Project Management
Create projects, track budgets, manage team assignments, and monitor profitability from a single dashboard
What You'll Learn
- Create projects manually or automatically from accepted quotes
- Navigate the project detail page and its two-column layout
- Understand the five project statuses and automatic task-driven updates
- Choose the right budget type for each client engagement
- Search, filter, and sort your project list
- Track profitability with revenue, expense, and labor cost metrics
- Assign team members and manage per-user billing rates
Projects are where the work happens in WorkCentral. Every project connects a client to a scope of work, a budget, a timeline, and — on the Business plan — a team. Whether you create a project from scratch or let one appear automatically when a client accepts a quote, the project detail page becomes your hub for tracking progress, costs, and profitability.
Creating a Project
There are two ways to create a project in WorkCentral. You can build one manually by navigating to Projects → New Project, or you can let one appear automatically when a client accepts a quote. Both paths lead to the same project experience — the only difference is how the initial data gets populated.
The manual form asks for a project name and client (both required), plus optional fields for description, start date (pre-filled with today), due date, status (defaults to "Not Started"), budget type (defaults to "Fixed Project"), budget amount, hourly rate, estimated hours, and team member assignments (Business plan only). If you arrive from a client's detail page, the client is automatically pre-selected in the dropdown.
Automatic Creation from an Accepted Quote
When a client accepts a quote, WorkCentral automatically creates a project with the quote title as the project name, the quote total as the budget amount, and the line-item quantities summed into estimated hours. If all line items share the same hourly rate, that rate carries over; otherwise, a blended average is calculated. Tasks are generated from line items automatically.
Each quote can only create one project — a unique constraint prevents duplicate conversions. For full details, see the Quote to Project guide.
Shortcut: Pass a ?client_id parameter in the URL when navigating to the new project form and the client dropdown will be pre-selected for you.
The Project Detail Page
Click any project name to open its detail page. The layout is split into two columns — a wider main area on the left and a narrower sidebar on the right.
Main Content (Left Column)
Project Information Card
Description, color-coded status badge, budget type label, start/due dates with overdue indicator, and budget details (amount, hourly rate, estimated hours, estimated total). Non-billable projects hide the budget section.
Team Members Card
Business plan only. A grid of assigned members showing name, email, and avatar initials.
Project Tasks Overview
Task count summary (Total, Not Started, In Progress, Completed), blocked-tasks warning in red, a progress bar, and links to view the full task list or Kanban board.
Financial Activity
Two-column grid showing up to 3 recent invoices and 3 recent expenses with amount, date, and status. "View all" links appear when there are more records.
Project Profitability
Professional and Business plans only. Revenue, expenses, labor costs, profit margin, budget utilization, and billing efficiency — see Section 6.
Sidebar (Right Column)
Client Card
Avatar initial, company or person name, email, phone, website, and a link to view the full client profile.
Timeline Card
Created date, started date (if set), due date with overdue indicator, and completed date.
Quick Actions Card
Shortcuts to View Kanban Board, Manage Tasks, Set Team Rates, View Originating Quote, Create Invoice, Add Expense, Edit Project, and Create Task.
Quick Actions: The sidebar's Quick Actions card is only visible to users with full project permissions. It includes shortcuts for creating invoices and expenses with the project and client pre-populated, so you never have to re-enter that context.
Project Status Lifecycle
Every project moves through one of five statuses. You can set any status manually at any time via the project form, or let WorkCentral update it automatically based on task activity.
The Five Statuses
Default for new projects
Active work underway
Locked — pauses auto-updates
All work finished
Locked — pauses auto-updates
Automatic Status Updates
When you create, update, or delete tasks within a project, WorkCentral recalculates the project status automatically:
- • If all tasks are completed or cancelled → project becomes Completed
- • If any task is in progress, in review, or blocked → project becomes In Progress
- • If all tasks are not started and the project was already in progress → it stays In Progress
- • If a project has no tasks, its status is not changed automatically
Pro Tip: "On Hold" and "Cancelled" are locked statuses — automatic updates from task changes are suppressed while a project is in either state. When you unlock a project by switching it to any other status, WorkCentral immediately re-syncs the status from the current task states.
Budget Types
Every project has a budget type that controls how costs are displayed and tracked. Choose the type that best matches your billing arrangement with the client.
| Budget Type | Best For | What You Set |
|---|---|---|
| Fixed Project | Flat-fee contracts with a set dollar amount | Budget amount |
| Not to Exceed | Engagements with a budget cap you should stay under | Budget amount (ceiling) |
| Time & Materials | Hourly billing with estimated hours as a guideline | Hourly rate + estimated hours |
| Non-Billable | Internal projects with no client billing | Nothing — budget section is hidden |
From Quote Conversion: When a project is created from an accepted quote, the budget type is mapped from the quote's billing type. Additional fields like billing strategy, milestone percentage, and payment schedule are also carried over behind the scenes.
Searching and Filtering
The project list page gives you several ways to find the project you need, starting with a statistics bar at the top.
Statistics Dashboard
Four metric cards appear at the top of the project list:
Filtering Options
- Status Tabs: Horizontal tabs across the top — All, Not Started, In Progress, On Hold, Completed, and Cancelled. Click a tab to filter instantly.
- Text Search: Searches across project name and description. Type your query and press Enter.
- Client Filter: Dropdown populated with your active clients. Select a client to show only their projects.
