Zero dollar time and cost cards
When you use Projector, you will almost certainly end up having zero dollar time or cost cards on T&M or NTE contracts. What happens to these zero dollar cards? This page recommends three approaches. All of them involve including the zero value cards on an actual, issued invoice. This may seem like an unnecessary step as of course I'm not going to invoice these! However, keep in mind that a primary function of Projector is to prevent revenue leakage - instances where cards that should be billed are not entered, not approved, or not invoiced. By taking all cards through the entire process you ensure that at all levels the correct amount was charged for them. If a resource sets the wrong rate on a card, the PM may catch it on approval or the Finance team may catch it on invoicing.
We also recommend invoicing these cards as a matter of "good housekeeping" in Projector. By keeping things clean, when you run searches on uninvoiced time or cost, there isn't clutter lingering in the system.
Invoice and send to client
You can include zero value cards on an invoice along with regular cards. This is a good choice when a client wants to see on paper that they were not charged for something,
Invoice and hide from client
Similar to the first solution, you can include zero value cards on your regular invoices, but suppress them from displaying. This is best if you don't want the client to see what you had to write down.
There are two ways to suppress cards.
- Suppress cards on an individual basis by using invoice adjustment Write Up/Down. Tick the checkbox labeled Suppress time cards from being printed on invoice.
- You can also use a system setting to force all time cards to be suppressed by default.
Second Contract and Second Project
Create a second contract line item with contract terms of Non-Chargeable. Create a second project and associate it with your new contract line item. Transfer the time/cost to the new project. With non-chargeable contract terms the cards will never be included on an invoice. Keep in mind that transferring the hours will affect the original project in terms of margin, profit, and budgets.
Invoices for zero dollars
Some organizations choose to never put zero value cards on their regular invoices. Rather, they perform a periodic clean up by making a blank invoice, sweeping zero value cards onto it, and issuing. On issue, the invoice is not sent to the client.