A fixed-price project charges your customer an agreed amount for the whole project, a milestone or a deliverable, however many hours it takes. In Avaza you put a billable fixed amount on each deliverable task, invoice it once the task is done, and track time and expenses to see what the work really cost.

Set up the project

  1. Create the project, then open its settings from the ⋮ menu next to its name and go to Billing & Budget.

  2. Set the Billing Method to Not Billable. Your team still logs time for costing and reporting, but none of it is billed.

  3. Optional but recommended: set the Budget Type to Total Project Fees and enter the total project value. See entering a project budget.

  4. Create a task for each deliverable you'll invoice, and add a fixed amount to each one (see below).

Use Not Billable for every project you bill with fixed amounts. With any other billing method, time in billable categories becomes billable too and appears in Add Time on invoices, so the same work could be billed twice.

If you set a budget, tick Budget alert and choose Cost Rate under Include timesheets based on their:. On a Not Billable project all time is non-billable, so on the Billable Rate basis time wouldn't count towards the budget at all.

Organise the deliverables

Many teams create a task type such as Milestone for the tasks that carry a fixed amount, so they're easy to spot and filter. Ordinary tasks then hold the day-to-day work behind each milestone. An Administrator adds task types in Settings › Project Management Settings. See task types.

Add a fixed amount to a task

  1. Open the task and select the $ tab (Fixed Amounts to Bill).

  2. Under Billable Fixed Amounts, choose the Invoice Inventory Item. Its sale price fills in the amount.

  3. Enter or change the amount, add any notes, and click Add.

    The $ tab of the Homepage build task, with a 1,500 Service fixed amount noted "Homepage build milestone fee" under Billable Fixed Amounts and an empty row for adding another
  • The amount is in the customer's currency.
  • A task can have more than one fixed amount, for example to split a milestone into design and build.
  • Changes to an existing row save as you make them. If the scope changes, edit the amount, or add another fixed amount or milestone task.
  • You need an inventory item first. See managing inventory items.
  • Internal projects have no fixed amounts.

In task lists and on the board, a $ icon marks tasks with a fixed amount. It's blue until every fixed amount on the task is invoiced, then it turns green. Click it to open the task's $ tab.

Invoice completed milestones

A fixed amount is ready to invoice once its task has a completed status.

  1. Create an invoice for the customer and click Add Fixed Amount.

  2. Tick the projects under Add Fixed Amounts from these Projects. Leave Completed Tasks Only ticked to bill only finished tasks.

  3. Choose what each line shows, such as the Task Title and Fixed Amount Notes, and click Add Fixed Amounts.

  4. Save or send the invoice.

Each fixed amount becomes one invoice line with a quantity of 1, using its inventory item's tax. If no fixed amounts match, nothing is added. For example, once Discovery & Planning is complete, Add Fixed Amount adds its USD 2,000. Design Approval and Website Development follow on later invoices as they're completed. See invoicing time, expenses and fixed amounts.

Once invoiced, a fixed amount is locked: you can't edit or delete it, and its task can't be deleted or moved to another project. To change it, remove its line from the invoice, or delete the invoice. See why items don't appear on an invoice.

Other ways to create fixed amounts

  • From an estimate: when you create a project from an estimate, tick Put Line Item Amounts into Task Fixed Billable Amounts.
  • Copying tasks: Copy Section Tasks to copies the tasks' fixed amounts (without their notes) while Fixed Amounts is ticked. Using a project as a template doesn't copy fixed amounts.
  • The Avaza API: see invoicing through the API.

Track the project's costs

A fixed price doesn't stop you seeing whether the project makes money. Track time and expenses as usual:

  • Time: your team logs time on milestone and ordinary tasks. Set each person's Cost Rate on the project's Members tab, or a Cost Amount per timesheet category on the Categories tab. When a category has a cost amount, it's used instead of the person's cost rate. Billable rates don't apply. See cost rates and billable rates.
  • Expenses: record the project's expenses against it and its tasks, such as billable expenses for the customer, costs your team is reimbursed for, and contractor or freelancer costs. They count towards the project's costs.

Report on fixed-price work

Give all your fixed-price projects the same project category or tag, so you can filter them together in reports. See also viewing project profitability.