New to Intervals? Have questions or need help?

Can you do Flat Rate projects without using timers?

1. • CommentAuthordsmith
   • CommentTimeNov 11th 2008

    
   I am new to intervals, and currently still on my evaluation period and really like Intervals so far. But we are a design agency that do a significant portion of our work on a flat rate project basis. Can I set up a project based on a flat rate and if so can I simply not use the timers to track hours for that project? I'm trying to learn how to use this tool and see if it will truly work for our agency. Please forgive me if this is a basic question but I would appreciate any insight. Thank you.
2. •  
     CommentAuthorMichael
   • CommentTimeNov 12th 2008

    
   You may want to give this discussion a look. It talks about fixed cost projects, tracking time and the hourly calculations on the project dashboard.
3. • CommentAuthordsmith
   • CommentTimeNov 13th 2008

    
   I saw that discussion and frankly Michael it was way over my head and didn't apply to how I want to use it. I really like the way Intervals works so far, but I need to know very simply how to use this with flat fee-based projects. This thread does not talk about how the timers are involved, if I can forego the timers altogether, how I keep track of my flat fee projects and show those amounts in reports. I also want to use reports at the end of the month that show completed projects with flat rate or hourly totals so I can give to our office manager to input into QuickBooks for invoicing, (We want to continue to use QuickBooks and not Intervals invoicing at this point).
   
   I'm evaluating a ton of project managers right now and Intervals is by far my favorite, but I need some quick answers so I can convince the rest of my team this is the project manager for us. Is there any way I can speak with someone directly, like a sales person or a tech support person to get some quick answers so I can make my decision quicker? Michael, I would appreciate anything you can do to simplify this for me. Thank you tremendously.
   
   Sincerely,
   David
4. •  
     CommentAuthorMichael
   • CommentTimeNov 13th 2008 edited @ 11/13/2008 12:27 pm

    
   You could setup the project budget at the project profile and not track time but every report within Intervals involves time data. If you would like to have someone give you a call please feel free to email a request to support@myintervals.com and someone will follow-up and setup a time.
   
   The other thread does bounce all over the place, but here is one piece of information that may be worth while:
   

   We recommend entering estimated hours and hourly rates for flat bid projects. This is a great reality check to see if the flat bid was big enough and this knowledge can be used for future bids to see if your margins are good or if the big should be increased. Since we primarily do custom development we actually abandoned flat bids altogether because our tracking showed us that each project varied too widely. Now we estimate hours and the total amount and provide a plus or minus 15% range on our contracts. This allows us to not worry so much about keeping the contract under budget but sets up a precedent where our customers know they are buying hours and the scope can change. If your projects are very repeatable and your margins are good this would not be necessary, but it has been a huge improvement for us.