No but that would be useful. Could you open a feature request for this on my Redmine? I'm planning to have a few discussions about the next major version of Budget soon and any feedback would be useful.

Eric

The spec for the next evolution of the budget plugin is now roughed out!!! This has been long in the coming and took a lot of really painful brain work.

I am going to be discussing it with eric on a call today, but I am curious on the feedback for the general direction. The question - should we fork from the budget plugin and create a new contracts plugin? or does everyone else agree with our new direction and we move the plugin in that direction.

Budget Plugin --> Contracts Plugin¶

• Table of contents
• Budget Plugin --> Contracts Plugin
  • Rename to "Contracts"
    • Mission Statement
    • Definitions
      • Contract
      • Deliverable
  • Contract
  • Contract / Deliverable Type Forms
    • Fixed Rate Contract
      • Hourly Deliverable
      • Fixed Deliverable
    • Hourly Contract
      • Hourly Deliverable
      • Fixed Deliverable
    • Retainer
      • Hourly Deliverable
      • Fixed Deliverable
  • Fixed Rate Invoice / Contract Integration
  • contract status
  • deliverable status
  • history
  • Screens
    • Overview
    • Contract List
    • Contract Editor
    • Deliverable Editor
  • Todo
  • Additional Issues
  • Additional Notes
    • Deliverable Types
    • Type of Contract
    • Project Dates
    • Solutions
    • What Works Well
    • What is Overhead

Rename to "Contracts"¶

Mission Statement¶

Monitor and Enforce the Contract

1. On Scope
2. On Budget
3. On Time

Definitions¶

Contract¶

• There may be many Contracts to a Project
• Each contract is EITHER Fixed Rate, Hourly, or Retainer (can not be a hybrid)

Deliverable¶

• There may be many Deliverables to a Contract

Contract¶

1. Start Date
2. End Date
3. Executed Contract Uploader (Red alert on top of Contract UI if hours are clocked to contract and no contract has been uploaded)
4. Milestones (deliverables can be assigned to milestone, payment dates)
   • Title
   • Date
   • Description (Wiki Formated)
   • Type (Payment, Event, Client Dependency)
   • Amt (if Payment)
5. Type
   • Fixed
   • Hourly
   • Time Limited Retainer (Hourly Retainer)
   • Budget Limited Retainer (Pool of Hours)
6. Contract Owner (redmine user)
7. Payment Terms (Net 0, 15, 30, 45...)
8. Client AP Contact Info
9. PO Number
10. Contract Value
11. Cost Adjustment
    • Amount (% or $)
    • Type (Contract Discount, Sales Commission)???
    • Notes
12. Details (Objectives, Approach, Exclusions...)
13. Deliverables
    • Title
    • Description
    • Deliverable Owner
    • Due Date
    • Status (Archived?, On Hold)
    • Billable (default)
    • Type
      • Hourly
      • Fixed
    • Initial Issues (Phase 50)
      • Title
      • Due Date
      • Estimate
    • Initial Issue Template???
    • Cost
      • Labor
      • Overhead
      • Profit (discount?)
      • Date / Budget Limits
    • Hours (on hourly)
    • Default Deliverable (optional)
14. Warranty
    • Start Date
    • End Date

Contract / Deliverable Type Forms¶

Fixed Rate Contract¶

Hourly Deliverable¶

• Title
• Description
• Due Date
• Total Budget (sum of items below)
  • Labor Budget
  • Nonbillable Budget
  • Other Overhead
  • Profit

Fixed Deliverable¶

• Title
• Description
• Due Date
• Total Budget (sum of items below)
  • Fixed Bid
  • Nonbillable Budget
  • Other Overhead
  • Profit

Hourly Contract¶

Hourly Deliverable¶

• Title
• Description
• Due Date
• Billable Rate
• Max. Hours (optional: Pool of hours)

Fixed Deliverable¶

• Title
• Description
• Due Date
• Total Budget (sum of items below)
  • Fixed Bid
  • Nonbillable Budget
  • Other Overhead
  • Profit