- Pagination: 15 projects per page. Filters are preserved as you navigate between pages.
Default Sort Order
Projects are sorted newest first, then by due date (earliest first), then alphabetically by name. The table displays these columns:
Budget Tracking & Profitability
Professional & Business plans. Profitability data appears on the project detail page and helps you understand the financial health of each project at a glance.
How Profitability Is Calculated
Sum of all paid invoices linked to the project.
Sum of all non-rejected expenses linked to the project.
Sum of internal cost from all time entries on the project.
Revenue minus total costs (expenses + labor).
Additional metrics include budget variance, budget utilization percentage, total hours, billable hours, and billing efficiency percentage.
Budget Status Indicators
| Utilization | Status | Label |
|---|---|---|
| Under 75% | Good | On track |
| 75% – 90% | Warning | Near budget limit |
| Over 90% | Over | Over budget |
Profitability Status Indicators
| Profit % | Status | Label |
|---|---|---|
| 20%+ | Excellent | Excellent margins |
| 10% – 19% | Good | Healthy margins |
| 1% – 9% | Low | Low margins |
| 0% or less | Loss | Operating at a loss |
Business Plan Bonus: Business plan organizations also see a Team Cost Analysis breakdown showing each team member's total hours, average hourly rate, and total cost on the project.
Team Member Assignment
Business plan feature. Team member assignment lets you control which users can see and work on each project.
On the project create or edit form, Business plan organizations see a checkbox grid of team members (excluding organization owners, who always have full access). Selecting a member assigns them to the project. When a new member is added, a default hourly rate is automatically created for them — inherited from the project owner's rate, the project's hourly rate, or a $75/hr fallback.
What Assignment Controls
- Project visibility — members with read-only permissions see only their assigned projects
- Client visibility — clients are visible to members who are assigned to at least one of that client's projects
- Task assignment — only assigned team members appear in task assignment dropdowns
- Automatic rate setup — a default hourly rate is created for each new member automatically
Access by Role
| Role / Permission | Projects Visible |
|---|---|
| Owner | All organization projects |
| Admin/Member (full access) | All organization projects |
| Admin/Member (read-only) | Only assigned projects |
| Disabled permission | No projects |
Free & Professional Plans: Instead of team assignment checkboxes, you'll see an upgrade prompt with a link to the billing settings page. Upgrade to Business to unlock team features.
Setting Team Rates
Business plan feature. Requires the team_management permission. Team rates let you set a per-user, per-project hourly rate that feeds into time tracking and profitability calculations.
Open a project's detail page and click Set Team Member Rates in the Quick Actions sidebar. This takes you to the team rates management page.
How Rate Resolution Works
When calculating the effective hourly rate for a user on a task, WorkCentral checks these sources in order:
- 1User-specific project rate — the most recent rate with an effective date on or before today
- 2Project default rate — the hourly rate set on the project itself
- 3Task-level rate — a legacy fallback from the task record
- 4Zero — if no rate is found anywhere
The Team Rates Page
- • Shows each team member's name, email, role, and current rate
- • Enter a new rate for any member (min $0, max $9,999.99)
- • Set an effective date (must be today or earlier)
- • Add optional notes (up to 500 characters) explaining the rate change
- • Click View History to see a timeline of all rate changes for a member
Rate History Timeline
The rate history page shows a chronological timeline of every rate change for a team member on the project:
- • Each entry shows the rate amount, effective date, notes, and who set it
- • The current active rate is highlighted with a green badge
- • Rate changes display the delta (+ or −) and percentage change
- • A sidebar shows the current rate summary and comparison with the project default
Example: A designer on your team bills at $95/hr while a developer bills at $120/hr. Set different rates per team member on the same project, and WorkCentral will calculate labor costs and profitability using the correct rate for each person's logged hours.
Deleting Projects
To delete a project, open the project list, click the actions dropdown on the project row, and select Delete Project. You must have full project permissions.
What Happens When You Delete
- •Team member assignments are removed first (Business plan projects)
- •Project user rate records are cascade-deleted
- •The project record itself is permanently removed
- •If the project was linked to a quote, that link is cleared (the quote remains)
Warning: Project deletion is permanent — WorkCentral does not use soft deletes or an archive system for projects. If the project has associated invoices or expenses, deletion will fail with the message: "Cannot delete project. The project has related records." Remove or reassign those records first.
Plan Limits
The number of projects you can create depends on your WorkCentral plan. These are lifetime totals — they count every project ever created in your organization, including completed and cancelled ones. Deleting a project does not free up a slot.
Projects by Plan
Free — $0/mo — 10 projects
Basic project CRUD (create, read, update, delete). No budget tracking, profitability analysis, or team features.
Professional — $18/mo — 50 projects
Everything in Free, plus budget tracking and profitability analysis on the project detail page.
Business — $36/mo — Unlimited projects
Everything in Professional, plus team member assignment, per-user project rates, team cost analysis, and API access.
Upgrade Prompt Thresholds
WorkCentral shows upgrade banners on the project list page as you approach your limit:
Lifetime Totals: Project limits count every project ever created in your organization. Deleting a project does not free up a slot. Plan your usage accordingly, and upgrade when you need more capacity.
You're Ready to Manage Projects
You now know how to create projects, track budgets, assign team members, and monitor profitability. Next, explore your Kanban boards to organize tasks visually.