Phases & timeline

Phases divide a project into stages with their own dates and fees, and together they form your project timeline. This page covers the decisions you make about each phase once it exists — see Create & plan a project for how to add phases in the first place.

Fixed vs. hourly fee phases

Every phase is set to one of two fee types on the Budget page. The type controls how the phase counts toward your fee, how you invoice it, and how it forecasts.

Fixed fee — a guaranteed amount you’ll earn no matter how many hours you work. Use it when the fee is contractually set or the phase is always billable. The budget you assign to a fixed phase draws from — and rolls up into — your Service Fee. For example, with a $10,000 Service Fee, allocating 25% to Schematic Design commits $2,500 to that phase.

Hourly fee — work billed by the hours actually logged. When you pick Hourly, the Budget field becomes a Max Cap: a do-not-exceed amount (or your best estimate). Use it when the scope is variable or the phase isn’t guaranteed. Hourly phases don’t roll up into the Service Fee; they stand on their own and bill against their Max Cap.

	Fixed fee	Hourly fee
Guaranteed?	Yes	No
Counts toward Service Fee	Yes	No
Invoiced by	% or $ of the phase budget	Actual hours logged
Budget field	Budget	Max Cap

Always fill in a value

Enter a Budget or Max Cap for every phase, even hourly ones. Monograph forecasts revenue (in the Project Revenue, Team Forecast, and Profit reports) from these values, and a Max Cap is what unlocks the Money Gantt for the project. Blank fields mean incomplete forecasts.

A project can freely mix fixed and hourly phases. This is also how you handle additional services and change orders — as an adjusted budget or a new phase. See Budgets & fees.

Link phases to shift dates together

Linking a phase to the one before it means that when you move the earlier phase’s end date, every phase after it shifts by the same number of days. For example, extending Pre-Design pushes Schematic Design and everything downstream later automatically.

Set durations first

Add all your phases and set each one’s dates before you link them. Then link each phase to the one before it, with the first phase as the anchor.

1. On the Budget page, click the Edit icon on a phase to open it.

2. In the Linked phase dropdown, choose the phase it should follow. The first phase in a project can’t be linked to a later one.

3. Click Save.

Edit one phase at a time

For dates to cascade to linked phases, only one phase can be open for editing at a time. If two phases are open at once, your date changes won’t shift the linked phases — save one before editing the other.

Change the status of a project or phase

A status reflects where a project or phase is in its life and changes how it behaves across the app. You can set a status on a whole project or on an individual phase.

1. Go to Projects and open the project. To set a phase’s status instead, click into that phase.

2. Click the status button (labeled Active) in the upper-right corner.

3. Choose the new status and click Update.

The statuses are:

• Active — the default. Fully usable and visible on your dashboard. Shows on the Gantt with a solid outline and lighter fill.
• Paused — freezes the project; time and expenses can’t be logged. Shows with hatched shading.
• Canceled — removes it from the dashboard and disables time and expense tracking. Shows fully shaded gray.
• Completed — removes it from the dashboard but keeps it under the Projects Overview; time and expense tracking are disabled. Shows as a solid, opaque color.

A grace period before time locks

Setting a project or phase to anything other than Active stops new time from being logged to it starting the following Monday — a grace period so your team can finish entering hours.

Proposed status

A Proposed status also appears at the project level (Admins only; phases can’t use it).

Share the schedule

You can give clients or consultants a free, read-only link to the project’s schedule — its phases and milestones. It never shows financial data (including the Money Gantt), and you can turn it off anytime.

1. Open the project’s Details page.

2. Toggle Sharing to enabled.

3. Copy the link and send it. The link is also available on the project’s Overview page.

To embed the schedule in a tool like SharePoint, wrap the shareable link in an iframe:

<iframe width="1260" height="715" src="[SHAREABLE_LINK]?iframe=true" frameborder="0"></iframe>

Next steps

Budgets & feesConsultant fees, expense budgets, and additional services.

Create & plan a projectAdd phases, budgets, and your team.

Milestones & deliverablesTrack key dates and what's due.

Create & send an invoiceBill your client for completed work.