer | Source, quantity, budget each and extended, area and heading totals. Then the add-on charges added up by name, SUBTOTAL, the sales tax on the taxable part, GRAND TOTAL. The latest Budget Δ sits in the head with the issue date; the project's budget note (Areas and rooms) and the firm's disclaimer (Settings → Printouts) at the end.

Options: flagged only, an area heading or area, charges shown or left off, hide pricing, a page per heading, the first page number, a title. Budget with markup adds a percent to every price (and to the first charge if checked); Budget summary gives the area totals, the cost of each room type and the totals. With Pricing off the columns read Budget each and Budget total.

Revisions and matrices

• The Revision / Addendum index (by Δ, or by area) marks an item revised after it went to purchasing; the Δ list gives each revised item's lines; the revisions crosstab (Excel) has an item a row and a Δ a column.
• FF&E matrices (Excel) — items down; across, the room types with their rooms and the areas for the total quantity, the room types for the quantity per room, or every room number.
• Budgets by room — the budget with a line per room type under each item (per room × each = per key × rooms) and the cost per key; the budget by room type (each type's items, the cost of one room and of all of them).

Purchase orders and requests to the client

Each order's PDF carries the full purchasing head: original and revision dates with the reason, the Source and Manufacturer blocks with account numbers, Bill to with do not ship to the bill-to address, specified by, final destination, prepared by, reference #, area and the project contact.

Per line: the sidemark, finish, lead time, Tag for room quantities (with room numbers), required submittals and instructions. Then each charge and each tax on its own line, the deposit (the order's deposit % of what the deposit counts) and deposit paid, TOTAL DUE, and the Approvals and Accepted by vendor blocks (?accept=0 on its link leaves the vendor block off). The head's fields are set on the order's On the order's PDF card.

The Fund requests page makes three kinds of request: a fund request (FR-) for orders at their totals, a deposit request (DR-) for each order's deposit, and a payment request (PR-) for open vendor invoices the client is to pay. Each PDF has a block per order or invoice (maker / source, invoice, PO #, due date, terms, what the amount is made of), the totals, please make payments payable to (the vendor on a payment request, else the firm) and the approval box. Fund requests and totals lists them all.

Yardi and P3 exports, in their usual layouts, as before — and a second Yardi export, Yardi payables from purchase orders (PO-Inv): a row per order, area and item type with that part's goods as the amount (vendor code, post month, due date, property, the area's code as the account, the item type as the expense type), with the order's charges, tax, deposit, ship-to and vendor repeated on each; flagged only if asked. Support can send its column list.

Indexes, finishes and cut sheets

• Indexes — the spec index by area (under its headings), item type, issue date, lead time, source or manufacturer, each line with its Δ and issue date; quantity and price for those who see money.
• Finishes — the finish schedule (PDF or Excel, as on its page), by room, the finish legend, the finish index with pricing and the lighting schedule. The material reference lists each material, finish and component with the items, areas and rooms using it, and the index with fabric references each item's fabrics and components.
• Cut sheets — an item a page with its first picture large and the next three under it, every picture four to a page, or a blank cut sheet.
• Labels — Avery 5160 sheets (30 a page) for the sources, the manufacturers, the order vendors (with the PO number) and a sidemark per order line for the cartons. Skip labels leaves the first ones empty for a sheet already started.

Correspondence, purchasing and reference

• Correspondence — source letters (each source's items with quantities and required submittals, between the firm's opening and closing from Settings → Printouts, with {project}, {source}, {date}, {firm} and {client} filled in), the fax / transmittal cover with its FOR YOUR and SENT VIA checkboxes and page count, cancellation letters for canceled orders and credit requests for goods received damaged, short or wrong.
• Purchasing — expediting by source, manufacturer or area; the lines still waiting on a step (not submitted, not acknowledged, not shipped, not received, not installed, not invoiced); status and history, acknowledgements and revisions; deposit tracking; the payment projection of open vendor invoices; budget variance (goods, or with charges and tax); requests for quotation and bids; the client-priced index; quantity and cost discrepancies; purchasing summaries by manufacturer, source and item type; the vendor invoice listing and detail and the quarterly sales tax.
• Exports — QuickBooks Desktop purchase orders and bills in their usual layouts, numbered from the first PO # and bill # under Settings → Printouts, and the P.O. export (a row per order with its money).
• Reference — manufacturers and sources with their cards, the instruction library, item types, room types with their room numbers, the project directory, the communication log, the task list, pictures to verify and spec status.

Aging

What is owed to you and by you, by how late.

Where Finance → Aging

Aging shows receivables (invoices sent, by client) and payables (vendor bills, by vendor, less the vendor's open credits) in current, 1–30, 31–60, 61–90 and 90+ day buckets, with every open item (credits included) under it.

As of any earlier day shows what was owed then, from the payments recorded by that day, and Excel takes either as a workbook. Aging names any invoice still without a due date, since it can never show as overdue.

Aging: receivables and payables in day buckets, with every open item under them.

Sales tax report

What was charged in a period, by tax and by jurisdiction.

Where Finance → Sales tax (named for your tax)

Finance → Sales tax totals what was charged in a period by the tax as it is named on the invoice — the firm's label, or the named rate of the ship-to region, so GST and PST sit apart with their own subtotals — and within that by jurisdiction: taxable sales, untaxed sales and the tax collected, with the rate.

It counts the invoices raised in the period (by invoice date) or, on the cash basis, the money received in it, each payment split across its invoice in proportion.

The sales tax report: taxable and untaxed sales and the tax collected, by jurisdiction.

