In Abtrac a non-billed project is different from a project that has been made non-current.
Current Projects
To ensure your reports in Abtrac stay accurate, you need to be consistent with the Billable / Non-Billable setting for Projects in Abtrac. As mentioned previously, you should never mark a project not billable that was previously billable. You should make the project non-current instead. The different project classifications and how they are reported is below.
Non-Billable Projects
These are typically in-house administration projects, or ‘projects’ such as annual leave etc. Occasionally you may also do pro-bono or competition work to promote yourself, or for another reason. These projects will also be non-billable. Any other speculative work like project proposals should be recorded and reported as billable projects. (We’ll explain why below).
To review Non-Billable projects in your office, the report “Clients and Projects Non-Billable” gives a list of all current, non-billable projects.
Billable Projects
These are easy to determine, projects that you will eventually be invoicing your clients for are billable!
Projects that are proposals
These are also potential billable projects. You still want to recover money for them but you’re just not sure if you can yet.
Some people will opt to enter the proposal project into Abtrac and it will start as ‘unbillable’. That way the time and costs associated with it do not show in invoice preparation reports. Once a proposal becomes billable, you can tick the billable box and it will turn into a billable project.
Others start the project immediately as a billable project and when it is confirmed e.g. with the return of the agreement, they either leave the WIP to date and try to recover it, or they write it off so the project starts ‘clean’ from the confirmation date. In this case we recommend using Project Status to determine between projects that are still at the proposal stage, and those that have been accepted and can be invoiced.
Only a certain percentage of all proposals will go ahead. But it’s important to analyse your proposals in the same way you analyse your other billable projects. Abtrac users who keep a close eye on proposal projects can often reduce the time spent tendering, and increase the percentage of proposals that are approved.
Non-Current Projects
When a project is finished, you will archive the files. In Abtrac mark it as Non-Current. Likewise if a proposal is not accepted, mark it as Non- Current.
When projects are made Non-Current, they are filtered out of reports and drop down lists. No further project costs can be added to them.
But a Non-Current, Billable Project will still appear in current ‘WIP to be Invoiced’ reports if there is any unbilled WIP against the project. To remove this WIP, it should either be assigned to an existing invoice for the project, or a new write off invoice should be raised. This also applies to proposals that were initially entered as billable.
DO NOT make a billable project not billable just to remove it from reports. If you take the tick out of the billable box Abtrac will treat this project as NEVER having been billable and historical reports will be distorted.
Abtrac KB # 2033