Projects

A Project is the central record in include GO. Almost everything you do in the system — quoting work, scheduling crews, ordering materials, tracking labor, sending invoices, collecting payments — is connected to a project. If you are brand new to GO, this is the page you will spend the most time on, so it is worth getting comfortable here first.

This article walks through the Projects page from top to bottom, and then through every tab of the Project dialog. You do not need any technical background. If you can use Microsoft Word, you can use this page.

Where to find Projects

Navigation: in the left sidebar, click Projects. The Projects list opens.

You can also reach a specific project from many other pages in GO (the Dashboard, the Tasks page, an invoice, a purchase order, etc.) by clicking the project name. Those shortcuts all open the same dialog described below.

The Projects list

The list is the home base for managing every project in your business unit. It is a spreadsheet-style grid: each row is one project, and the columns show the most important information at a glance.

Across the top of the list is a view switcher with three tabs: Jobs | Indirect | Assets. Jobs shows your billable client projects. Indirect shows internal projects (overhead, training, R&D — anything not billed to a customer). Assets — which appears only if your role can view assets — switches the page to your equipment records, which are covered in their own article: Assets.

What you see on this screen

The columns explained

The default columns appear in this order, left to right:

Sorting, filtering, and saving views

• Sort: click a column header. Click again to reverse, click a third time to clear.

• Filter: hover any column header and click the funnel icon. Type a value and press Enter. Every column supports filtering and sorting — including Status and Margin, which is handy for finding, say, every Production project running under 10% margin.

• Resize / reorder columns: drag the right edge to resize; drag the header itself to a new position.

• Hide or show columns: click the Columns tab on the far right edge of the grid.

• Save a view: once you have the grid the way you like it (sorts, filters, columns), click Saved Views on the right edge and save it under a name. Next time you open Projects, click that name to restore the layout instantly. Each user has their own private views.

The right-click menu

Everything you can do to a project lives in the right-click menu. Right-click any row to open it.

Other items further down the menu let you Add a Project, Clone an existing one, view a Project's Reports, Compose a Message about it, browse its Messages history, copy row data, or export the grid to CSV.

Adding a new project

To create a new project, click the blue + Add Project button in the top-right of the page (or right-click an existing project and choose Add Project). A floating dialog opens with the General tab visible.

You can drag the dialog around by its header bar, resize it from the bottom-right corner, or click the small square icon to maximize it.

You can save a project at any time — you do not have to fill in every field. Fields marked with a red asterisk (*) are the ones GO asks for: Name, Type, and Client Account. In practice only Name is always demanded — the others depend on what kind of project you are creating:

• Name — always required. A project cannot be saved without one.

• Client Account — required when Project Kind is Job. It is not asked for on an Indirect project (there is no customer), and it is not asked for on a sales opportunity, which you can save while you are still working out who the client will be. GO asks for the account later, when the opportunity is promoted down the funnel — see Sales Pipeline. If you try to save a Job without one, the message reads: "A client account is required for a customer Job. Set Project Kind to Indirect if it has no client."

• Type — marked with an asterisk because you should always set one (it drives templates, defaults, and reporting), but GO will let a project save without it so you are not blocked mid-entry. Fill it in before the project leaves Draft.

Everything else can be left blank and filled in later.

The Project dialog

The dialog has six tabs — General, Tasks, Billing, People, Library, and Messages — plus a seventh, Payment Requests, that appears only on projects that use a payment plan. Each tab is described below.

1. General tab — the basics

This is where you enter the core information about the project. You will spend most of your time here.

What you see on this screen

Above the form is a KPI strip that shows Contract, Cost Budget, and Gross Margin in real time — these update as you fill in the numbers below. Under it, the first field is the project Number (auto-assigned; it reads "On save" until the project exists). The project's Status is a field on this tab, sitting under Type beside Start Date — you no longer change it from a pill in the dialog header.

Every field on the General tab

2. Tasks tab — the day-by-day plan

Once you've created a project, the Tasks tab is where you build out the schedule of work that needs to happen.

You'll see:

• Summary cards showing total hours budgeted, status breakdown (how many tasks are in each state), and crew/team utilization.

• A list of tasks on the project. Each task has a name, the team assigned, hours budgeted, and a workflow status.

• + Apply Package button (top-right) — lets you load a pre-built bundle of tasks (e.g., a "Full Spring Cleanup" package with all the standard tasks already filled in). Packages are managed in the Resource Catalog.

• Open Task Planner — for heavy-duty planning, click here to jump out to the full Tasks page filtered to just this project, where you have a much wider workspace, drag-and-drop scheduling, and the Gantt view.

Tip: for anything beyond glancing at tasks, use the full Tasks page (right-click the project row → Go to Tasks). The dialog's Tasks tab is a quick reference, not a full task editor.

