Categories, phases & activities

These are the building blocks your team chooses from when planning projects and logging time. Set them up once under Settings → App Defaults and they’re available everywhere. Most of them live in the Project Management section.

Phases

Phases are the stages of work on a project (for example Schematic Design or Construction Administration). Monograph pre-populates common phases; you can add or remove them to match how your firm works.

1. Go to Settings → App Defaults → Project Management and scroll to Phase Types.

2. Click + New Phase, enter a name and abbreviation, and save.

Editing phases

You can create or delete phases, but not rename an existing one — delete it and create a new one instead.

Global vs. project-specific phases

• Global phases are available across every project and managed here in App Defaults. In a project, a global phase shows a filled-in colored circle.
• Project-specific phases are one-offs created inside a single project (in its Budget section, via Select a phase → Create new phase type). They show an empty circle and don’t appear firm-wide.

Tip

Creating a phase inside a project? Leave the “use only for this project” box unchecked to promote it to a global phase your whole firm can reuse.

Categories

Categories group your projects (by type, market, or however you organize work) so you can filter and report on them. Add them under Settings → App Defaults → Project Management with + Add New Category. They become available across all projects.

Timesheet activities

Activities are what team members pick when they log time (for example Design, Meetings, Site Visit). Review and edit the list of billable and non-billable activities under App Defaults so timesheets stay consistent and your reports are clean.

Consultant types

Set the consultant types your firm works with (structural, MEP, civil, etc.). These appear when you add consultants to a project budget or invoice.

You can also set a default consultant markup percentage that’s applied to consultant costs on future projects.

Markup on invoices

A default markup is included in the consultant’s budget, but it isn’t added automatically when you invoice — you’ll still calculate and add the marked-up amount to the total due yourself.

Expense categories

Manage the categories used to classify expenses under Settings → App Defaults → Invoicing & Expenses. Consistent categories make expense tracking and reporting far easier.

Related

Phases & timelinePut these phases to work on a project.

ExpensesHow expense categories are used.

TimesheetsHow activities show up when logging time.