Projects can be setup to track postings to revenue, cost of goods sold, and expenses (to all the GL accounts that start with 4, 5, or 6 in the chart of accounts). They can be optional or mandatory.
Projects are often used to filter report results, as in "show me all the expenses associated with Project X".
Depending on your requirements, a project can be ongoing or it can be deactivated it once a specific time frame has passed. A deactivated project can be reactivated if/when needed.
What you'll find:
Projects are easiest to explain with an example: your company is building a new chem shed and wants to track all the expenditures, expenses, and extra revenue of the project.
First, you'll need to create a new project called Chem Shed.
If you setup a project budget, agrē can compare the actual expenses to the budgeted amount.
You can define a default project on specific GL accounts so that when you make manual journal entries to those accounts, the postings will be associated to the project by default.
As expenses occur during construction, you can allocate them manually to the project when non-inventory items are added purchase invoices
Capital expenditures can be allocated to the project when adding Fixed Assets. If you decide to add an HVAC unit so chemicals can be stored in the new shed over the winter, the value of the fixed asset can be adjusted and the expenditure is allocated to the project. As the new chem shed is depreciated, those expenses will be allocated to the default project as well.
Ongoing fixed asset maintenance costs can be allocated to the project using fixed asset expenses.
Products can have a default project too - the sales and COGS postings will be allocated automatically to the project. This could be used to track the revenue and cost of new chemicals that you were able to add to your product line because of the new chem shed.
These are some of the reports commonly filtered by Project, but most reports that deal with revenue and expense accounts (4, 5, and 6 accounts) can be run the same way.
Customer Sales (via Product - More Options)
Inventory Activity - Summary & Detail (via Product - More Options)
Supplier Purchases (via Product - More Options)
GL Account Transaction - Summary & Detail
Income Statements - Comparatives & Budget
These Data Exports include results for Projects:
Product List
Fixed Asset List