Most of a project form can wait. Four things cannot.
The four that matter
| Field | Why now |
|---|---|
| Name | How everybody will refer to it. Put the client in it — Trend In Need — brand refresh, not Brand refresh. |
| Customer | Without it you cannot invoice, and adding it later means the time already logged was never attached to anybody. |
| Budget | What it is worth. Everything on the money side is measured against it. |
| Dates | Start and due. They drive the progress and the lateness of everything inside. |
Billing type, decided once
How you intend to charge. It is worth a moment because it decides which part of the record you will actually live in.
| Type | You charge | So you care about |
|---|---|---|
| Fixed | An agreed sum for the job. | Milestones, and whether you are within budget. |
| Hourly | For the time recorded. | Timesheets, billable hours and rates. |
On an hourly project, set the hourly rate on the project. Every timesheet entry falls back to it unless somebody’s own rate is set, so the invoice adds up without anybody typing a rate per line.
The three people get wrong
- No customer. It feels optional on day one and blocks the invoice on day ninety.
- A vague name. Three projects called Website is a support call waiting to happen.
- A budget left blank. Then spent is a number with nothing to compare it to, and nobody can answer whether the job is going well.
What can wait
Description, tags, priority, the team, the vendors, the client contacts — all of it can be filled in as the job takes shape. The record is meant to grow.
A worked setup
- Name it “Trend In Need — brand refresh”.
- Customer: Trend In Need. Type: One-off.
- Starts 13 Aug, due 12 Oct.
- Budget ₹8,50,000, billing fixed.
- Owner: whoever is actually accountable, not whoever created it.
- Then add the tasks, and stop.
What a good project name looks like
It will appear in a task list beside nineteen others, in an invoice line, and in a search six months from now. Write it for that.
| Weak | Better | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Website | Kamal Traders — website rebuild | Three clients will have a website. |
| Retainer | Trend In Need — social retainer 2026 | Retainers repeat. The year disambiguates. |
| Phase 2 | Suvi Fiber — factory signage, phase 2 | Phase 2 of what? |
The pattern that works: client — what it is, plus a year or a phase when it repeats.
Fixed or hourly, decided honestly
Choose by how you will actually bill, not by what sounds better. If the contract says one sum for the job, it is fixed — even if you plan to track hours, which you should.
On an hourly project, set the project’s hourly rate now. Every timesheet falls back to it, so the invoice adds up later without anybody typing a rate on each line.
You can record time on a fixed-price project and you should. Mark it non-billable — it never reaches an invoice, and it still tells you what the job cost. See budget and spend.
Where to go next
Something missing or wrong here? Tell us. A question that needed asking usually means a page that needed writing.