What counts where

• Jurisdictions come from the ship-to tax table under Settings. An invoice on a project with its own rate shows as that project's rate (under the project's own tax name when it has one, set in Edit project); one on the firm's default rate as the firm default.
• Freight is a sale too: taxable where the firm taxes freight, untaxed where it does not.
• A credit given on an invoice is a negative sale in that invoice's proportions, sales and tax alike.
• Under VAT or GST a deposit counts when it is invoiced, and the invoice it is applied to counts less by the deposit's own sales and tax, in proportion to what was applied, so the tax is reported once.
• Invoices in another currency are never added in: each currency has its own section below the firm's, with its own totals.

Excel from the button, with the period on each sheet and each other currency on a sheet of its own. It takes the same period buttons as Month-end.

Commissions

Each project manager's commission for a period.

Where Finance → Commissions

Finance → Commissions works out each project manager's commission for a period: their rate on the net sales — before tax — of the projects they manage, by invoice date or on the cash basis. On the cash basis a deposit applied to an invoice counts from the day its money came, not the day it was applied.

• Every manager of a project earns their own rate on the whole of it — or they share it, if the firm says so under Settings → Tax and currency.
• Projects without a manager are listed at the end, so nothing is missed.
• Each invoice (or payment, on the cash basis) is paid to whoever managed the project on that day, at the rate they had on that day. Handing a project to someone else, or changing a rate, never moves or reprices a period already past, and a rate that changed mid-period shows as two lines.
• Invoices in another currency are reported in a section of their own, in that currency, never added in.

The Excel says the period and the basis under the figures. It takes the same period buttons as Month-end.

Commissions for a period, per manager, with projects without a manager at the end.

The dashboard

The principal's one screen: money, decisions, what is late and the week ahead.

Where Finance → Dashboard, or Dashboard → on the home page

Finance → Dashboard is also Dashboard → on the home page's Money card, for anyone who sees the firm's money. It opens on:

• collected this month, owed to you and how much is overdue, what you owe vendors, invoiced this month, deposits held;
• hours logged this month (billable, and their value at rate);
• proposals out with clients by value, and the margin on active projects.

Then what needs a decision (approvals, proposals out, expense reports, arrival claims, bills due within a week), what is late and what is coming up within three days (items, tasks, site visits, vendor bills, emails that failed — late in red, coming up in amber) and the next seven days.

The biggest overdue invoices, vendor bills due soon and the thinnest margins appear as cards only when there are any — the tiles above already say when there are none. Every line links to the page where it is dealt with. A person limited to some projects sees only those.

The dashboard: the firm's money, what needs a decision, what is late and the week ahead.

Profitability

Every project's money on one line, down to the margin after time and expenses.

Where Finance → Profitability

Finance → Profitability puts every project's money on one line: budget, what the specifications add up to, what the client accepted, what is on order with vendors, what vendors have billed, what has been invoiced and collected, hours and time cost, approved expenses, and the margin that leaves.

Profitability: each project's budget, orders, invoices, time and margin on one line.

How cost is counted

• Goods once: the larger of what is on order and what vendors have billed (since a first bill is often only a deposit), plus anything invoiced to the client but not yet ordered, at its cost.
• Time at each person's rate: their cost rate where one is set; otherwise the billing rate stands in, and the page says so.
• Every approved expense. A receipt billed on to the client stays in cost, because its invoice line is in what was invoiced.

Margin is invoiced less cost, before tax.

Credits, plan and collected

• A credit given on an invoice comes off Invoiced by its share before tax (and off Billed with tax in full), on Budget and margin and the Dashboard's Invoiced this month too. A vendor's credit comes off cost even while the order it was on stands.
• Planned margin is what the specifications add up to less their own cost — the margin the job was specified at — so plan and actual sit side by side. Templates are not jobs and stay out.
• Billed with tax beside Invoiced adds the tax, freight and deposits asked for — less any deposit already applied to an invoice, so a deposit is counted once. It is what Collected (cash received, with its tax) is measured against.
• A project in another currency shows in its own money (CA$, €) and is left out of the totals, which say so. The Excel formats each row in its own currency.

The same figures sit on each project's Budget and margin tab (under Invoice) under Margin after time and expenses, beside the budget-against-actual report by area. Excel from the button.

Month-end

The bookkeeper's page: money in and out, what was owed, the files for your accounts, and closing the books.

Where Finance → Month-end

Finance → Month-end is the bookkeeper's page. Pick the period: Last month is where it opens, and this month, this or last quarter, this or last year are a click each, or any two days.

Month-end: money in, paid to vendors, what was owed, the files and Close the books.

Money in and paid to vendors

Money in: every payment received in the period (deposits and retainers paid included, refunds going back), with the invoice, the customer, how it came and its reference. Paid to vendors: every payment made on a vendor bill. Each downloads as a CSV.

A credit applied to a bill, a deposit moved onto an invoice and a credit given to a client are not money, and are not in either.

What was owed at the end

What was owed at the end of the period, to you and by you, with Aging as of that day a click away (and as Excel).

Files for your accounts

Every invoice issued in the period in one QuickBooks file, the vendor bills dated in it, and the vendor credits.

• Only those not yet exported leaves out what an earlier file took, and note them as exported marks what this one takes, so next month's file does not repeat it.
• A credit given or a deposit applied after its invoice went into a file comes in the file of its own period, as a memo of its own on its own date.
• Drafts and void invoices are never in them.

The tax report, commissions and labor cost for the same period are linked, each with its Excel. The tax report and commissions take the same period buttons.

Books closed

Changes are recorded under Changes to settings.