Does Project Orientation make Sense?

Yes, now I get what you mean.

Create a Project XYZ123
Create Tasks

  • Order Items (1)
  • Preconfigure PC (2)
  • Setup PC at customers home (3)

Then, when creating a Quote and later the Sales Order be able to link the tasks in the corresponding Sales Order Item?

Then if I invoice a task I would only Invoice the corresponding Sales Order Item and the connected timesheets under the Task which is linked?

Yes.
I miss this feature as well.

So the way I do is I create Items mimicking the Tasks and make SO with these Items.

Works… but still missing the linkage between Project/Tasks and SQ and SO.

It would be fairly easy to solve the links via a custom script which extends the dashboard in the respective doctype.

For me though the invoicing part is one of the biggest pains.

I’m courious to hear what the officials have to say to that.

Hi @hrwx your thoughts on the subject?

Hello @all I have created a graph on how I think the workflow between sales, support and project could be. I have marked existing “Make-buttons” in green. Semi working ones in orange and all missing in red.

Looking forward to you feedback.

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Also I would like to note, there should be many issues to a single task which is not possible with the momentary design of ERPNext.

I’m not entirely sure what you mean by “do not need Project”…

I agree on that Project is something bigger. I figure the ERPNext design uses this as something smaller though, as this can be created from a Sales Order.

If I where to chose I would have a “Make Task” from Sales Order and have the project, as you say as something bigger conjoining all sorts of things that aren’t in ERPNext at the moment. Like e.g. Quotations. I figure a project can start even befor a Lead has become a customer…

I would go for something like this…

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Ok. If it suits your business case, that’s good.

Also what I forgot to mention…we work with Issue a lot. We are in IT services. Most things come in as an issue. For example if a computer is slow we will trouble shoot and find out, that a hard drive needs to be replaced. From this there is a Sales cycle to be started wich can only be starten manually for the moment.

In another case it is a software issue and we need to start replace a whole IT Solution or server system which has several dependencies. In that case we wan’t to escelate an issue right up toward a project and have the “process-trail” tracked…

I’m sure this is also a use-case outside my trade?!

yeah, I have also seen this. But isn’t Cost Center already sufficient for the accounting and controlling purpose?

Also I feel, that the moduul Projects needs a little polishing here and there. For example I can not bill a single Task inside Project. This is something we would like to work towards. Let’s take you construction business as example. I thing we should be able bill the Task “Foundation” befor the project is finished. Also “Roof” should not necessarily be on the same invoice. At the moment I can only bill whole projects and then need to remove all time sheets from the invoice that I don’t need. This a prone for mistakes.
How do you use Projects in your system?

https://docs.erpnext.com/docs/user/manual/en/projects/sales-invoice-from-timesheet

Could you consider making a Service Item (meaning Item in Stock module, and putting the qty, unit, and rates for services rendered in Sales Order, Sales Invoice, Delivery etc.

Yes, that will work. We have tried that also. The trouble is, it will still fetch all other open timesheets to that Invoice as soon as the project field is filled.
Also the option to bill a whole task (from several time sheets) won’t work.

My trouble is not, that it is not possible to do (it is) but there is no clean process which makes it prone for errors which are at this point really annoying as we a booking things for good after which we are not able to correct anything as we would have to cancel sales invoices etc :confused:

You can make a Material Request for Multiple Project

  • for each Item row, Accounting Dimension Section has Project Field
  • projects can be different for each item.

You create a Purchase Order

  • Get Items From Material Request
  • You have one Purchase Order with selected Items for Different projects.
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Is it possible to set the Bill field of Timesheet to Unchecked initially?
You may update the Bill field to checked later - even if the timesheet is already submitted.

all good, I am aware of that. It’s about billing small portions of a project. There is no trouble linking everything together. Though some times it would be nice to have a higher resolution so beeing to be able to link Material Request, Purchase Order etc. at Task level…and then bill just that Task.

Take the “Roof” stated earlier as an example. Have the tiles etc. linked to just that task. If I#m building a house the house is the project split into tasks like, roof, baseplate, woodwork, electrics etc. Or would you put them in separate projects? (there is no sub-project in ERPNext as far as I know)

yes, you can do that. Again, that’s not the problem whether it is possible or not. It’s just the missing work flow in which different use cases are met.

You can structure task as a tree. You can make Roof have Is Group checked, and Tiles can have Roof as Parent Task. You can click Tree on the left to make a tree like in Chart of Accounts

Accounting Dimension might be good for this.
Accounting Dimension → Doctype: Task

This will make Accounting Dimension appear together with Cost Center and Project.

If you want pure Task level, you may do away with Project using Accounting Dimension

that is true, yes. But that’s not my point here. The point is 1. billing 2. workflow

  1. I can not bill the task Roof or one of your suggested subtasks like tiles. Not as one click oder via “make/create” but only by creating a sales invoice and then remove all the timesheets that I don’t want to bill. That is a whole lot of manual work.

  2. working on the roof you might come across issues which would probably lead to creating excactly that. Or your customer could come over to the cunstruction site and have an issue with something that he would raise towards your office. They would the be able to link that to the project but not to the specific task. Like if he saw the pallet on which the tiles are delivered and is worried, that the color of those is not right…

no we are getting closer yes :slight_smile:

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