Workflow: Project Delivery — From Proposal to Final Invoice

Modules involved: Proposals · Contracts · Projects · Milestones · Tasks · Timesheets · Expenses · Documents · Invoices · Resource Workload · Goals · OKR
Who uses it: Project Manager, Project team, Commercial Director, Finance, Client (portal)
Typical duration: Weeks – months (over the project duration)

Overview

The project delivery workflow covers the full cycle of a services project: from the commercial proposal to the final invoice and profitability analysis. It is used by professional services companies — IT, consulting, software implementations, construction, creative agencies, event management, systems integrators. The difference from simple sales (Lead → Invoice) is the complexity of execution: the project involves multiple people, multiple deliverables, daily timesheets, and staged invoicing (per milestone or monthly).

CRMConnect simultaneously manages the commercial aspects (Proposal, Contract), operational aspects (Project, Tasks, Timesheets, Expenses), and financial aspects (partial invoicing per milestone, final invoice, eFactura). The profitability report calculated at the end provides the complete picture: (total invoiced) − (project expenses) − (hours × internal cost) = net margin.

Two main contract variants: Projects can be run as fixed price (the amount is set regardless of hours) or T&M — Time & Materials (actually worked hours × hourly rate + expenses are invoiced). Both variants are covered in this workflow, with differences noted throughout.

Flow diagram

[PROJECT PROPOSAL (Proposal)]
  │  scope, deliverables, team, timeline, fixed price or T&M
  │  sent to client → status: Sent
  │
  ├── Client negotiates → Proposal revisions
  │
  └── Client accepts → status: Accepted
  │
  ↓
[CONTRACT SIGNED]
  │  terms: contract type (fixed price / T&M), payment milestones,
  │  penalties, delivery deadlines, acceptance terms
  │  digital signature from client portal or physical + scan
  │
  ↓
[PROJECT SETUP]
  │  Project created (linked to Contract + Client)
  │  Milestones: Phase 1, Phase 2, Final Delivery + deadline for each
  │  Team allocated: PM + members + external/subcontractors
  │  Resource Workload verified (available capacity)
  │  Billing type configured on project: T&M (billable hours) or Fixed rate
  │
  ↓
[EXECUTION — PER PHASE / MILESTONE]
  │
  ├── Tasks created on the current milestone
  │     │  each task: assignee, deadline, estimated hours
  │     │  priority, detailed description, attachments
  │
  ├── Timesheets recorded daily (or via timer)
  │     │  hours × rate → invoiced cost vs. planned budget
  │     │  approved by PM before invoicing
  │
  ├── Expenses added along the way
  │     │  travel, licenses, hosting, subcontractors, materials
  │     │  attachment receipt/invoice; Billable = Yes or No
  │
  └── Documents delivered
        │  deliverables from each phase (specs, design, code, reports)
        │  attached in Document Management, organized per milestone
  │
  ↓
[MILESTONE REACHED → PARTIAL INVOICE]
  │  Partial acceptance document signed by client
  │  Invoice for % of contract value or the invoiced deliverable
  │  eFactura if B2B client
  │  Milestone marked Completed in project
  │
  ↓ (repeated per phase)
  │
  ↓
[FINAL DELIVERY]
  │  all tasks: Done
  │  all milestones: Completed
  │  Final Acceptance Report signed by client
  │  → attached in Document Management
  │  Project → status: Finished
  │
  ↓
[FINAL INVOICE]
  │  remaining balance from contract (after deducting partial invoices)
  │  eFactura if B2B
  │  payment received
  │
  ↓
[POST-PROJECT]
  │  Profitability report: invoiced − expenses − (hours × internal cost)
  │  Lessons learned → Knowledge Base / project note
  │  Post-delivery warranty tracking (if in contract)
  │  Identify extension / maintenance opportunity → new Lead / Opportunity
  │
[PROJECT COMPLETE ✓ · MARGIN CALCULATED ✓]

Step by step

1. The Proposal — The commercial document

Where: /admin/proposals → Add Proposal

Structure of a Proposal for a project:

Price variants in Proposal:

Proposal statuses:

Practical tip: Create Proposal templates per project type (ERP implementation, web project, HR consulting). Clone the template and adjust the specific values. Save 60–70% of offer preparation time.

2. The Contract — Legal and commercial terms

Where: /admin/contracts → Add Contract or from Proposal → Create Contract

Key contract fields for a project:

Digital signature:

• Client receives link by email → accesses portal → reads and signs
• Signature is recorded with timestamp and IP
• Signed PDF is automatically attached to contract in Document Management

Retention / performance bond (in large projects):

3. Project Setup — Initial configuration

Where: /admin/projects → Add Project

Linking the project to the contract:

• From contract → Create Project button (imports client, description, value)
• Or from Projects menu → "Contract" field filled in manually

Key project fields:

Milestone configuration:

Practical tip: Do not configure milestones "generically". Discuss with the client and align CRM milestones with the dates in the signed contract. Each milestone must have a fixed date and a clear acceptance criterion.

Checking team capacity (Resource Workload):

Where: /admin/resource_workload

Before finalizing the timeline, check whether the proposed team members have available capacity during the project period. Resource Workload shows current allocation per person across all active projects. Avoid over-allocation, which leads to delays.

