BigTime's Project List Views

The project list has a number of different views. Each one contains several columns of information, and the sections that follow tell you what data each column contains.

View: Project List

This view contains a complete list of projects within the BigTime system. It shows you the Project's name, type, production/billing status, start/end dates and the cost centers to which each project is linked.

By default only active projects for which you have permissions appear in this list.

View: Trailing Monthly Data

This view is an excellent summary for firms with long-term accounts (e.g. - accounts for which you do an on-going set of monthly/quarterly work and for which you bill each month). PR firms, law firms, accountants and some IT services organizations will find this view helpful.

It shows a summary of all the time entry activity for the period you select (typically 3, 6 or 12 months back from your "current" period), and it compares that activity to your staff-based budgets for that same period.

Let's assume that you have an account team that should be spending 20 hours / month on a specific account. This view lets you look back at the most recent several months to see if your staff is spending 20 hours / month on average or if they are over/under servicing that account.

Column	Source	Notes/Description
Project	Display Name	This column returns your project's display name.
Type	Project Type	Pulled from each project's type code.
Current, Budget	Staff Allocation Budget	Contains a total of staff allocation budgets for the current period for this project.
Current, Input	Input Time	Total time input to date for the current period. This number includes both submitted and un-submitted hours. Your users will need to submit their timesheets periodically in order for you to use the time for invoices or to post it to QuickBooks. The frequency with which you'd like them to submit time is called a "timesheet period." BigTime supports weekly, bi-weekly, semi-monthly or monthly timesheet periods.
Summary, Budget	Staff Allocation Budget	A total of staff allocation budgets over the entire trailing period (e.g. - trailing 3, 6 or 12 months). INCLUDES the current period.
Summary, Input	Input Time	A total of time input to date for the entire trailing period (including the current period).
Summary, Cost	Hours*Cost	Each staff member is assigned a cost factor, and that cost factor is used to calculate this column. It's the hours worked on a client multiplied by each staff member's cost factor. Note that cost is saved with each time entry when the user submits their timesheet (so historical costs are stored in the timesheet history).
Summary, Margin	(Invoiced $ - Cost $) / Invoice $	Total dollars invoiced and the total "costs" (as described in Summary, Cost above) are used to compute a margin for each account over the trailing period.
Summary, Utilization	Allocation Budget / Input Time	This ratio gives you an idea of how well your staff (allocation) budgets predicted the actual work completed over the period in question.
Charge, Budget	Pipeline Budget	Here, BigTime pulls your pipeline budget (the budget of $/month) into the mix to let you see how billings compare to it.
Charge, Invoiced	Invoice $ Total	This column shows the total dollars attached to invoices over the period you are examining (includes any invoices you import from your accounting system).

View: Cost to Date

If you are managing projects and would like to see a view of project costs to date, then use this view. Is shows you both total fees and total expenses. All of the budget data shown here is based on the project's "estimate" budget, and you can review either hourly time data or "time charges" to date.

