Project Financials and Purchase Order Tracking
How a services firm connected Zoho CRM deals to Projects with Deluge-driven revenue budget calculation, purchase order consumption tracking, and hours-based percent complete.
Client details generalized to protect confidentiality.
Firms delivering project work where the financial picture of a project is assembled manually from CRM, Projects, and accounting.
The Challenge
Deals closed in CRM and work happened in Projects, with no financial connection between them. Revenue budget was recalculated by hand whenever someone asked. Purchase orders were tracked in a spreadsheet, so how much of a PO had been consumed was a question requiring investigation. Percent complete was a judgment call, which meant project profitability was reported late and revised often.
The Solution
Revenue Budget Auto-Calculation
Revenue budget derives from deal values and scope rather than being entered and maintained separately.
- Deluge function calculating budget from the deal
- Recalculation on deal or scope change
- Budget written to the project
- Change history retained
Purchase Order Consumption Tracking
PO consumed amounts update as costs post, so remaining balance is a field rather than an investigation.
- PO records linked to the project
- Consumed amount updated from posted costs
- Remaining balance calculated
- Threshold alerts before exhaustion
Hours-Based Percent Complete
Percent complete derives from logged hours against budgeted hours instead of being estimated.
- Percent complete from hours logged versus budgeted
- Recalculated on time entry
- Variance against schedule
- Flag when hours outpace progress
Connected Project Financial View
Budget, consumption, and progress report together, which is what makes profitability visible during delivery.
- Project financial summary fields
- Margin to date and projected
- Portfolio view across projects
- Drill-down to time and cost detail
Apps in This Solution
Zoho CRM
Zoho Projects
Under the Hood Technical detail
- Calculation Ownership
- Revenue budget is calculated by function from the deal rather than entered on the project. A manually entered budget drifts from the deal it came from, and reconciling the two becomes its own recurring task.
- PO Consumption
- Consumed amounts update from posted costs rather than being maintained, and threshold alerts fire before exhaustion rather than after. Discovering an exhausted PO after the fact means work performed without authorization.
- Percent Complete Basis
- Hours logged against budgeted hours is an imperfect proxy for progress, and it is a substantially better one than judgment. Its real value is that it is consistent across projects and managers, which judgment is not.
- Divergence Signal
- When hours outpace deliverable progress the project flags rather than waiting for a manager to notice. That gap is the earliest reliable indicator of a project heading to a margin problem.
- Notable Constraint
- Fixed-fee and time-and-materials projects need different margin treatment. The financial view distinguishes them rather than applying one calculation, since blending the two produces a portfolio number that describes neither.
The Results
- Revenue budget derives from the deal instead of being maintained separately.
- Purchase order remaining balance is a field rather than an investigation.
- Margin is visible during delivery rather than reported after close.
Project Financials Assembled by Hand?
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