Projects & Types

Every piece of work in VERA lives inside a project. A project has a type, a client, and a budget. The type determines how VERA calculates revenue.

Project types

VERA supports five project types. The type must always be specified when creating a project — VERA will never assume a default.

Retainer

The client pays a fixed monthly fee for a set number of hours.

Budget: annual hours (e.g. 480 h/yr = 40 h/month)
Revenue: fixed monthly fee (not calculated per-entry)
Billing model: burn rate — VERA tracks monthly pace and flags over/underspend
Work gate: no hard stop; burn rate alerts warn when pacing over budget
Use case: ongoing agency relationships with a monthly scope

"Create project Nike Ongoing as Retainer with 480 hours per year"

See Retainers for burn rate details.

T&M (Time & Materials)

Bill as you go. Revenue is calculated from logged hours.

Budget: total project hours
Revenue: hours_logged × billing_rate
Billing model: per-entry accrual
Work gate: stop work when hours_budget is exhausted
Use case: open-scope work where effort is unpredictable

"Create project Nike Campaign as T&M"

Fixed Price

A flat contract for a defined scope. Revenue accrues as work is completed.

Budget: total project hours (the effort estimate)
Contract value: the agreed price in dollars
Revenue: (hours_logged ÷ hours_budget) × contract_value — capped at 100%
Billing model: percentage-of-completion
Work gate: stop work when hours_budget is exhausted
Use case: scoped deliverables with a negotiated price

"Create project Nike Rebrand as Fixed Price for $50,000 with 200 hour budget"

Pro Bono

Free work. Hours are tracked but no revenue is recognised.

Budget: total project hours (optional)
Revenue: always $0
Billing model: none
Use case: charity work, community projects, internal initiatives

"Create project Community Website as Pro Bono"

Agile

Sprint-based work. The parent project is a container; each sprint is its own Fixed-Price-style billing unit.

Parent project: no contract value or budget — it's just a named container
Sprints: each sprint has its own contract_value and hours_budget
Revenue per sprint: (hours_logged ÷ hours_budget) × contract_value when status = active
Sprint statuses: planned = $0 revenue | active = revenue accrues
Work gate: stop work when the sprint's hours_budget is exhausted; raise a new sprint for additional scope
Use case: iterative delivery where each sprint is separately contracted

"Create project Acme App as Agile" → then offer Sprint 1

See Agile & Sprints.

Project fields

Field	Description	Who sets it
`name`	Project name, unique per tenant	Owner
`client`	The client this project belongs to	Owner
`type`	One of the five types above	Owner
`budget_hours`	Total hours cap (or monthly for Retainer)	Owner via `set_project_budget`
`contract_value`	Dollar amount (Fixed Price & Agile sprints)	Owner
`billing_rate`	Hourly rate billed to client	Owner (in Projects Master)
`is_billable`	Whether hours generate revenue	Auto: false for Pro Bono, true otherwise
`alert_threshold`	% budget used before warning fires (default 80%)	Owner/Manager
`deadline`	Target delivery date	Owner via `set_project_deadline`
`pm_user_id`	Assigned project manager	Owner via `assign_pm`
`project_category`	`client`, `internal`, `pto`, `sick`, `leave`, `time_off`	Auto-set
`status`	`active` or `inactive`	Owner

Project category vs. type

These are two separate fields:

Type (T&M, Fixed Price, etc.) governs billing and revenue recognition
Category (client, internal, time_off, etc.) governs how VERA treats the project in reports and queries

Internal projects (training, admin, hiring) should use the "Internal" client and project_category = "internal". They still have a type (usually T&M or Pro Bono) for tracking purposes.

Protected projects (Out of Office, Sick, Leave) are auto-created with special categories and cannot be deleted.

The two-tier budget model

There are two completely separate budget concepts. Do not confuse them.

Tier 1 — Project total: budget_hours in the Projects sheet. This is the sold or contracted hours for the whole project. Set by Owner only via set_project_budget. Think of it as the pie.

Tier 2 — Envelopes: rows in the Budgets sheet (07. Budgets). This is how Managers slice the pie — each team member gets a per-person envelope. The sum of all envelopes should not exceed Tier 1.

A Manager asking "how do I set the budget?" wants to distribute hours to their team (Tier 2). The overall budget is set by the Owner (Tier 1) and is not the Manager's to change.

See Envelopes for the full picture.

Project lifecycle

Created → Budget set → PM assigned → Tasks enabled → Envelopes created
                                          ↓
                               Team logs time → Alerts fire if approaching budget
                                          ↓
                                    Completed / Inactive

No formal state machine enforces this flow — VERA relies on the configured status field and the business rules in its system prompt.

Clients

Every project belongs to a client. If a client doesn't exist yet, VERA creates it automatically when a project is created.

Internal or overhead work belongs to the built-in "Internal" client. VERA creates "Internal" automatically when the first internal project is provisioned.

Financial rollups are client-aware: get_client_summary aggregates hours, budget, and spend across all of a client's projects.

Projects & Types ​

Project types ​

Retainer ​

T&M (Time & Materials) ​

Fixed Price ​

Pro Bono ​

Agile ​

Project fields ​

Project category vs. type ​

The two-tier budget model ​

Project lifecycle ​

Clients ​

Further reading ​