Project management for a small business: budget, tasks, time and invoice
In a small company project management means holding four things together: what is to be delivered (milestones and tasks), who does it, how much time it takes, and what the budget is. With these in one place, an overrun shows while something can still be done, and the time spent reaches the invoice without retyping. This guide walks through it step by step, from the order to the invoice.
Published: · By the HelloCRM team
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When is a piece of work a project, and when just a task?
A project is work with a start and an end, done for a customer, made of several steps, and needing several people or several days: a website, an office refit, a software rollout, an event. A phone call or sending a quote is a task; a month of work for one client is a project.
The difference matters because with a project it is not enough to know the next to-do: you also need to see how the work as a whole stands against what was promised. A task list does not answer that question; a project does.
In which steps do you carry a project through?
- The order: the accepted quote is the starting point, with the agreed scope and price.
- The budget: in hours and in money, so going over either one shows.
- Milestones: three to five larger stages the customer understands too.
- Tasks: the milestones broken down, each with an owner and a due date.
- Logging time: everyone writes on the project how long they worked on it.
- A weekly look: where the work stands, and how much of the budget is used.
- Invoicing: the time spent, or the milestone, goes onto the invoice.
- Closing: what went well, what did not, and what the real effort was.
How do you set the budget?
Details
The budget comes from the quote: with an hourly rate, the number of hours; at a fixed price, the effort at which the price still makes a profit. It is worth setting both, because a fixed-price project can go over in hours too, and that is a loss even if the customer pays not a forint more.
What matters with a budget is the warning, not the total: if the overrun shows only when the budget has run out, there is nothing left to do. If it warns at about four-fifths, there is still time to tell the customer, offer extra work, or narrow the scope.
How do you hand out tasks in a small team?
Details
Every task should have one owner, not two: with two owners each thinks the other is doing it. The due date should be a real date, not "next week", and the task should belong to the project, so the project's page shows what is still open.
- A milestone is done when all its tasks are done and the customer has signed it off.
- What turns up during the project becomes a new task, not an email that gets lost.
- Run the weekly meeting from the project's page, going through the open tasks.
Why record the time spent on a project?
Details
Because without it you cannot tell whether it paid. A small company mostly prices the next similar job by feel, and if the feel keeps underestimating, every project loses a little. If colleagues log their time on the project, closing it shows what the real effort was, and the next quote can be built from that.
Time is best recorded in minutes, not in decimal hours: "1 hour 45 minutes" stays exact as a whole number, while decimal hours can drift when rounded. For hourly work the invoice should show the same number you see on the project's page.
How does a project become an invoice?
Details
There are two usual ways. For hourly work the time spent goes onto the invoice totalled per rate, not as forty fifteen-minute lines, because the customer agreed a rate, not a diary. For fixed-price work you invoice per milestone or at the end, and the time logged shows your own margin.
Either way, what matters is that an hour can be billed only once, even if two colleagues press the button at the same moment. The guide on invoicing and NAV describes where the invoice goes from there.
How does this work in HelloCRM?
Details
- In the Projects module a project belongs to a customer or a company, with milestones and an owner.
- The budget can be set in minutes and as a net amount, both optional, and it warns at 80 percent.
- Progress is read from the milestones where there are any, from the tasks otherwise; with neither it shows no 0 percent.
- A project's tasks are the same tasks as everywhere, and its time is the same time tracking, with the weekly timesheet and approval.
- Billing puts the time spent onto a draft invoice grouped by rate, and an hour can be billed only once.
- A colleague on "own records only" sees only their own projects; projects nobody owns stay visible to everyone.
What should you look at when you close the project?
Details
Closing is a short look back of half an hour, and it is exactly what most small companies skip. Three questions are enough: what the real effort was against the budget, which milestone slipped and why, and what turned up during the project that the quote did not cover. Write the answers on the project, because that is where you will look for them on the next similar quote.
If extra work keeps appearing in the same place, it belongs in the next quote's template, not among the next project's surprises. That way project management keeps not only the running work in order but improves the pricing too.
Which mistakes are worth avoiding?
Details
- Starting a project with no budget, and adding up the hours only at the end.
- Keeping the tasks in a separate spreadsheet, apart from the project.
- Agreeing extra work by word of mouth and writing it down neither as a task nor against the quote.
- Skipping the close, so the next quote is again priced by feel.
In short
In a small company project management means holding milestones, tasks, time spent and the budget together. Set the budget in hours and money, let it warn before the end, and have everyone log their time on the project in minutes. Bill the time spent per rate, and look at the real effort when closing, because the next quote is built from it.
Where to read on
Questions
Does a small company need a separate project management program?
Not necessarily: if the project is for a customer and ends in an invoice, it is handier in the CRM, where the customer, the quote and the invoice are. A separate program is needed when projects have a great many internal steps.
Should I set the budget in hours or in money?
If you can, in both: hours show the team's load, money shows the margin. A fixed-price project can go over in hours too.
How should I invoice an hourly project?
Total the time spent per rate, not entry by entry. The invoice is then readable and shows the same number as the project's page.
What does the 80 percent warning mean?
In HelloCRM a project flags when the time or money spent reaches 80 percent of the budget, so a decision can be made before it goes over.