3. Billing tab — money in and money out

The Billing tab tracks everything financial about the project. It has three sub-tabs (Ledger, Plan, Settings).

Ledger sub-tab

A running list of every financial event on the project — contract, invoices, payments received, deposits, retainage held, retainage released. Each row is color-coded by type. At the top you'll see a summary strip with key totals: Contract, Invoiced, Received, Outstanding, Retainage Held, and Avg AR Age (how old your unpaid invoices are, in days).

You can also create new entries here without leaving the dialog:

• Request a deposit — for new projects, before any work is done.

• Release retainage — when a milestone or substantial completion releases held funds back to the customer's invoice.

Plan sub-tab

Sets up how the project gets billed. The default is Task-Based, which means invoices are generated as tasks are completed. Other options:

• Milestone — bill at named project milestones (e.g., 25% at signing, 50% at framing, 25% at completion).

• Installments — equal recurring invoices on a fixed schedule (e.g., monthly).

• Progress (SOV) — bill according to a Schedule of Values; lines on the SOV tab become invoice line items.

• % Completion — bill against the percentage of work physically completed.

When you pick anything other than Task-Based, a Payment Requests tab appears in the dialog where you manage the schedule of payments.

Settings sub-tab

Toggles and rates that affect billing for this specific project: payment terms (Net 30, Net 60, etc.), retainage percentage, tax entity, and whether the project is taxable. Most of these can be left at the defaults — change them only when a specific project needs different terms from your standard.

Snow projects: on projects with a snow-services contract, the Billing tab also shows a Snow Estimator section for building the per-event or seasonal pricing that drives snow billing.

4. Payment Requests tab (conditional)

This tab appears only when the Billing → Plan sub-tab has a payment plan type set (Milestone, Installments, Progress (SOV), or % Completion). It lists the payment requests scheduled for the project and lets you release them as invoices when their trigger conditions are met (a date reached, a milestone signed off, etc.).

5. People tab — who is involved

Two main fields and one list:

• Project Manager — searchable dropdown of your team members. The PM is responsible for running the project day-to-day.

• Sales Rep — the salesperson on the project (drives commission tracking).

• Affiliated People grid — a combined view of everyone attached to the project, in this order: the Project Manager, the Sales Rep, the project's own Primary Contact, and then the client account's contacts (Primary Contact, Payments Contact, "Can Approve" contacts). Each person has a colored role badge so you can see at a glance who plays which part, and nobody is listed twice — if the same person is both PM and a contact, they appear once, under the first role that claimed them.

The Affiliated People grid also surfaces company, title, email, and phone for each person, so you can scan it before phoning the site.

A note on the Primary Contact. The project carries a primary contact of its own, separate from the client account's contacts. This matters most on a sales opportunity that does not have a client account yet: the person you have been talking to is on the project, so they show up here under a green Primary Contact badge even though there is no account to pull contacts from. Once the account is filled in, its contacts join the list underneath.

6. Library tab — project files

A simple file repository for the project. Upload contracts, photos, sketches, permits, signed change orders, anything else you want to keep with the project.

• Drag and drop files into the grid to upload, or click Upload.

• Files are color-tagged by type (PDF, IMG, DOC, XLS).

• Right-click a file to download, rename, or delete it.

7. Messages tab — communication history

A thread of every message logged against the project — emails sent through GO, internal team-chat conversations, and follow-ups. You can compose a new message right from this tab.

• Each message shows the sender, recipient(s), date/time, and a preview of the body.

• Right-click any message to Reply — your reply is sent and logged automatically.

• For longer team conversations, use the team chat icon in the top-right of GO; those conversations are also captured here.

Editing an existing project

You don't need to use the + Add Project button to change a project. Three ways to open the same dialog:

1. Right-click the project row → Edit Project. (Most common.)

2. From any other page (Tasks, an invoice, etc.) click the project name.

3. From the Dashboard, click a project tile.

If the project was spawned from a sales opportunity, its Contract Role reads Child Estimate and a small "Spawned from …" link sits just underneath, naming the opportunity it came from. Click it to open that opportunity. The opportunity is where the funnel lives — which estimate the forecast counts, and how the handoff happened — and it is covered in Sales Pipeline, not here.

The dialog opens to whichever tab you last had open (so if you close it from Billing, it reopens on Billing). Click Save at the bottom-right to keep your changes, or Cancel to throw them away. If you try to close the dialog with unsaved changes, GO will warn you first.

Project status & workflow

Every project has a workflow status, shown in the Status column of the list and in the Status field on the dialog's General tab — it sits directly under Type, beside Start Date. Statuses are not just labels — they control what you can and can't do at each stage.

