Projects Guide

Use a project for work that takes several purchases or needs one clear outcome: a borehole, store, fence, equipment purchase, land improvement, or another major farm initiative. The project keeps the plan, recognized costs, receipts, funding custody, and history connected without counting the same money twice.

From the Projects overview, choose New project. The current dialog asks only for the information you can use from this workflow:

Name

A clear label such as “North field borehole.” This is required.

Description

Optional context about the outcome or scope.

Type

Construction, Infrastructure, Equipment, Land, or Other. Construction is the default.

Default category

The Finance category applied to initial budget rows. Buildings is the default.

Expected completion

An optional target date.

Capital project

Selected by default. Use it for a long-term investment such as a borehole or building. Its expenses still count in total spending, while Finances groups them separately from routine costs.

Budget lines

Optional planned items. Leaving the first blank row empty is valid.

FarmSentry applies the farm's configured currency and creates the project with Planning status. Choose Save project, or use Save & add another for batch setup. On a keyboard,Cmd/Ctrl+Entersaves the project.

One budget row is one planned item. Give it an item name, then enter a quantity and unit price or enter the total directly. Quantity × unit price calculates the total; a typed total overrides that calculation when a supplier quote differs.

• Group rows under Materials, Labor, Transport, or Other.
• Paste tab- or comma-separated rows from Excel or Google Sheets into the first item cell.
• The paste order is item, quantity, unit, unit price, total, section.
• You can add up to 200 rows in one save. Blank trailing rows are ignored.
• On the project page, add batches, edit individual lines, or move a row within its section.
• A line with linked actual spend cannot be removed. A removable line offers Undo after deletion.

The overview starts on Active and remembers the last view used for each farm. Choose a view to answer a specific question:

Summary cards

Active projects counts Planning, Active, and On hold projects. Committed budget, Spent, and Remaining total only those active projects. When the active total is negative, the fourth card changes from Remaining to Over budget.

Open a project

Click a desktop row or use Open project on a phone. The list shows the type, status, budget, spend, remaining amount, percentage spent, and receipt coverage; owners and managers also get quick expense and archive actions.

The headline cards separate four different figures so custody is never mistaken for a cost:

The progress bar shows Spent as a percentage of Budget and is visually capped at 100%. If there is spend but no budget, the displayed calculation is 100%.

There are three supported paths into project actuals. Each ends in one linked Finance cost transaction; the steps before that point are not spend.

Select Dispense funds when an owner or manager is handing farm money to a custodian for project purchases. FarmSentry opens a project-earmarked Petty Cash float; it does not create an expense or revenue.

• New project floats are available only while the project is Planning or Active.
• The selected Petty Cash fund and project must use the same currency.
• The flow records the custodian, amount handed over, transfer method and reference, and optional expected close date.
• Going over the project budget produces a warning but does not by itself block dispensing.
• The Funds card links each float to its full Petty Cash page.

The Funds card shows non-cancelled floats, each custodian, its status, total issued, and amount still In hand. Reconciliation, cash counts, returns, spend review, and final closure belong in Petty Cash because that module owns the custody record.

The status selector allows movement between any of these statuses; there is no required sequence. Marking Completed or Cancelled asks for confirmation because it stops budget changes and new direct expenses. Changing to another status reopens those controls when that status permits them. An open float warning does not close the float for you.

Archive, do not delete

Archiving is separate from status. It removes the project from normal views and totals while preserving its budget, expenses, receipts, funds, status, and history. Owners and managers can restore it from Archived projects, and restoration returns it with the same lifecycle status. The normal UI does not permanently delete project records.

An expense is marked missing when it has no receipt URL and no linked receipt file. The overview's Missing receipts view finds affected projects, while the project's Receipts tab identifies each expense by vendor or description, amount, and date.

Correct the source record

• Direct project expense: Projects has no expense edit or delete control. Correct it from the Finances transaction workflow.
• Request-created expense: Use the Requests payment-correction workflow when its status permits. Do not alter the linked cost from Projects.
• Petty Cash-created expense: Correct or void the spend in Petty Cash so its custody and approval history stay consistent.

Project statements

The project overflow menu downloads PDF, Excel, or CSV statements. Project statement downloads are available on Essentials and Premium. On the Free plan, the menu explains the requirement and links to plan information instead of starting a download. Statements cover the project summary, budget-versus-actual information, expenses, and format-specific audit data; they do not currently include the Funds card or float table.

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