This step assumes that you created a project template ahead of time. From menu Projects > List Projects select the Create from Template from the "more" toolbar button menu.

Select a template from the sub-menu (list of template projects in your library).

Use a consistent naming convention for templates if you have several in your company so people can find them (e.g. fixed vs. hourly)

You will be presented with a copy of the selected template in create mode. Enter key information for your new project including:

1. Brief description of your project (as the client would like to see it written on an invoice)
2. Select the project leader from list of employees
3. Select the customer from customer organizations in the system. If you have created bill-to and project delivery or sell-to customers in a sites hierarchy you should select a project or sell-to customer here. The bill-to HQ organization for that customer will be picked up in the customer invoice automatically
4. If you have set up more than one company in iBE select/modify your the company responsible for project delivery. You can also optionally select a department responsible
5. Under department select the project billing contact, from the list of customer contacts defined in iBE for your project customer or its bill-to HQ
6. Enter the total value of the project i.e. the total amount approved to charge the customer. This value is stored as a purchase order in the project FUNDS tab (see step below)
7. Enter the project code based on your company's coding convention. iBE can also be set up to internally generate project codes
8. Optionally enter a more detailed project description or project goals (not normally viewed by the customer).

The template project start and finish dates will need to be adjusted based on your project schedule, especially if the template was created some time ago. Edit the start and end dates in project KEY INFO tab:

• The start date is the earliest date any tasks within the project can start. Time cannot be booked to this project prior to the start date
• The end date is the end of the contract. For open ended or on-going contracts put Dec 31st of the current year or 1, 2 or 3 years after the start date based on your typical initial contract terms

Always click on the Schedule button next to project start/end dates to align the task and milestone dates to the project, otherwise you may not be able to save the project. Depending on how your project type scheduling parameters are set-up you will have the option to schedule the template project tasks to match the project dates, move with the new project dates but retain their lead time offsets from the new project start date, or move based on dependencies or constraints between project tasks.

It is recommended that you save your new project before leaving the KEY INFO tab

When you created your new project from a template the milestones, tasks and sub-tasks in the template project were copied to new tasks in your new project. Click on the TASKS tab to review these tasks in particular:

1. Milestone tasks which often appear in the customer invoice as billable deliverables. Modify the task description based on your customer contract and note the checked MILESTONE column. They should be parent tasks at the top level of your task hierarchy
2. Task types assigned from the template. Billable T&M, work input and internal task types allow time to be booked, while project expenses task types are used to record and bill expenses and project vendor bills. Fixed price task types are used for tasks where you still book time, but billing is not based on hours worked rather on actual quantity delivered
3. Modify specific task start and finish dates if applicable. Task dates must fall inside the project start/finish dates and inside the start/finish dates of the parent task just above
4. Select resources for each task from employees in your organization. You can select more than one resource for each task. At this stage you need to select resources repeatedly for each task they work on (there are options to auto-resourcing/mass-resourcing)
5. Check the services assigned to each task. The service is what you are selling to your customer for each deliverable and will vary from standard/overtime/expenses to more explicit descriptions of what is being delivered from your service list or catalog. Rates are often defined by service (see step below).

Task resource assignments control who can book time or expenses, as well as planned costs and projected revenues based on planned or actual hours and labor rates

There are two places you can edit labor rates on the project, depending on the type of contract:

• Goto the project RESOURCES tab to check and assign a billing rate code to each resource and to edit rates for each billing rate code that are independent of milestone, task or service on the project
• After that optionally open the RATES tab to edit labor rates for each task, milestone or service on the project (see step 6 below)

In RESOURCE tab you can:

1. View the default resource billing rate code pulled from the employee record (JOB tab)
2. Modify or assign a project-specific rate code by clicking in the PROJECT RATE CODE column and selecting a rate. This takes priority over the default rate on this one project. You cannot bill a resource without one of either a RATE CODE or a PROJECT RATE CODE
3. Edit the billing rate for any resource by clicking in the RATE column and editing the rate from a given date forwards in the popup. Add rows (rate, date) to this popup to change rates for this resource over time. You can use any currency and time unit just be sure to enter the rate in the typical iBE price or cost format e.g. '50 USD/Hour'
4. View the cost rate that will be used for this resource on the project, pulled from the employee record (COMPENSATION tab: look for Standard Cost).