The Status field behaves differently depending on what you are doing:

• Creating a project (or cloning one): it is a plain dropdown listing the workflow's states. Pick the one the project should start in. If you change the Workflow field further down, the Status list re-points at the new workflow's states and jumps to its first stage.

• Editing a saved project: it becomes the live transition control. Picking a new status moves the project immediately — it does not wait for you to click Save.

The default Construction Project workflow has eight states:

1. Draft — being set up. Everything is editable.

2. Estimate — pricing in progress; not yet sent to the client.

3. Proposed — proposal sent; waiting on the client.

4. Sold — client has signed; ready to schedule work.

5. Production — work is happening on site.

6. Complete — all tasks done; invoicing wrap-up.

7. Archived — closed out for reporting; usually not edited.

8. On Hold — paused; can be reactivated.

The Maintenance Project workflow has six states (Draft → Scheduled → In Progress → Complete → Archived, plus On Hold).

To change the status, open the Status field on the General tab and pick from the available transitions. GO only shows transitions that are valid from the current state — for example, you can't jump from Draft directly to Complete. Some transitions also have guards that prevent unsafe moves (e.g., you can't mark a project Complete while crew members are still clocked in to its tasks, or while time entries are unapproved). When a guard blocks you, GO will tell you why and what you need to do first.

When a project becomes Sold

Moving a project into Sold (or any later stage) usually means the work underneath it is sold too — but the tasks you built while quoting are still sitting in Draft or Estimate. So GO asks:

"Move tasks to Sold?" — "This project is now Sold. Move its N Draft/Estimate task(s) to Sold as well? You can also do this later from the tasks grid."

Click Move to Sold to bring them along, or Not now to leave them where they are. Nothing moves unless you say so, and choosing Not now costs you nothing — you can always move the tasks later from the Tasks grid. The prompt only appears when there are tasks eligible to move, and only the first time the project crosses into a sold-or-later status.

Workflows can also lock individual fields at certain stages. When a field is locked it appears read-only with a small lock icon — for example, many workflows lock the Type or Client Account once a project is in Production. Which fields lock at which stage is configurable per workflow — see Workflows. This keeps history clean.

Templates — saving time on similar projects

If you do the same kind of work over and over (e.g., a standard "Spring Cleanup" or "Sod Install — 1,000 sq ft" job), you can save a project as a template and reuse it.

• To save: right-click an existing project that's already set up the way you like, choose Save as Template, give it a name, and you're done.

• To use: at the top of the Projects page, switch to the Templates tab, find your template, and click Create Project from Template. The new project is pre-populated with the template's tasks, resources, scope, and notes — you just fill in the Client and dates.

Templates are a huge productivity win for repeat work.

Proposals — from project to signed contract

Right-click a project and choose Generate Proposal to open the proposal builder. From there you can assemble a client-ready proposal, present tiered pricing with the bracket ladder, share a link the client can sign electronically, and download a PDF copy. The full workflow — recipients, sharing, e-signing, and downloading — is covered in Proposals.

Assets — tracking equipment like projects

The Assets tab at the top of the Projects list switches the page to your equipment records — trucks, trailers, skid steers, and other machinery your crews use. An asset is tracked much like a project: it has its own detail page and costs, and it can be scheduled onto work from the Schedule board. See Assets for the full walkthrough.

Bulk actions

You can update many projects at once. To select multiple rows, click the checkbox at the left of each row (or click the header checkbox to select everything visible). Then right-click → Bulk Actions, and pick one of:

• Tags — add or remove tags across all selected projects.

• Sales Rep — put the same sales rep on every selected project.

• Project Manager — same, for the PM. This is the fastest way to hand a departing manager's book of work to someone else.

• Workflow State — move every selected project to the same status in one go. All the projects you selected must be running on the same workflow; if they are not, GO stops and tells you “Mixed workflows selected — change the workflow state one workflow at a time.” Each project still has to pass its workflow's own guards, and any that cannot move are reported back to you.

• Project Type — re-type a batch of projects at once.

• Margin Change — reprice the work on every selected project. Covered on its own below.

  

The Bulk Actions submenu only appears once you have rows selected, and only if your role can edit projects.

Margin Change — repricing a batch of projects

Margin Change is built for the job nobody looks forward to: renewal season, when every maintenance contract needs the same few points added to its pricing. Instead of opening each project and editing resources by hand, select the projects in the grid, right-click → Bulk Actions → Margin Change, and set the new margin once.

The dialog asks three things:

Clicking Review does not apply anything — it shows you a confirmation panel with the number of selected projects, the change you asked for, and the categories it will touch. Apply margin is the button that commits it; Back returns you to the form.

