Manage projects and jobs in SamBooks

In SamBooks, a job (commessa) brings together the client, description, pricing model, and budget of a project-based engagement. On that foundation, SamBooks compares in real time what you planned against what you have actually delivered, and turns approved hours into an invoice.

What it's for

If you work on projects — consulting, agency, software house, IT services, maintenance — the job is the container that holds together who works (the resources), for which client, with which pricing logic and which budget. It's the starting point for everything else in the module: time entries are logged against a job, and the time-and-materials invoice is generated from a job's approved hours.

The module lives in a single page, Projects (Progetti), organized into tabs: Jobs (Commesse), Resources (Risorse), Time entries (Rapportini), and — for the Manager and Administrative roles — PM integrations (Integrazioni PM). This guide covers the first two, Jobs and Resources, plus reading the budget-vs-actual view. For the hours workflow and invoice issuance, and for importing from external tools, see the related guides at the end.

One key point: rates, prices, and costs live only in SamBooks. They are administrative data you set here, not in an external project management tool. That's why, even when you import hours from outside, the rate is governed by the SamBooks price list.

Prerequisites

• Access to the Projects page (the module is rolling out progressively; if you don't see it among your sections, it isn't active for your company yet).
• To see and set monetary values — internal cost, rate, budget, margin — you need the Manager (Gestore) or Administrative (Amministrativo) role. Other roles can use the module but won't see the financial figures.
• To invoice a job you need an associated client: a job with no client is treated as internal and cannot be invoiced.

Step-by-step

1. Open the Projects page

Go to Projects. The page opens on the Jobs tab. At the top you'll find summary cards (KPIs): Total jobs and In progress are visible to everyone; Current cost and Jobs value appear only for the Manager and Administrative roles.

2. Create a job

1. On the Jobs tab, click New job.
2. The New job dialog opens. Fill in the fields:
   • Description (required) — e.g. "Acme client portal development".
   • Code — your own identifier, optional (e.g. "ACME-2026").
   • Client — pick the destination client; leave it on Internal if there's no client to invoice.
   • Pricing — see step 3.
   • Status — In progress, Closed, Suspended, or Cancelled. New jobs start as In progress.
   • Budget (€) — the job's reference amount (optional), used as the basis for the variance.
   • Start date / End date — optional; the end date cannot precede the start date.
3. Click Create job. The job appears in the list with a Native origin badge.

3. Choose the pricing model

In the Pricing field, choose how the value of the work is calculated:

• Time & materials (T&M) — billed on actual hours multiplied by the rate. This is the default.
• Fixed price (Forfait) — a fixed amount agreed for the whole job. Selecting it reveals the Fixed price (€) field.
• Mixed (Misto) — a combination of the two (part fixed, part on consumption). The Fixed price (€) field appears here too.

For time-and-materials or mixed jobs you can set a Default price list: it's the list SamBooks uses to resolve the hourly rate of logged hours. If you don't have a price list yet, leave it on None and you can associate one later.

4. Set up price lists (rate sheets)

A price list (prezziario) is a rate sheet by role (e.g. "Senior developer") or by activity type. Each line carries an hourly price and/or a fixed amount. It's what SamBooks uses to freeze the rate of an hour when it is logged.

Existing price lists are selected from the Default price list menu in the job form. To create a new one, ask Sam from the chat panel — for example: "Create a price list with senior developer €80/h and junior €45/h." Sam creates the list with its lines, which you can then select on the job.

5. Create the resource list

1. Open the Resources tab.
2. Click New resource.
3. In the New resource dialog fill in:
   • Name (required) — e.g. "Mario Rossi".
   • Role / seniority — e.g. "Senior developer".
   • Internal hourly cost (€) and Default hourly rate (€) — visible and editable only to the Manager and Administrative roles. The internal cost is the confidential figure SamBooks uses to compute margin; the rate is the reference hourly selling price.
   • Active resource — keep the toggle on for working collaborators.
4. Click Create resource.

Resources created from this dialog are external: collaborators with no platform login. They appear in the table as External. Internal resources are those linked to a platform user and are matched in another way, not from this form. You can filter the list by Type (internal/external) and Status (active/inactive).

6. Read a job's budget vs actual

1. On the Jobs tab, click a row to open its detail.
2. The dialog opens with the job name, its status, the client, and the pricing model.
3. The Budget vs actual tab shows the indicators — revenue figures for all roles, cost figures only for privileged roles:
   • Manual budget — the budget you entered in the job profile.
   • Expected value — planned revenue: estimated hours × rate (for fixed/mixed it's the fixed price).
   • Revenue actual — value of billable hours at rate (plus any reimbursable expenses). This is not cash collected.
   • Invoiced revenue and To be invoiced — how much is already on an invoice and how much remains.
   • Estimated hours, Total hours, Billable hours.
   • Variance — the difference between budget and actual, in value and percentage (in red if negative).
   • Cost budget, Current cost, and Gross margin — Manager/Administrative only: the planned cost, the actual cost (hours × internal cost), and the margin.
4. The Activities tab lists the job's activities (development, analysis, meeting, documentation, travel, maintenance).
5. Generate T&M invoice also starts from here, enabled only when the job has a client. The full flow is described in the related guide.

Tips

• Set the job's Default price list: logged hours then inherit the right rate without having to restate it each time.
• The resource's internal cost is used only to compute margin: it never ends up on an invoice and is encrypted. It's worth filling in to read the job's real margin.
• Use Status to keep the list clean: move jobs no longer being worked on to Closed or Suspended instead of leaving everything in progress.
• Manage jobs by talking to Sam too: from the chat panel you can ask "Show me a job's budget vs actual" or "Which time entries are pending approval?".

Common mistakes

• "Description is required." — Fill in the Description field before saving the job.
• I can't see the amounts (cost, rate, budget, margin). — That's by design: monetary values are reserved for the Manager and Administrative roles. With a different role you can use the module but won't see the figures.
• The "Generate T&M invoice" button is disabled. — The job is internal: with no associated client there's no one to invoice. The client is set when you create the job: to make it billable, create one with the client assigned (or ask Sam in chat).
• I set a fixed price but the field disappeared. — The Fixed price (€) field appears only with Fixed price or Mixed pricing. If you switch back to Time & materials (T&M), the fixed price isn't used.
• I can't find a price list to select. — Price lists are created via chat with Sam (or via integration): until one exists, the menu shows only None.

FAQ

Can I create a job with no client? Yes: leave the client on Internal. An internal job lets you track hours and budget for non-billable work, but you won't be able to generate an invoice from it.

What's the difference between internal cost and rate? The internal hourly cost is what an hour of the resource costs you (used for margin, confidential). The hourly rate is the price at which you sell that hour to the client. Together they drive margin and job value.

Do I set the rate in my project management tool? No. Rates, prices, and costs live only in SamBooks: you set them in the price list and on the resource. Even for hours imported from an external tool, the rate is governed by the SamBooks price list.

Who can approve hours and see margins? Financial figures and management actions are reserved for the Manager and Administrative roles. Other roles see their own work but not the amounts.

Does an hour's rate change if I update the price list? No, not for hours already logged: every hour freezes its rate at the time of entry, so a later price-list change doesn't alter past hours. The pricing model (T&M, fixed or mixed) and the client are chosen when you create the job.

Related features

• Time entries and project invoicing — logging hours, the approval workflow, and generating the T&M invoice.
• ClickUp integration — connecting a project management tool and importing tracked hours into SamBooks.