Engagements and terms

An engagement is the work a client agreed to: who leads it, who works on it, the agreed scope, its terms and its tasks. Finance and the owner create clients, people and engagements; a lead manages the terms, tasks and milestones of the engagements they lead.

Clients and people

Add each Client by name. Add each Person with their Work timezone (for example Australia/Brisbane) and tick Contractor for contractors. A person is a record of who does the work; giving them a sign-in is a separate step on Access.

Engagements

An Engagement has a name, a client, a Responsible lead, Assigned people, the Agreed scope and a work timezone. The list on Engagements shows each one with its approved hours on the estimate. Open an engagement to see its facts, scope, terms, tasks, milestones and economics on one page.

Terms and change orders

New terms / change order drafts a version of the engagement's terms: hourly or fixed fee, the budget or fee, the estimated effort, how billable time is rounded, and the reason. Approve terms fixes that exact version. An approved version never changes: when the client agrees more work, add a change order as a new version beside it, and approve that.

Tasks and milestones

Each task carries its estimated remaining effort, which feeds the engagement's economics. A fixed-fee engagement has milestones with a due date and a fee; Approve delivered milestone approves one once it is delivered, as long as the approved milestones stay within the agreed fee. An approved milestone can then go into a billing packet.