Projects and delivery
The work on the board. The business behind it.
Plan the tasks, then see the hours, fees and costs behind them in the same project.
Due Nov 14Pick the view for the meeting you are running.
Grid to browse every engagement. Ledger to review the money. Triage to see which projects need you first.
| Project | Contract | Cost to date | Margin | Budget used | Team |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clinic website rebuildHarbourside Physio | $20,000 | $10,000 | 50% | 62.5% | 3 |
| Spring campaignNorthfield Outdoor Co. | $12,000 | $9,840 | 18% | 113.3% | 2 |
| Monthly SEOAshgrove Bakery Group | $3,500 | $1,890 | 46% | 70% | 1 |
| Brand guidelinesBrightline Dental Group | Uncapped | $2,400 | 38% | No budget | 1 |
Money columns show for Owner and Admin roles.
What the project has cost so far.
An illustrative fixed-fee website with 150 of its 240 budgeted hours logged. The margin is a snapshot, so check what work remains before you accept another round of changes.
- $20,000Fixed fee
- $10,000Direct cost: 150 h at $60, plus $1,000 expenses
- 50%Direct margin to date
Illustrative figures. Future labor, agency overhead, taxes and collection timing are left out.
Inside a project
The plan and the money, in one place.
Tasks, owners and dates on one side of the page. Hours, cost and margin on the other. One review answers what happens next and whether the scope still makes sense.
Board, List, Calendar
Three views of the same tasks, for whichever question you are answering.
An owner on every task
Tasks describe a result someone can finish and review, with dates and dependencies where they matter.
The brief beside the work
Keep the brief and reference files next to the delivery tasks.
Hours against the budget
Logged hours show how much of the budget is used. Pair them with a look at what is left.
Money follows permissions
Owner and Admin roles see monetary values. Delivery roles work with the operational view.
Straight from a won deal
A won deal in the CRM converts into a project with its client context.
One project, every connection.
The project is where the rest of Flowboard meets. Each connection feeds the same review, so nobody rebuilds the picture from separate tools.
- Time
Hours logged on the task
Timers and manual entries land on the project, ready for review and billing.
- Allocations
The people plan by week
Weekly resource allocations show how much time the plan needs from each teammate.
- Expenses
Costs beside the fee
Direct expenses sit with logged labor when you read the project margin.
- Docs
Decisions in one place
Project documents hold the brief and the shared decisions behind the work.
- Portal
What the client sees
Visibility controls decide what reaches the client through the portal.
- CRM
Where the project began
The won deal carries its client and budget context into delivery.
Clear about what a project covers.
What projects do
- Organize tasks with owners, dates and dependencies.
- Show the same work as a Board, List or Calendar.
- Review the portfolio as a Grid, Ledger or Triage.
- Keep hours, fees and direct costs beside the plan.
What they do not do
- Draw Gantt charts. Native Gantt is not available.
- Replace source control or creative production tools.
- Do your full accounting.
- Turn hours used into percent complete. Review the remaining scope too.
Revisit the budget when the scope changes. A number entered once and ignored is a weak signal. See how the people plan works ↗
The details.
Everything above, in depth. Open what you need.
Start with a deliverable, an owner, and a decision
Create the project around a real client engagement. Give it a clear name, assign the people responsible, and organize the work into sections and tasks that represent delivery. A section might hold discovery, creative development, production, or launch. Tasks should describe a result someone can finish and review, rather than a vague activity that stays open indefinitely.
Within a project, Board, List, and Calendar support different questions. Use the board to discuss work moving through statuses, the list to inspect details, and the calendar to understand dated commitments. These are views of the same work. Moving between them should help a producer explain the plan without maintaining three separate project schedules.
- Make task ownership explicit before work begins.
- Use dates for commitments and dependencies for work that relies on another task.
- Keep the brief and reference files close to the delivery tasks.
Review the portfolio before opening every project
The project index offers Grid, Ledger, and Triage views. Grid supports visual navigation across engagements. Ledger brings project economics into a structured review. Triage helps focus attention on projects that warrant investigation. Choose the view for the meeting you are running, rather than treating every project as equally urgent.
Financial context follows permissions. Owner and Admin roles can inspect monetary values, while a delivery role may work with operational information without seeing underlying commercial amounts. This distinction matters when project owners need to coordinate delivery but an agency does not want every internal cost or contract value visible to every teammate.
An illustrative website engagement
Imagine a fixed-fee website project with a $20,000 contract amount and a 240-hour delivery budget. The team has logged 150 hours. That is 62.5% of the hour budget, but it is not proof that 62.5% of the agreed deliverables are complete. Review the remaining scope alongside the number, particularly if integration or launch work has not started.
If those 150 hours carry an average $60 hourly labor cost and the project has $1,000 in non-pass-through expenses, direct costs to date are $10,000. Against the configured $20,000 fixed fee, direct margin to date is 50%. This illustrative number excludes future labor, general agency overhead, taxes, and collection timing. It becomes useful when the team asks what work remains before accepting another round of changes.
| Review | Evidence | Decision |
|---|---|---|
| Delivery | Launch tasks remain open | Confirm the critical sequence |
| Hours | 150 of 240 hours logged | Re-estimate the remaining work |
| Commercial | New integration requested | Agree scope before assigning it |
Set up a project the team can actually run
A useful project setup is short enough to maintain and specific enough to guide decisions. Revisit it when the scope changes; a budget entered once and ignored is a weak signal.
Record the engagement
Connect the client, identify the project owner, and choose the appropriate billing type. Confirm whether a monetary budget represents a fixed fee or a retainer amount.
Break down the delivery
Create sections and tasks around tangible outputs. Add owners, relevant dates, and dependencies where sequencing genuinely matters.
Bring the context together
Attach or link the brief, use project documents for shared decisions, and log task time consistently so the review has usable inputs.
Set a review cadence
Review blocked work, remaining scope, logged hours, and direct costs together. Agree the next action and who will communicate it to the client.
Connect the plan to delivery
Give each task a clear scope, completion condition, and owner. Use weekly resource allocations to show how much time the plan needs from each teammate, then adjust the plan when approvals or additional requests change the work.
Flowboard brings the client work, logged time, rates, fees, and expenses into one operating view. Keep source control, creative production, and full accounting in your specialist systems. Native Gantt charts are not currently available.
Check the people plan
Translate delivery commitments into weekly allocations before promising a date.
Explore this workflow ↗Inspect project margin
Understand which revenue and direct-cost assumptions sit behind the financial view.
Explore this workflow ↗Questions
Before you set up the first project.
Are project views and task views the same thing?
No. Grid, Ledger, and Triage help you review the collection of projects. Board, List, and Calendar help you organize tasks within an individual project. Choose the first for portfolio decisions and the second for delivery coordination.
Can a won deal become a project?
Flowboard includes a CRM handoff that converts a won deal into a project. Review the resulting name, client context, budget, and delivery plan. A commercial agreement still needs to be translated into tasks that the team can execute.
Does an hour budget represent percent complete?
No. Logged hours divided by budget hours measures budget consumption. A project can consume little time while important work remains, or use most of its hours before a final approval. Pair the number with a review of deliverables and remaining effort.
Can clients see every internal project detail?
Client access uses the portal and visibility controls rather than unrestricted team access. Review what you expose to each client. Internal financial information and staff cost rates should not be treated as client-facing project content.
When should an agency use a separate project?
A separate engagement with its own fee, owner, or delivery boundary usually benefits from a separate project. For ongoing work, choose a consistent reporting period and structure so retainer hours and costs remain understandable. The software cannot decide that commercial boundary for you.