What it changes and what it does not. The sweep walks every task on every selected project and reprices each eligible resource. Costs are never touched — only the selling prices that sit on top of them. Assembly header rows are skipped, because they take their price from the items underneath and re-roll automatically once those change. Each project's totals are recalculated afterwards, and each task records the change in its history, so you can see later that a margin sweep touched it.

Read the toast when it finishes. A margin sweep is not a one-click undo, so GO tells you exactly what happened:

• "Margin updated — N project(s), N resource(s) repriced." Everything went through.

• "N updated, N skipped" in amber. A project is skipped when it has no tasks, or no resources the sweep could reprice. The projects are named so you can go and look at them.

• "N raised to their minimum-margin floor." Some resources have a minimum gross margin configured. If your figure would drop one below its floor, GO raises it to the floor instead of going under, and reports how many.

• "N left unchanged — the result would reach a 100% margin." An Adjust by figure that would push a resource to a 100% margin leaves that resource alone.

You can sweep up to 500 projects at a time — one full page of the grid.

Reassigning a project lead. The Bulk Actions menu covers Sales Rep and Project Manager. To move a batch of projects to a different project lead, ask the AI assistant — e.g. "reassign the project lead on these projects to Maria." It will list what it is about to change and wait for your yes before doing it. See AI Assistant.

Permissions — who can do what

Access to the Projects page is controlled by your role:

If you don't see the + Add Project button, or a menu item appears greyed out, it's a permissions issue — ask an admin to update your role. Roles are managed in Settings → Roles & Permissions.

Tips & best practices

• Save often. The dialog does not auto-save. If you spend 20 minutes filling out the General tab and close the dialog by accident, the work is gone. Get into the habit of clicking Save every time you finish a tab.

• Use Save as Template for repeat work. The 30 seconds it takes to save a template will save you 10 minutes on every future project of the same kind.

• Set the workflow status as you go. Don't leave everything in Draft. Statuses drive the Dashboard, reports, and what crews see. A project still in Draft after work has started is invisible to most of your team.

• Keep Notes internal, Scope and Description client-facing. Scope and Description appear on proposals. Notes never do — use Notes for anything you wouldn't want the client to read.

• Use the Tasks page for real planning. The Tasks tab in the dialog is a glance view. For dragging timelines, assigning crews, or seeing the Gantt, jump to the full Tasks page.

• Review before you apply a margin change. The Review step exists because a margin sweep touches every resource on every selected project and there is no single undo. Read the confirmation panel — project count, the change, and the categories — before clicking Apply margin.

• Watch the KPI strip. If you enter a Contract and a Cost Budget on the General tab, the Gross Margin number at the top updates instantly. If it goes red or below your target, you'll see it before you save.

Common questions

I can't change the project type after creating it. Your project's workflow has locked the Type field at its current stage (you'll see a lock icon next to it). Either move the project back to an earlier stage (if your role allows), ask an admin to adjust the workflow's field locks, or create a new project with the right type.

How do I delete a project that has invoices? You can't delete it directly. Mark the project Archived instead — it stays in the system for reporting but is removed from active views. To filter out archived projects, use the Status column filter and uncheck "Archived".

My client paid me but the project still shows Outstanding. Payments are entered on the Cash & Credit Manager (or auto-pulled from Plaid if you have a bank feed). Once the payment is recorded against the invoice, the project's Received and Outstanding totals update automatically.

What's the difference between Margin and Actual Margin? Margin uses your budgeted cost. Actual Margin uses the costs you've actually incurred so far. Early in a project they should be similar; late in a project a big gap means you're either ahead of budget or over.

I ran a Margin Change and some projects were skipped. A project is skipped when it has no tasks at all, or when none of its resources could be repriced (for example, everything on it is an assembly header, which takes its price from the items underneath). The skipped projects are named in the message so you can open them and check.

I set a margin of 40% but some resources came out higher. Those resources have a minimum gross margin configured that is above what you entered. GO raises them to their floor rather than pricing below it, and tells you how many it lifted.

Can I attach the same file to multiple projects? Each project's Library is independent. Upload the file once per project, or store shared documents in your Accounts page (on the client's record) where they're visible across all that client's projects.

Related topics

• Tasks — Where day-by-day project work is planned and updated.

• Accounts — Where clients (and their contacts and locations) are managed.

• Project Types — How project types are configured in Settings.

• Branches — Geographic divisions that can be assigned to a project.

• Profit Centers — Internal reporting categories for revenue.

• Chart of Accounts — The AR and AP accounts referenced in the General tab.

• Roles & Permissions — How project access is controlled.

• Workflows — Statuses, transitions, and field locks.

• Assets — Equipment records shown on the Assets tab of this page.

• Proposals — Building, sharing, and e-signing proposals from a project.

• Sales Pipeline — Opportunities, the forecast, and how an estimate project is spawned from one.