Project time and expense tracking: plan against actual, always up to date

A project rarely blows its budget all at once: it drifts a little further every week. To see it in time you need hours and expenses recorded where the team works, and compared with what you estimated at the start. In PjMan every hour and every expense hangs from a task or a project, and the figures work themselves out.

Hours: one time entry for each piece of work

A time entry is a record of work: who worked, how long, on which day and on what. A new one is added every time someone works; a total is never overwritten, so the history stays complete. (Time entries)

• From wherever suits you. On the task page with Log time, from My work, or by asking the assistant: "log 2 hours on T0003", spoken or typed. The assistant prepares a card that you confirm before anything is saved.
• With a date, a duration and a description. Hours and minutes (for example 1 h 30 min), the date —which can be a day in the past— and what was done.
• The PM can log time on behalf of the team, including people who do not have an account yet. A consultant logs time only on tasks they are assigned to, and only for themselves.
• Your calendar. In My work, everyone sees a monthly calendar with the hours of each day and the detail of the day they pick.

Expenses: planned, actual and deviation

Not everything is hours: a trip, a licence, a rental, materials. Each expense carries a planned amount and, when the invoice arrives, the actual amount. The difference is the deviation: if more was spent than planned it shows with a "+" and in red. (Expenses)

• They are recorded against the project or against a task, with their expense type (a catalogue you configure).
• Each expense in its own currency. Totals are grouped by currency and different currencies are never added together: you will not see a mixed figure that means nothing.
• The actual total adds up the expenses that already have an actual amount, without waiting for all of them.

Hours deviation at a glance

Each project shows in its header the hours logged against the estimated hours, and the deviation: hours logged minus hours estimated. If it is positive, more work has been done than planned and it appears in red. The same figure is on each project card in the list and in Reports, next to completed, pending and overdue tasks. In each phase you see its hours logged and estimated, so you know where the effort is going. (Project summary, Reports)

Want to understand the calculation? The guide to calculating hours variance explains the formula with an example.

From the tables to your spreadsheet, only if you need it

Queries cross-references the hours of all your projects at once, with filters by project, phase, person, dates or code, and exports the result to a spreadsheet (.xlsx) with the same filters. The PM uses it on their projects and management (CEO) on the whole organisation; a consultant sees their own hours in My work. (Queries)

Everyone sees what is theirs

The owning PM controls everything in their project. Management sees the whole portfolio in read-only mode. Each consultant sees and records only their own work. Permissions apply the same way in the application and in the assistant. (Roles and access)

Try it

Create your account and log your first hours on a template project, or explore the demo with sample data.