7 features, new and existing, that will ensure a profitable project

There’s no surprise that profitability is important for any business. But how does Teamwork help your profits grow up and to the right? There isn’t one silver bullet answer to that question, but there are many features, new and existing, that will help keep you out of the red. 

Let’s start at the beginning… 

A client hires you for a project, great! Now what? Time to plan how you’ll get the work done.

1. Resource Scheduler

• Why use it? Say goodbye to scope creep! No longer will projects be delayed due to not having enough resources, nor will projects cost too much if you bring in excessive resources. Appropriately plan and organize future work, ensuring you have the right amount of staff available all while no work falls through the cracks.

• What is it? A tool to facilitate high-level planning of resources required to execute on future projects. You can map out where and when a user should be working, and for how long, giving you visibility on what is required to deliver client work on time. Easily understand your overall business capacity, and identify the need to hire or sell.

Let the work begin. But first, make sure your team can track how they’re spending their time.

2. Time Tracking

• Why use it? Simply put, time = money. Visibility into where your team’s time is being spent answers questions like, “How much of our time is billable?”, and “Which clients are we spending the most time on?”. Time tracking keeps projects focused, on budget, and delivered on time. Now you can bill accurately and in a timely manner, and historic time logs mean stronger estimates for future work. 

• What is it? A process of logging time so you can see how long individual pieces of work and projects are taking, and bill appropriately for the work. Easily track time so you’re never missing a billable minute and no money is left on the table.

• Bonus! A brand new Time Report just hit the presses! Easily see the breakdown of your billable, non-billable, and billed time in first-class visualizations, and keep a pulse on your target profitability ratio (70-30 sound familiar?).

Work is chugging along at what you think is a nice pace. But, how is your team actually handling things on the front line?

3. Workload Planner

• Why use it? Profits don’t just come from managing the financial performance of your projects, you also have to manage your most valuable assets… your team. Rest assured knowing you have bandwidth—your staff are assigned without going over capacity, work is accomplished at a healthy pace, and nobody is sitting idly twiddling their thumbs. 

• What is it? A place to view, manage, and understand your team’s capacity at a granular and short-term level. It provides a live update of all the time logged against a project or task so you can clearly see if the team is working over or under capacity, and course-correct if need be.

• Bonus! Use the Utilization Report to formally report on and analyze how your team's time was distributed.

It’s now time to check in on the numbers and the other line items in your project budget.

4. Project Budget

• Why use it? Budget transparency helps keep everyone aligned regarding the financial progress of the project. Actionable insights are surfaced immediately so you can make critical decisions to generate a profitable engagement and achieve your financial goals. 

• What is it? A place to set up and manage financial or time based budgets for each of your projects and track its progress. Configure custom notifications to alert you when budget thresholds are met or close to it, to help you stay on top of your spend and proactively make changes where needed.

The budget is being burned faster than expected. It’s time to dive a little deeper to understand your spending.

5. Task List Budgets - New!

• Why use it? Understand the details of your project’s budget based on categories of work to uncover where most (or least) of your spend is going.  By breaking down your costs at the Task List level, know when and where to reallocate resources, add more support, or explore cost-saving tactics. 

• What is it? The ability to manage grouped parts of your budget at a Task List level for granular insights and control. Monitor the progress of your budget at every stage and easily adjust spend when needed to maximize your revenue.

Crisis averted and you’re back on track! But then you spot that receipt on your desk for printing costs…

6. Budget Expenses - New!

• Why use it? One-off expenses are a standard part of project management, but now you can accurately account for these costs in your budget so there are no surprise line items that creep in unannounced. Have confidence in your budget knowing you’re seeing the full picture. 

• What is it? A method to include non-time expenses in the overall budget for a project. Now your budgets can actually reflect all of the standalone dollars and cents that are poured into your projects, not just the time spent on tasks.

Time for the first stakeholder review of the project. Where to turn?

7. Profitability Report

• Why use it? Take the guesswork out of profitability, capture your net profit at a glance, and see your remaining budget to determine the best next steps. Now you can evaluate your return on investment and choose future work based on past profitability. Easily share this report for financial transparency so everyone is aligned. 

• What is it? A report to automatically keep track of profitability across users, projects, and clients. See which projects are bringing in the most profit and exactly how much your team members are contributing to the bottom line.

• Bonus! Need to tweak the report ever so slightly? Check out our brand new Custom Reports to drill into the information most important to you.

And then, repeat! By the time the project comes to a close we’re sure your work has been delivered on time and on budget. Cha-ching!

“We can see how long it takes to deliver work, identify bottlenecks and inefficiencies, whether our clients are profitable, and our staff are working within a reasonable level of capacity.” - Nicci, Capterra review

Please note that the features mentioned span across different plans. Explore our pricing plans for a detailed breakdown or reach out to discuss switching to a better plan for you.