Goldenseal Project Management Software-- Project Billing Options

Project Billing Options

Which type of project billing should I use?

Goldenseal project billing software lets you choose from three basic types of project billing-- time & materials, draw schedules and progress payments.

Basic project Billing

If your charges are based on what you spend, use time and materials billing. It's based on your actual labor and material costs, plus a "markup" or "management fee" to cover your overhead and profit. This method is sometimes called "cost plus" billing, time billing, or T&M billing.

If you are quoting a fixed price for the job, then you'll probably use draw schedule billing. It can have just one payment, or more than one payment. You can bill at specific project "milestones", at regular intervals, or irregularly.

If each billing amount is based on a calculation of the amount of work you have done to date, then you may want to use progress payment billing instead. It is similar to a draw schedule, but it uses a detailed breakdown of progress on each category of work, or each location within a project, or each line item of work in the estimate. This method is often used by architects (the standard AIA billing form is set up for progress billing). Progress billing is also used frequently when a bank is managing the construction payments.

Additional Project Billing Options

If you don't have firm specs for all aspects of the project, use allowance billing for any parts of the project that have an uncertain cost. Allowances let you quote a firm price for the project, and then adjust what you charge for some items, based on actual costs. It's almost like including a bit of time of materials billing in the middle of a fixed cost project!

If the scope of work changes, use change order billing to bill for the additional costs caused by the change.

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