Fixed-price projects
In addition to time-based billing, todo.vu supports billing at a flat rate with fixed-price projects.
With fixed-price projects, users add and bill only for fixed charges on projects. You can still track your time spent on these projects; however, this data is captured without billing values attached and is therefore used for reporting purposes only.
This Help article explains why and how to use fixed-price projects in todo.vu. To learn more about time-based billing instead, visit our Support article: About Time Billing.
Jump to:
- Why use fixed-price projects?
- How to create a fixed-price project
- How to use fixed-price projects
- — Adding charges to fixed-price projects
- How to bill for fixed-price projects
- Delete or edit charges on fixed-price projects
- Switch between fixed-price & time-based billing on projects
- Fixed-price projects and reporting
Quick glossary
Time entry – A time entry is a detailed record of time that has been logged in todo.vu, either tracked in real time with todo.vu’s timer, or recorded manually. Time entries can be displayed on the calendar, on individual tasks, and in your reporting dashboards.
Project – a project in todo.vu represents a grouping of todo.vu tasks. Projects must be associated with a client unless they are an in-house project or a project template.
Billing report – A billing report in todo.vu is a digital and itemized record of both time-based and fixed charges logged to one client. Charges are broken down and displayed clearly (where applicable) by project, user, date, time entry duration, hourly rate, subtotal and total costs, units and more – and include a final calculated total and applicable taxes. Billing reports can be in draft mode or published; published billing reports are shareable via a unique URL. Read more about billing reports.
Why use todo.vu’s fixed-price projects?
While todo.vu has traditionally supported billing time according to hourly rates, using fixed-price projects supports billing at a flat rate, regardless of time spent.
This gives you greater billing flexibility in todo.vu, and can offer:
- streamlined invoicing with fewer time-based billing entries to review and process.
- increased client satisfaction as fixed prices minimizes unexpected costs.
- better budget control as you can set clear expectations with clients from the outset.
- Improved cash flow as fixed prices provide stable and predictable income.
How to create a fixed-price project
To create a fixed-price project in todo.vu, you simply create a project as you normally would (or select an existing project*), and adjust that project’s settings for fixed-price billing.
That is:
1. Select ‘Projects’ via the left-hand side menu in your Workspace, or navigate to this link when you’re logged in.
You will receive a notification reminding you that any time tracked to this project (time entries) will now have no billing rate. If you have existing unbilled time entries, the notification will indicate that amount.
*Fixed-price billing can’t be enabled on projects that have time recorded to them which has already been billed.
Note: By default, all new projects are configured in time-billing mode. Even while in this mode, projects retain the ability to have fixed charges added to them. This just means you can add and bill for fixed-price charges in addition to tracking and billing for your time on the project. Read more here.
How to use fixed-price projects
With fixed-price projects, you can add one or more custom fixed charges to a todo.vu project, and you will bill your client for this project according to these charges only.
You can still track your time in todo.vu as you normally would; the difference is that tracked time on this project won’t be used for billing.
While you might usually have just one fixed charge per project, you can actually add multiple fixed charges to the one project in todo.vu to create a comprehensive fixed bill, as shown in the example below, where two fixed charges have been added to a fixed-price project, ‘Release 5.9’.
We explain how to add fixed charges to projects below.
In case you didn’t know
A project in todo.vu represents a group of todo.vu tasks. These tasks are separate units where users collaborate and task activities are recorded – including time tracked by users at hourly rates.
Data on tasks (such as time tracked) can be viewed at a project level (all time tracked on all tasks that make up a project), and then further at a client level, as projects are also grouped to one client profile in todo.vu.
This reveals a hierarchy, as per our graphic.
When a user tracks 1 hour of time on a task at a billing rate of $100/hour, that 1 hour of time and associated $100 billing value is also attributed to the project and client to which it belongs. Similarly, if a user adds a fixed charge of $100 on a task, that fixed charge is also attributed to its connected project and client.
What does this mean?
This means that when fixed-price billing is enabled for a project, it applies to all tasks belonging to that project. So when you track time on a task belonging to a fixed-price project, todo.vu won’t record billing values of that time. todo.vu will record duration details only.
This means you can still track and record time spent on specific deliverables for one project – and even share these details with your clients – but still bill your client for that project at a fixed price.
Adding charges to fixed-price projects
After you’ve created a fixed-price project, you can add one or multiple fixed charges to that project.
In todo.vu, you can create and add fixed charges to projects in two ways:
Method 1: Via your project settings
This method is the most straightforward and the one we recommend using when getting started with fixed-price projects.
1. While in your project’s settings, select ‘Add charge’ from the ‘Charges’ section on the left.
2. Fill out the fields on the pop-up modal that appears. Set a unit price and quantity (this will typically be 1), and include a description if desired. The date will auto-populate with today’s date.
3. Underneath the Charge description, your current project will appear by default in the Project field; leave this.
4. Once you are finished filling out the fields, select ‘Add $(Charge amount)’ at the bottom right-hand side of the modal.
Note: Fixed charges on projects vs tasks
Beside the ‘Project’ field, you will also see a ‘Task’ field (‘Select task’) on the pop-up modal. When you add a task to a fixed-price charge, you connect that charge to that task.
