Architects and engineers are project-oriented. They generally encounter accounting issues, and project management and reporting is important to them. BillQuick Online is a project-centric software that meets or exceeds all their expectations.
Projects typically have budgets, which you need to develop and approve before starting a project.
To manage and complete projects profitably, project managers need timely, complete, and accurate information about hours worked and expenses incurred on their projects. Thus, easy capture of time and expenses is required, whether you are in an office, at a client’s location or working from home. The bill and cost rates applied to hours worked can be standard or special for employees or groups of employees. You can negotiate special rates with the client on a project-by-project basis or your firm can assign special rates based on the type of project and other factors.
It is essential that a project manager knows exactly how much budget and, overall, how much of the contract amount has been ‘burned’. While budget totals and contract amounts can be the same in some firms, in others they are different to allow for unknown contingencies.
Throughout the project, a manager can update the percent complete value. Typically, the project fee will be a lump sum, hourly rate, cost + percentage (profit margin) or cost + fixed fee (management fee). During a billing cycle, the net bill amount for a project can be based on:
Total value of the hours worked (Hourly billing, Time & Materials billing)
A percentage of the lump sum agreed to (Fixed Fee, Percent Complete billing)
Achieving a milestone in the project (Fixed Fee, milestone billing)
The cost of work done plus a percent of cost or a portion of fixed fee (Cost Plus billing)
A predefined billing schedule with amount and billing dates (Fixed Fee using a billing schedule)
Depending on the situation, billing can be straightforward or can involve judgment:
Project percent complete: how much of the contract has been earned
Hourly contracts: quality and justifiability of time and expenses
An invoice must project the desired image of the company. It must represent the professionalism and brand of the company, and clearly communicate the work done, amount charged and the total due. Thus, firms pay special attention to the look and feel of their invoices, including logos, layout of information and the information itself.
Project managers and senior executives focus on satisfying clients and maximizing company profits. Scheduled reports and notifications ensure managers have the right information at the right time. If none of the 150 plus invoice formats and 400 plus reports included with BillQuick Online meets your requirements, you can customize them yourself or outsource the job to BQE Customization Services.