Editing the billing rate for a resource adjusts the same rate for other resources in the project sharing the same billing rate code

After clicking on the RATES tab you can edit labor rates specifically for each group of tasks in the project based on the assigned service from the TASKS tab. The project RATES tab displays a table with one row per service in the project and one column for each unique resource billing rate code. New rows are added as new services are assigned to TASKS and new columns are added as new billing rate codes are assigned to RESOURCES. In the RATES tab you can:

1. Edit the billing rate for a specific resource's rate code and service combination. For example in the screen shot below we have entered a rate for the standard time task/service of $50 (team leader) and $60 (project mgr) per hour, but at the same time entered an overtime rate for the overtime task/service of 1.5x namely $75 (team leader) and $90 (project mgr) per hour. There is no point in defining labor rates for expenses tasks
2. Add new or remove no-longer-needed services by clicking the add/delete row column on the far left. Services are usually added to this RATES table automatically as they are assigned to project tasks however on occasion you may need to edit then yourself
3. Edit the service rate or not to exceed (NTE) amount. This is not used for time & materials contracts other than to define a not to exceed amount in each billing period, if your project type and billing method are set-up appropriately. You can also hide this column
4. If you want to quickly fill out resource rates for all rows (all services) or service/task rates for all columns (all resources) then click on the Copy Rates button in just above the RATES table and either copy the rates up and down each column (giving the same rate for all services), or copy the rates across each row (giving the same rate on a given service for all resources). You can still edit individual rates after doing this.

The pricing strategy for this project is explained just above the RATES table, which in this case is by resource (rate code or column) and then by service (row). Other pricing strategies your system administrator can define are by service offered, by task or milestone, based on quantity delivered and/or fixed recurring fees

After you define the billing rates you should plan work-hours for each billable project resource to enable you to manage planned or projected revenues.

• For a T&M project the planned labor revenue = hours * billing rate for each task/resource
• For a fixed price project the planned service revenue = planned quantity * service rate for each fixed price or quantity-tracked task. Refer to a separate topic for fixed price set-up

With T&M engagements you have the option to use a project in iBE to plan your proposed resources, rates and work-efforts and allow the system to compute the projected or quoted revenue to your customer. Or you can negotiate your quotation offline and then edit the planned hours for one or more resources in the project to achieve the quoted revenue.

Since projected labor revenue = hours * billing rate you must enter planned hours for a resource equal to the planned labor revenue / that resource's billing rate. If you are computing the quoted revenue offline it is recommended to enter planned hours on a single resource for each PO line item, not against multiple resources. For example if the quotes or projected revenue for line 1 of the customer's PO (straight time) was $6,000 then set the planned effort for either project manager (Adam or Richard in our example) to 100 hours, because $6,000 = $60/hr * $100 hrs.

To edit the planned hours for a resource on a task you have two options:

1. If the task has a single resource assigned then you can click in the PLANNED EFFORT column in the project TASK tab and enter the planned effort for that task's single resource directly. You can show the PLANNED EFFORT column if hidden from the column menu
2. If the task has multiple resources you must first click on the edit-pencil next to your task and once in the task detail screen click on the (task) RESOURCES tab. In the task RESOURCES tab you can click in the PLANNED EFFORT column for any resource to edit their planned hours

Sometimes the planned effort defaults as the task duration. Make sure you delete or clear any unwanted planned efforts on any billable task resources to avoid over-stating your projected labor revenues. To check the projected revenues for a specific task (as opposed to for the whole project per step 10) click on the DATES/QTY tab and inspect the projected revenue row in planned column.

Projects where expenses are billed on top normally are negotiated with a max. not to exceed amount or max. % of labor revenue. You can enter the projected billable and non-billable expenses tab by going back to the project (< PROJECT) and then clicking on the EXPENSES tab.

In this tab you can:

1. Enter a mark-up % meaning that all expenses will be marked up by this % before billing to client
2. Enter an expenses budget which is used for reporting purposes, comparing actual expenses recorded to this project vs. the planned expenses budget entered here
3. Uncheck the '100% Billable' box to indicate that some portion of the expenses budget is non-billable and should not be part of the planned revenue but will still impact the planned cost for expenses on this project. In the screen below we have indicated that of the total $12,500 expense budget on this project, $250 is non-billable meaning the remainder ($12,250) are part of the customer's expense budget
4. Click the alarm clock icon to schedule an alert for the project manager or someone, when actual + remaining expenses budget goes over-budget
5. Click on the + sign in the table below to assign special expense type policies on this project, such as billing or reimbursing certain expenses at a special rate.

You can keep explicitly track each customer purchase order via the project FUNDS tab. After clicking FUNDS tab for each purchase order you can edit the:

• Purchase order number
• Date it was issued
• Funded amount (which defaults from the Total Value field in KEY INFO tab)
• Amount remaining on this purchase order.

After adjusting planned or projected labor, service and expense tabs, it is important to recalibrate the project financially. To do this either wait for up to one hour, or click on the more toolbar button and select 'Update Project Financials' from the menu, as shown below.

After saving your project and clicking 'Update Project Financials' the planned or projected revenue will be recalculated as explained in step 7 (based on sum of planned hours * labor rate for each task & resource). Don't forget to reload your project from the same menu.

Project financials are automatically updated every hour based on changes to tasks but it does no harm to manually trigger project financial updates from time to time