So long as that task belongs to the desired fixed-price project, this charge will still be applied to create an overall fixed bill. This connection simply adds an additional layer of detail to your bill, adding task details to specific project charges.
Review todo.vu’s account hierarchy above for more on the relationship between tasks and projects.
5. Now, you have created a fixed charge and added it to your fixed-price project. You can continue to track time on tasks for that project, if required, or move on to billing for the project.
Method 2: Via the Billing Report editor
This method is more advanced and is often used retroactively to quickly create fixed-price projects with charges during the billing process.
1. While in the ‘Unbilled time and charges’ page for a client (go to ‘Billing’ on the left side menu of your Workspace [or this link when logged in] and select from the client profiles on the left), select the (+) icon to the right of the ‘Charges’ section.
2. The same pop-up modal appears as in the project settings method, above. Fill out these fields appropriately. However, with this method, there is no default project in the ‘Project’ field; you will need to select this field and add (or create) a project here+. Note to ensure that the project you’ve chosen or created is in fixed-price mode.
3. Now, you have easily added a fixed-charge to your project; learn more about billing for the project here.
+Adding a project to your charge isn’t required; you can quickly create and bill for a fixed charge without assigning it to the project, and in doing so will create a standalone fixed charge for your client.
How to bill for fixed-price projects
Similar to todo.vu’s method for billing time, a project’s fixed charges automatically appear in the ‘Unbilled time and charges’ page for the client they belong to – directly under the ‘Charges’ subsection.
Similarly, any time tracked to a project automatically appears on this same page – under the ‘Time’ subsection. However, time entries tracked to a fixed-price project will not display associated billing values and calculations.
Time entries tracked on fixed-price projects are grouped underneath their project, the title of which also appears next to a unique icon that indicates ‘This is a fixed-price project’ when you hover over it.
Finally, the process for billing** fixed-price projects in todo.vu is much the same as billing for time – with some additional settings to take note of. These include deciding to display tracked time on fixed-price projects or not.
For a step-by-step guide on billing fixed-price projects, see our support article: Billing time: Create a billing report.
**Note: ‘Billing’ in todo.vu simply means creating and publishing billing reports that automatically mark data as ‘billed’ in todo.vu. It is important to note that todo.vu does not yet have the ability to directly invoice and take payment from clients. However, you can use these billing reports to create invoices quickly, and as URL attachments on invoices as supporting evidence of your work.
When data has been published in a billing report, it is marked as ‘billed’ in todo.vu – time that has been ‘billed’ and charges that have been ‘billed’, for example. This ensures accurate billing data in your workspace. Learn more here.
Delete or edit charges on fixed-price projects
Provided you have the right permissions, you can delete or edit a fixed charge at any time, as long as that charge has not already been billed for.
Again, you can do this in two ways:
Method 1: Via the project’s settings
1. Find the charge you want to edit or delete from the fixed-price project’s settings page.
2. Hover over the charge and select the pencil icon that appears on the left.
3. Use the modal to edit the fixed charge, or select the bin icon on the top right to delete it.
Method 2: Via the billing report editor (The ‘Unbilled time and charges’ page for a client).
1. Hover over or select the charge you want to delete under the ‘Charges’ section of the unpublished report.
2. Select the pencil icon that appears on the left as you hover OR the ‘Edit charge’ button that appears at the bottom of the report if you have selected the charge.
3. Use the modal to edit the fixed charge, or select the bin icon on the top right to delete it.
Note: If the charge has already been recorded on a published billing report, thus marked as ‘billed’, it will be uneditable. Unpublish the report via the billing section of todo.vu using the ‘Retract’ option at the top right of the published report to edit or delete a charge within it.
Switch between fixed-price and time-based billing on projects
You can easily switch between billing modes (from fixed-price to time-based billing) on a project provided you haven’t already created and published a billing report (‘billed’) for that project.
When you switch between billing modes, todo.vu will apply or remove billing values on any time tracked to (tasks for) the project accordingly – and according to your billing settings. For example, todo.vu will re-apply billing values according to your billing rate settings.
To switch between project- and time-based billing modes, simply use the option at the top of your ‘Billing’ section on a project’s settings page.
The option will indicate the change you’re about to make: either ‘Switch to time billing’, or ‘Switch to fixed price’.
Fixed-price projects and your reporting
Though it has no billing values attached, time tracked to fixed-price projects is still recorded and appears both in your Reporting and Billing areas in todo.vu.
As billing rates are recorded as $0 on fixed-price projects, total billing values attributed to time spent on fixed-price projects in reports will appear as $0.
We are working on bringing fixed price values into todo.vu Reporting capabilities, and will update you as soon as it is available.
Things you should know:
- You can set more than one fixed-price charge per project; however, on the final billing report, charges will appear grouped underneath the one project.
- You can include both time-based and fixed-price project charges on one billing report; see our screenshot below.
A published billing report that includes fixed-price project ‘Release 5.9’ with time tracking data (8h 5m) displayed above its associated fixed charges, and (non fixed-price) project ‘Widget creation’ with time-based billing data and charges.
READ NEXT:
Learn about Reporting in todo.vu. Read here >>