Help · Money

Reports, cost and margin

Reports answers two questions. What did I do, and which of it was worth doing.

Pick a range

Any date range you like. Save the ones you use often as presets, so “this month” or “this quarter” is one click rather than two date pickers.

What it shows

• Hours and billed value per project, with a total.
• How much is still unbilled, which is the number most freelancers actually want.
• A day by day bar strip, so a suspiciously empty Tuesday is visible at a glance.
• Projects at 75% or more of their budget, counted as at risk.
• Cost, margin and effective rate where you have set a cost rate.

The margin view

Give a project a cost rate and Reports will show what the work cost you against what it earned, with a margin column. This is the column that tells a studio which client is quietly losing money, and it is usually a surprise the first time.

It is internal and local. Cost rates never appear on an invoice, in a PDF, or in the Xero export, and the margin column is not something to send anyone. If you have not set a cost rate, projects are marked so you know the figure is incomplete rather than zero.

Effective rate

Billed value divided by hours, per project. When a fixed fee project finally ends, this is the number to look at before quoting the next one like it.

Getting the numbers out

Every report exports, as CSV for a spreadsheet, as an Excel file, or as a printable page. See the export page for the shapes you get.

Next: CSV, Excel and PDF · rates · budgets