Project Assets

Flowtly Editorial Team3 min

The Assets tab of a project holds what the project has booked and what it is charged for it. The tab is shown to users with the Properties manager role, and it has four sub-tabs:

  • Reservations: the assets booked to the project, and when.
  • Commercial relations: the project's other ties to an asset, such as parking access or a share of costs, each with its amount and the period it is valid for.
  • Counters: the meters on the project's assets, and the price the client is charged for each meter's utility.
  • Billing rates: the rates charged for the project's assets. These are not the rates of the people on the project, which are set in the Members drawer.

Editing saves as you go

Changing something that already exists on this tab has no Save button. Each field saves itself, and a small status beside it says when the change is stored. Fields that only make sense together are saved together, as one change.

If a change is refused, the field says why and keeps what you typed, so you can correct it and try again. Nothing is thrown away behind your back.

Closing a drawer (its X, Escape, or a click outside it) first stores whatever you are still typing, and waits for it. Only a refused change stops you: Flowtly then asks Not all changes are saved before it is lost, and Leave anyway discards it.

Adding something new, a reservation, a commercial relation or a billing rate, uses its own button, and nothing is stored until you confirm it.

Who can change what

Seeing the tab and changing what is on it are separate permissions. The Properties manager role opens the tab; changing each kind of record needs a role of its own:

  • Reservation dates: Projects manager or Asset bookings manager.
  • Commercial relations: Projects manager.
  • Billing rates: Projects manager.
  • Client price of a counter: Transactions manager.

An Admin can change all of them.

When you can open a reservation, a commercial relation or a billing rate but not change it, its drawer opens read-only. Every field is shown but disabled, a lock stands where the save status would be, and a notice at the top says You can view this record, but your role does not allow changing it. Nothing you do in the drawer is saved, and closing it never asks about unsaved changes.

Without the Transactions manager role, a counter's client price is shown as plain text rather than as a field.

Reservations

Click a reservation to open its drawer. In the Reservation section, Date from and Date to save together, as one period, when you leave the pair. Moving the start and the end in one sitting is one change, not two. The range and the rates shown in the drawer follow each saved change.

Commercial relations

Click the pencil on a relation to open Edit commercial relation:

  • Amount and its currency save together when you leave the pair. Picking a different currency does not save on its own: it waits for the amount, so the old amount is never stored in the new currency.
  • Valid from and Valid to save together, as one period.
  • Property, Relation type and Include in invoice draft save the moment you change them.
  • Note saves when you leave the field. Clearing it removes the note.

What you type stays in place while you work, even if the list behind the drawer refreshes.

Counters

Click a meter to open its drawer. The Client price section holds the unit price the client is charged for the meter's utility, in the project's currency. Type the price and leave the field, or press Enter, and it is stored. A meter with no price yet shows an empty field reading No client price set yet; typing a price there sets it.

The price must be 0 or more. An empty field or a value that is not a number is not sent, and the field says what is wrong.

Edit meter, in the same drawer, keeps its own Save button. Opening it goes through the same check as closing the drawer: a price you are still typing is stored first, and a refused one asks before it is lost.

Billing rates

Click a rate to open its drawer. In the Rate details section:

  • Price, the amount and its currency, saves together when you leave the pair. As with commercial relations, a currency picked before the amount is typed waits for the amount.
  • Attribute saves the moment you pick it.
  • Valid from saves when the calendar closes after you pick a date, or when you leave the field after typing one. A date half-way through being typed is never stored.
  • Note saves when you leave the field.

Example use cases

  • A property manager extends a project's parking reservation by moving its end date, and closes the drawer knowing the change was stored.
  • An account manager changes a commercial relation from złoty to euro and types the new amount, and both are stored as one change.
  • An office manager sets the client price of an electricity meter on a project for the first time, straight from the meter's drawer.
  • A finance controller corrects the start date of an asset billing rate, and sees the field report a refusal instead of losing the date.

Connection map

Planned vs actualRefers toDerived fromPart of
Documented hereDocumented elsewhere
purchase-order-line estimated against time-entry. budget covers project. counterparty defaults to project. invoice billed from project. project is of type project-type. project identified by project-reference. project staffed by person. project-rate rates person. project-rate applies on project. time-entry tracked against project. task belongs to project. project-folder groups project. project linked to budget. project-template creates project. project measured by project-kpi. project-phase is a child project of project. project needs role. booking planned vs actual time-entry.estimated againstcoversdefaults tobilled fromis of typeidentified bystaffed byratesapplies ontracked againstbelongs togroupslinked tocreatesmeasured byis a child project ofneedsplanned vs actualOOrder line — One line of a purchase order: a role priced by the hour with the hours estimated for it, or a deliverable priced as an outcome. A deliverable carries no hours at all.Order lineTTime entry — What actually happened — work time logged against a project.Time entryBBudget — The financial envelope an engagement is measured against — what was planned, versus what has actually been spent.BudgetPProject — The core organizational unit for a business initiative, client engagement or internal work. Everything tracked — time, cost, invoicing, profitability — hangs off one.ProjectCCounterparty — The other side of a financial document — a client billed, or a supplier owed.CounterpartyIInvoice — A sales document issued to a client: line items, dates, tax. It is created, reviewed, previewed and then sent — or, when it went out some other way, recorded as delivered.InvoicePProject type — Fixed-price, Time & Material, Non-billable or Internal. It decides how the project's tracking and reporting behave.Project typePProject reference — An optional key a project carries so systems outside Flowtly can name it. Unique within the organisation, and never reused once it has been given to a project.Project referencePPerson — An employee. The central record the rest of the workforce data hangs off — profile, documents, leave, benefits, rates.PersonMMember rate — A team member's billing or cost rate on a project. Rates are per member, so the same person can cost differently on two projects.Member rateTTask — A unit of work inside a project.TaskPProject folder — A grouping of projects, for organisations running more than a handful.Project folderPProject template — A reusable blueprint for a project: its phases, task lists and tasks, with timings held as day offsets rather than dates. It carries no client, no team and nothing financial.Project templatePProject KPI — A measure attached to a project, either filled in by hand as dated readings or computed from the project's finances, optionally compared with a target.Project KPIPPhase — A stage a project runs through. A phase is itself a child project, so everything true of a project is true of a phase.PhaseRRole — One job to be done on a project. It may be open, partly filled, filled or over-filled, and it exists whether or not anyone is booked on it.RoleBBooking — One person committed to a role, or directly to a project, for a stretch of time — at a percentage of their time, or for a number of hours on each chosen day. A booking is a plan, not a record of work done.Booking