Project and owner setup

A construction project starts with an owner account and the team that will deliver the work. Record the client or owner name, primary contact, billing terms and account owner before opening the project. Tie the project to its owning organization and project manager. Then record its contract type, value, budget hours, start date and end date. This makes later work packages, time, expenses and site milestones attributable to the same job.

The project record gives commercial and field teams a common reference. The contract value and budget hours are the baseline for later consumption and margin review. Project status separates proposed work from active delivery, held work and completed jobs. The project manager can see dates and ownership next to the amounts that are accumulating through field activity.

• Owner account. The client or owner record carries billing terms and the primary contact for the project.
• Project responsibility. A named project manager and owning organization make escalation clear.
• Commercial baseline. Contract value, budget hours and dates are recorded before delivery is measured.

Agree who creates client or owner records, who confirms billing terms and who can change contract value after work starts. Decide how the team will handle a project on hold and who will resume it. The project manager should settle the meaning of completed work with the commercial lead before changing a project to Completed. Confirm which organization owns a project when crew from another office contributes to it. Record a single accountable manager even when several site leads work on the job.

Use the actual contract and schedule to enter the first project. Check that the client or owner reference, project manager and owning organization resolve to the intended records. Review whether budget hours cover only field delivery or also management work; use the same interpretation when reading hours against budget later.

A regional office wins a fixed fee site installation for an existing owner. Admin finds the active owner account and checks its billing terms and primary contact. Project Manager creates the project with the regional office, contract value, planned start and end dates and budget hours. A Site Lead creates the first milestone only after confirming which project it belongs to. Crew time and work packages then point to the same project. When Commercial Lead opens Project Margin Desk, contract value and delivered work are shown in the context of that project.

If the owner pauses the job, Project Manager marks it on hold and reviews outstanding milestones and billings before work resumes. This keeps the schedule discussion tied to the job record rather than a separate spreadsheet.

• Active Projects — Open jobs with their owner, manager, schedule and current status.
• Proposed Projects — Jobs being prepared before field delivery starts.
• Active Clients — Owner accounts used for current project work.

Project delivery to collection follows the project from setup through billing. Review the data model for project references.