Column	Source	Notes/Description
Project	Display Name	This column returns your project's display name.
Type	Project Type	Pulled from each project's type code.
Current, Hours	Input Time	Total time input to date for the current period. This number includes both submitted and un-submitted hours. Periods are typically calendar months in BigTime (January, 2005; February, 2005; etc.). They're just an arbitrary way to lump the various transactions in the system into logical groups. So, when you open up a list of "invoices" in the system, we pull only invoices that were created for your current invoice period to show you. It's easy to jump from period to period, but we typically show information from one period at a time in order to conserve screen real estate and time. Periods can be setup to run based on your firm's specialized accounting calendar as well. They don't have to be tied to a calendar month. Talk to your support rep to request this type of customization.
Time Billing, Estimated (Charges or Hours)	Project Estimate Budget (Current)	Current estimate budget for the entire project. Note that only non-expense budget items are included in this total.
Time Billing, Invoiced	Invoiced Amount	The total amount invoiced to date for this project. Note that only invoice line items that are NOT marked as "expenses" are included. Also note that we're pulling this data from your invoices (not from hours * billing rate). This makes your invoiced number accurate for T&M projects as well as the various types of fixed fee projects BigTime supports.
Time Billing, Cost	Hours*CostRate	Each staff member is assigned a cost factor, and that cost factor is used to calculate this column. It's the hours worked on a client multiplied by each staff member's cost factor. Note that cost is saved with each time entry when the user submits their timesheet (so historical costs are stored in the timesheet history). NOTE that this field is only shown if you are looking at the "charge" summary.
Time Billing, Input Hours	Total Hours Input to Date	A total of the hours input on the project to date. NOTE that this column is only displayed if you are looking at the "hours" summary.
Time Billing, Unbilled	Unbilled Time	Shows a total of time charges (Hours*BillingRate) minus Invoiced amount(s).
Expenses, Estimated	Project Estimate Budgets (current)	Current estimate budgets (fees) for the entire project. Note that ONLY expense items are included in this number.
Expenses, Invoiced	Invoiced Amount	The total amount invoiced to date for this project. Note that only invoice line items that are marked as "non-time charges" are included.
Expenses, Unbilled	Expenses (unbilled)	Includes all expenses to date which have not yet been billed to the project. For QuickBooks users, this number also includes any unbilled vendor expenses which have been spotted by BigTime's sync.

View: Margin (Estimates)

If you are managing projects and would like to see a view of complete project fees to date (complete with pro-forma margin estimates), then this view will be helpful. All of the budget data shown here is based on the project's "estimate" budget, and you can see an overall margin based on both your invoiced amount to date and your "estimated" amount.

You can also compare billings to date to estimated amounts to see "what's left" in each project's budget.

Column	Source	Notes/Description
Project	Display Name	This column returns your project's display name.
Budget, Hours	Project Estimate Budget (Current)	Current estimate budget for the entire project. Note that only non-expense budget items are included in this total.
Budget, Fees	Project Estimate Budget (Current)	Current estimate budget for the entire project (charges). Note that only non-expense budget items are included in this total.
Input, Hours	Total Time Input	Time input to date on the project (includes both submitted and un-submitted hours).
Input, Cost	Hours*CostRate	Each staff member is assigned a cost factor, and that cost factor is used to calculate this column. It's the hours worked on a client multiplied by each staff member's cost factor.
Billed ($)	Total Invoiced Amount	A total of the invoiced amount from your fee-based invoice line items.
Margin, vs. Est.	Pro-Forma Project Margin (vs. estimated billings)	If you billed a project today for the full amount in the estimate, this number indicates what your margin would be. For fixed-fee projects, this number provides a snapshot of a given project's margin. ([TotalEstimate]-[CostToDate]) / [TotalEstimate]
Margin, vs. Invoices	Pro-Forma Project Margin (vs. Invoiced Amount)	As you bill a project, you will start to see a margin number vs. the total amount invoiced. While this number includes ALL staff costs (even "unbilled" costs), the margin provides a rough estimate of your current "working" project margin. ([TotalInvoiced]-[CostToDate]) / [TotalInvoiced]
Estimate vs. Invoiced, Charges	Remaining Budgets	The total amount budgeted minus the total amount invoiced to date. This is an effective view of your available billings for a given project.
Estimate vs. Invoiced, Percentage	Remaining Budgets	The same as the "charges" number described above, but this figure divides that number by the total budgets to get a "percentage" left in the budget. ([EstimateFees-InvoicedAmount]) / EstimateFees

View: Weekly Hours

This project list view gives your managers an excellent snapshot of the hourly activity for each project on a weekly basis. It's a great basis for informal "weekly" review (and it includes both submitted and un-submitted time).

Only projects that have time activity over the period you are reviewing are included in this view. You can adjust the number of "trailing weeks" to include in the screen by clicking on the "weeks" number at the top of the page.

View: Contract List

This view is similar to the project list view, except that it shows contract information on each of the projects in the system.

Here, you can see which projects are nearing their end date, and what the current production/billing status is for each of those projects. It can be used by contract managers to keep track of which accounts are up for renewal.