--- title: "Projects & Boards" description: "Run each job on a kanban board with checklists and templates, track its budget and margin against your books, and get sign-off to open or close it." url: "https://bareledger.app/guides/projects" category: "CRM & projects" updated: "2026-10-29" publisher: "BareLedger (Syneria Technologies OPC)" --- # Projects & Boards > Jobs with a team, a kanban board, a budget and a margin: cards, checklists, templates, My tasks and approved openings, budgets and closures. **Who can use this page**: depends on the role (see [Project Roles](https://bareledger.app/guides/project-roles)). Find it under **Projects** in the side menu: **All projects**, **My tasks**, **Approvals** and **Board templates**. On the phone it is the **Projects** tab. ## What it is for A project is a job: the kitchen renovation, the office fit-out, the retainer. It has a **team**, a **board** where the work is tracked card by card, a customer, a budget and a status — and, as the work happens, the invoices you raised, the money you collected and the costs you booked against it. The point is to run the job and see its **margin** while it is still going, not after. ## Where projects come from - **Accepted quotations.** With *Settings → Organization → Quotations → Open a project when a quotation is accepted* on (the default), the moment a customer accepts — on the emailed link or when you press *Customer accepted* — a project `PRJ-2026-000001` opens with the customer, the job name and the quoted total as the budget. The lead, if there was one, is marked *Won*. The customer's acceptance is the sign-off, so no approval is needed. - **By hand.** **All projects → New project**: a code, a name, optionally the customer, budget, currency and dates. A hand-made project starts as a **Draft**. Choose *Save & submit for approval* (or open it later and press *Submit for approval*); it opens — becomes *Planned* — once a reviewer and then an approver sign it off. Nobody approves their own request. A draft that should not go ahead can be deleted. ## The project page Open a project from the list. The header shows its status, your project role and any request waiting for sign-off (red when it was sent back — open it to read why). The tabs: - **Board** — the cards (below). - **List** — the same cards as a table you can sort, filter, bulk-move and export to CSV or Excel. - **Overview** — budget, invoiced, collected, costs and margin, and the description. - **Team** — who is on the project and in which project role. - **Approvals** — every sign-off request for this project and where it stands. - **Documents**, **Expenses**, **Profitability** — the money side (only for people with project finance access). - **Activities** — the CRM timeline of notes, calls and follow-ups (needs CRM access). ## The board Columns are the stages of the work — *To do, In progress, Review, Done* by default, or whatever a template set up. A column can be marked **done**: cards dropped there count as complete; moving them out reopens them. - **Add a card** at the bottom of any column, or **New card** in the toolbar. - **Drag** cards between columns and up and down inside one. On a keyboard: focus a card, press Space, move with the arrow keys, press Space again. If someone else moved the same card a moment before you, the board tells you and refreshes instead of overwriting their change. - **Group by** a select or person field (for example *Trade* or *Owner*) to see one lane per value; dropping a card into a lane sets that value. The *No …* lane holds cards without one. - **Filter** by assignee, priority, label, due date, done/open and any custom field; **Search** looks in titles, descriptions, labels and fields. Filters are yours alone; sort, grouping and which fields show on cards are shared by everyone on the board. - **Card limit (WIP)**: a column can carry a limit; its header turns amber when it holds more cards than that. - **Hidden columns** fold into a strip at the end of the board and still accept dropped cards. Each card shows its labels, title, the fields chosen for cards, priority, due date (red when overdue), checklist progress, comments, files and the assignee. Open it to edit everything in one place: column, assignee, start and due dates, priority, labels, estimate in hours, custom fields, a description (with **bold**, lists and links), a checklist, comments, files and photos, and the card's activity history. Changes save as you make them. The assignee is notified when a card is given to them or someone comments on it, and reminded when it is due today, tomorrow or overdue. ## Board settings Project managers open **Board settings** to add, rename, colour, reorder, hide or delete columns (deleting asks where its cards should go), to add **card fields** — text, number, select (one or many, with coloured options), date, checkbox, link or person — and to work with **templates**: start an empty board from *Standard delivery*, *Renovation job* or one of your own, or save this board's columns, fields and (optionally) its open cards as a template for the next project. Saved templates are listed under **Projects → Board templates**. ## My tasks **Projects → My tasks** lists every open card assigned to you across your projects, grouped as *Overdue, Due today, Next 7 days, Later* and *No due date*. Open a card right there. ## Decisions that need sign-off Day-to-day status moves — *Start*, *Put on hold*, *Back to planned* — are direct. These need a reviewer and then an approver: - **Opening** a hand-made project. - **Changing the budget** of an open project (*Change budget* — the request shows the old and new amount). - **Completing** or **cancelling** a project. The request shows what is still open — cards not done, unposted invoices, bills and expenses, and (with finance access) the money so far. Once closed, the board becomes read-only. Requests appear under **Projects → Approvals** and on the phone under **Approvals**. A rejected request comes back to the person who raised it with the comment; they edit and submit it again. ## Tagging work to a project - **Invoices, quotations, sales orders**: the *Project* field on the form. - **Expenses**: the *Project* field on the expense. When the expense is posted, its ledger lines carry the project. - **Journal entries**: the project column on each line. ## On the phone The **Projects** tab has *My tasks*, the project list and each board, one column per screen. **Hold a card** to pick it up, move it within the column or to the edge of the screen to reach the next column, and let go to drop it. Open a card to change any of its details, tick the checklist, comment, or add a photo from the camera. Project managers can add, rename, hide and reorder columns with *Edit columns*. ## On the dashboard The **Projects** card shows your projects by status, your open and overdue cards, cards due this week and done this week, and requests waiting for you. With finance access it adds the open budgets, invoiced and costs, and up to three projects **at risk** (negative margin, or costs at 90% of the budget). ## Plan usage Projects are unlimited on every plan, Free included: projects, board cards, checklists and comments never count against your plan's posted-transaction allowance (see [Subscription & Billing](https://bareledger.app/guides/billing)). Only the accounting records tagged to a project — invoices, bills, expenses — count when they post. ## Common mix-ups - **"I can't see a project."** You are not on its team and your role only shows your own projects. Ask the project manager to add you under **Team**. - **"I can see the board but cannot move cards."** You are a *stakeholder* on that project, your role is read-only, or the project is closed. - **"Invoiced is zero but I sent the invoice."** Only *posted* invoices count; a draft or one still in review does not. - **"The budget field is greyed out."** The project is open; use **Change budget** to propose a new amount for approval. - **"My card jumped back after I dropped it."** Someone else changed it a moment earlier; the board refreshed with their change. Drop it again. - **"I accepted a quote and no project appeared."** The setting under *Settings → Organization → Quotations* is off, or the quotation already had a project (one project per quotation).