Creating an engagement
A step-by-step walk through the engagement wizard — Client, Type, Billing, Budget, and Timeline.
An engagement is set up through a five-step wizard. Each step is one decision, and you can click back to any step (or edit them all later), so it's fine to start with your best guess and refine.
The steps, in order, are Client → Type → Billing → Budget → Timeline.
Step 1 — Client
Pick the client, then the project under it. Client comes first so the Billing step can resolve the right rates against the real client and project. (Editing an existing engagement, these show read-only.)
Step 2 — Type
Choose the shape of the work. Each preset expands to reveal a few sub-toggles:
A block of hours or budget, drawn down as you work. Toggles: Non-refundable (the fee is earned up front — unused time isn't refunded) and Recurring (the allocation resets each period).
Bill time as you work. Toggles: Not-to-exceed cap (stop counting revenue at the budget ceiling) and Recurring.
One price for a defined scope. Toggle: Milestones (split the fee into deliverables recognized on start or completion).
Set every lever yourself — revenue model, rate structure, budget unit, and structure toggles — with a live plain-English summary of what you've built.
The Type you pick here is the billing model — how revenue is recognized. It's separate from how the bill rate is set, which you choose on the Billing step. See Billing models vs. rate structures.
Step 3 — Billing
By default an engagement inherits your rate card — pick a mode here only if this contract bills differently. Options: a flat rate, by person, by task type, or a blended headline rate with a target mix. Fixed-fee engagements skip per-hour billing and just take an optional benchmark rate. Full detail: Rate structures.
There's also a per-engagement time rounding control here — it rounds each entry before pacing and invoices, and never changes your stored time.
Step 4 — Budget
A block of hours to draw down, or a dollar budget (time is valued at your bill rates). A dollar budget warns if no bill rate resolves — it can't pace into hours without one.
The field relabels to fit — "Per-period allocation," "Fixed fee," "Not-to-exceed cap," or "Expected budget" — based on the type you chose.
A baseline that counts toward utilization from day one — for work done before you set the engagement up.
Tick Bill expenses to this engagement and set a default markup %. You add the actual expense line items from the engagement's Expenses button after saving — see Billable expenses.
Step 5 — Timeline
Set the start date, and an end date unless it's ongoing or recurring. Non-recurring engagements can set an expected pacing curve (even / front-loaded / back-loaded / custom) that draws the target line on the burn-up chart — see Pacing & velocity. Recurring engagements set a cadence and a rollover policy instead — see Recurring engagements. An optional label (e.g. "R1") helps you tell periods apart.
Every step is editable after you save — reopen the engagement and click any step in the wizard. Refine the budget, switch the mode, add expenses, adjust pacing as the work evolves.
Add expenses and choose whether they bill on top or draw from the budget.