4. Execution — Tasks, Timesheets, Expenses

Where: Tasks tab in Project + /admin/staff/timesheets + /admin/expenses

4a. Tasks per phase

Task structure in projects:

Task statuses:

Task visibility type:

4b. Timesheets — Logging hours

Team members' daily workflow:

1. When starting a task → start the timer ▶ from the task or from Timesheets
2. On pause or completion → stop the timer ■
3. Add a descriptive note of what was done (appears on invoice for T&M projects)
4. PM reviews and approves timesheets weekly

Comparison of estimated vs. logged hours:

The "Project Overview" report within each project shows:

Practical tip for fixed price projects: Even if invoicing is not per hour, record all hours in Timesheets. At the end of the project, the profitability report (hours × internal cost) shows whether the project was profitable or whether the scope was underestimated.

4c. Project expenses

Common expense types:

Recording subcontractor expense:

5. Milestone reached — Partial invoice (Progress Billing)

Where: /admin/invoices → Add Invoice (or from Project → Create Invoice)

Milestone invoicing process:

1. PM confirms milestone is delivered and accepted by client
2. Partial acceptance document attached in Document Management (signed by client)
3. Invoice issued for the contractual percentage corresponding to the milestone
4. Invoice sent to client (email or portal)
5. Milestone marked Completed in project

Calculation variants for partial invoice:

Partial invoice structure (T&M):

Line 1: Consulting services — Sprint 1 (Jan 12–26)
          Ana Ionescu — 35h × 100 EUR/h = 3,500 EUR
Line 2: Development services — Sprint 1 (Jan 12–26)
          Mihai Pop — 42h × 80 EUR/h = 3,360 EUR
Line 3: Design tool license (Figma — Jan 2025)
          1 × 45 EUR = 45 EUR
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
                              Subtotal: 6,905 EUR
                              VAT 19%:  1,311.95 EUR
                              TOTAL:    8,216.95 EUR

Partial invoice structure (fixed price per milestone):

Line 1: Phase 1 — Analysis and Requirements Documentation
          Per contract no. X/2025 — 20% of contract value
          1 × 10,000 RON = 10,000 RON
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
                              Subtotal: 10,000 RON
                              VAT 19%:   1,900 RON
                              TOTAL:    11,900 RON

6. Revisions and scope change management

The "scope creep" problem — how to manage it in CRM:

Any new client requirement that exceeds the contractual scope must be documented and approved before execution:

1. New requirement identified (in email, in meeting, in comment)
2. Internal task created: "New requirement evaluation — [short description]"
3. PM assesses impact (additional hours, cost, timeline impact)
4. Additional Sales Order created → sent to client for approval
5. Client approves → Contract amendment created
6. Only after signing the amendment → additional tasks created in project

Practical tip: Even email approval of an extra cost is sufficient legally, but the best workflow is a signed contract amendment. Document Management keeps all contract versions and amendments in one place.

7. Final delivery and acceptance

Where: Project → all tasks → Done; Document Management

Final delivery checklist:

Final Acceptance Report:

• Document signed by both parties
• Confirms that all deliverables have been handed over and accepted
• Triggers the right to the final payment installment
• Attached in Document Management on the project

8. Final invoice

Where: /admin/invoices → Add Invoice

Calculating the final balance:

Total contract value:              50,000 RON
(-) Advance invoice (30%):        -15,000 RON
(-) Milestone 1 invoice (20%):    -10,000 RON
(-) Milestone 2 invoice (20%):    -10,000 RON
(-) 5% retention from payments:    -1,250 RON
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Final invoice balance:             13,750 RON
(+VAT 19%:                          2,612 RON)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
TOTAL FINAL INVOICE:               16,362 RON

Retention note: If the contract includes a performance retention (e.g., 5% of each invoice withheld for 12 months post-delivery), this is invoiced separately upon expiry of the warranty period.

9. Post-project — Analysis and continuity

Where: Project → Overview tab (report); /admin/knowledge_base; /admin/opportunities

Project profitability report:

Healthy margin by project type:

Lessons Learned — documenting in Knowledge Base:

Continuity opportunity:

• Project completed → new Lead or Opportunity: "Project X extension — annual maintenance"
• Tag on client: "Project delivered — [Project type]" for future campaign targeting

What is created automatically

Points where the workflow can block

Relevant reports

• Project Overview — tab within project — logged vs. estimated hours per task, total expenses, milestone progress, estimated profitability
• Timesheets report — /admin/staff/timesheets — hours per person per project per period; who is most productive per project type
• Resource Workload — /admin/resource_workload — current and future allocation of the entire team; identify overloading
• Project invoicing report — Invoices filtered per project — total invoiced, remaining balance from contract
• Proposal pipeline — Proposals in Sent status — how many are pending, total pipeline value
• Project goals — targets delivered on time vs. actual; internal NPS per project type
• OKR — alignment of the project portfolio with the company's strategic objectives (e.g., "Grow implementation revenue by 40% in 2025")

Modules involved — detailed documentation

• Proposals
• Contracts
• Projects
• Milestones
• Tasks
• Timesheets
• Expenses
• Document Management
• Invoices
• Resource Workload
• Goals
• OKR

← Back to Workflows