markkokaru

If you set the project up with defined budget (total project fees) and charge with person hourly rate then the project should appear on your opening page dashboard or in Reports > Time > Projects.

I would also add to this topic as I was looking for a way to see company cash flow after VAT. The problem here is that for expenses the number in Harvest equals the number we have to pay but for revenues we have to deduct VAT to see how much money we actually have made.

The way VAT works in Estonia (I guess UK is similar) that companies must pay VAT for the sums they have charged for in a month but they can deduct the VAT from incoming invoices during that period. If company earns €100 they invoice €120 (20% VAT) and if they buy goods and services for the same amount during that month they have no obligation to pay VAT. Also, If company earns less than it spends (happens when you buy some equipment etc) they can ask for VAT refund.

Back to Harvest. Let’s say I have currently three projects, budgeted for €1000 each, with VAT I will invoice €3600. One project has some print production for €600 (incl VAT). How much money company made? Correct is 2500 but in Harvest I would see 3000.

When we charge foreign companies we do not charge VAT, that makes the overview even more complicated. Same goes to the retainer example Dan was making: the VAT is paid based on invoices, not on transactions: if the payment period is half a year, the VAT is paid when the invoice is issued, not when the money gets paid.

Easy fix? Keep track on cash and VAT separately. If Dan has worked for £2000 and has invoiced previously for £1200 then you have to make Harvest to note that £200 of that previous sum was charged as VAT and now the client will be charged £1200 again, the system treated this £2000 as “sum to be invoiced” and paid invoice of £1200 as “sum already received”.

+1. Since the company is growing, we need to start tracking project profitability and it is impossible without the ability to designate project expenses to project budgets. I like the design and simplicity of Harvest but time tracking ability does not cover our software needs. Please put this issue on “critical” list (as Dominic noted, users have giving you feedback on this issue since 2009) or we have to migrate to other software.

Same comment: first I create an estimation, then I will create a project based on that estimation. It does not make sense to create project from scratch when I already entered data for estimation.