Simple projects

Not every job needs an offer. In Billow, that's called a “simple project”.

Creating one

Wherever you create a project, Billow asks which kind you want:

• Project with offer opens the offer wizard.

• Simple project opens a short form: name, account, contact, and an optional summary.

The summary is a note to yourself about what the work is. It’s internal, and your client never sees it.

Converting a qualified lead offers the same choice. See Turning a lead into a project.

Its statuses

A simple project starts Active and moves between Active and Completed. That’s the whole lifecycle.

Draft, Offer Pending and Rejected all describe an offer on its way to a client. With no offer there’s nothing to send, nothing to wait for and nothing to decline, so those never apply. See Projects and their statuses.

It also can’t be cancelled. Complete it instead. See Completing and reopening a project.

Invoicing it

Invoice it like any other project. Nothing is drafted for you, so you write each invoice yourself.

With no offer to take tax settings or currency from, each invoice starts from your workspace defaults and stays editable, the same as an invoice with no project at all. See Taxes on your documents.

The account pins when the first invoice is created. Once the project has an invoice you can’t move it to a different account, though the main contact stays changeable. See Projects and their statuses.

It counts toward your plan

A simple project takes an active-project slot the moment you create it, since it’s Active from the start. Completing it gives the slot back. See Plans and limits.

Deleting one

Admins can delete a simple project at any status, as long as it has no live invoices. There’s no accepted offer behind it, so there’s no commitment to protect.

Invoices you’ve deleted don’t count; they stay in your trash and come off the project. A live one stops the delete.

Adding an offer later

An active simple project has a Turn into offer button on its overview. It opens the offer wizard, and Billow confirms before anything changes:

Editing this project will revert it to Draft status.

From there it behaves like any other offer-backed project: build the offer, send it, and your client accepts or declines. See Building and sending an offer.

Important:

• The project has to be unbilled. A single invoice on it disables the button. Invoices you’ve deleted don’t block it. They come off the project on the way through and stay in your trash, restorable later on their own.

• The offer is permanent. Once it’s attached, it can’t be taken off again.