Retainer¶

Hourly Deliverable¶

• Title
• Description
• Retainer Rate
• Overage Rate (defaults to retainer rate if nothing is set)
• Max. Hours (optional: Pool of hours)
• Start Date
• Frequency (Monthly, Quarterly)
• End Date

Fixed Deliverable¶

• Title
• Description
• Due Date
• Total Budget (sum of items below)
  • Fixed Bid
  • Nonbillable Budget
  • Other Overhead
  • Profit

Fixed Rate Invoice / Contract Integration¶

• Fixed Deliverable Cost
  • Fixed invoices are applied to fixed deliverables (needs to be sensative to both plugins being installed)
• Fixed Deliverable Status
  • Fixed rate deliverables should use issue status to deturmine deliverable status

contract status¶

• question: if the contract is in the system do expect it to be properly signed and funded? No. That's why we have a contract uploader. If it's not uploaded with both signatures, then there should be a red bar on the top of the module stating that the contract is not ratified. You should be able to upload multiple files
• use date to set expiration of a contract not status. If the contract goes beyond the original date then the contract should be updated.
• what about retainers? projects with no contract endpoint (use end of year?) ALL contracts should ALWAYS have end dates. Wouldn't do to have a retainer contract that binds us to a rate. The end date of the contract is a good time to either renegotiate or reaffirm.

deliverable status¶

inherit status from issues:

• empty -> no issues
• new -> all issues are proposed or new
• in progress -> any issue is part of the in progress / under review suite
• on hold -> all non closed issues are on hold
• complete -> all issues closed or rejected

history¶

• use exact same history behaviors as issue.
• both contract and each deliverable have a history.
• track any meta data change
• have comments
• ability to watch contracts

Screens¶

Overview¶

• Timeline
• Global Budget (for active contracts)

Contract List¶

Contract Editor¶

Deliverable Editor¶

Todo¶

• Comps
  • Description needs to be accesible
  • Sign off needs to be integrated in table view

Additional Issues¶

• Deliverable Scores - not interested in paying more to maintain this through the updates.
• Question: Do child projects effect parent budgets?
• Query should include "all" statuses, not just open

Additional Notes¶

Deliverable Types¶

• Fixed
• Houly

Type of Contract¶

• Fixed
• Hourly
• Retainer
• Pool of Hours
• Self Funded

Project Dates¶

• Contract Start
• Contract End
• Warranty
• Deliverables
  • End
  • Change Dates
• Milestones
• Payments
• Today
• Dependencies

Solutions¶

• Estimations
• Manage Budgets (Contract Tool handles this only)
• Reporting

What Works Well¶

• "Deliverable" concept
• "Labor Budget" concept
• "Missing on Deliverables", however, it's not perfect - query should include "all" statuses, not just open

What is Overhead¶

• Weekly Reports
• Team Direction
• Client Calls / Emails
• AP
• AR
• Specing
• Contracts & Bidding
• Hosting & Facilities

I havent be able to use the plugin , but the sepcs seems reallu good, I only ha a question about the relatioship between target_version and deliverables
Over deliverable haves many target versions ? or one target version has many deliverables ? or both? or neither?

The budget plugin in now days form is great, but with those changes it can be even better. If I may, I would like to add some sugestions.
The access to some data could be more restricted. For example the rate of each member in project. Maybe not everybody should see that cind of information.. The deliverables choosing in 'new issue' could also be only for permited roles.
No cind of files attachments to the deliverables is big lack for me as a user, becouse of the invoices, or other doc's. As so, it would be lovely to apply such feature. (Doesn't have to be attachment module. Activated recognition of hiperlinks could be enough and connect to redmine files repo)

where download!!!!!?????

Hi Eric,

After browsing through all the plugins like Budget, support Hour ,
the New Milestone - Version Approach etc. I'm Lost ;)

can you give me à advise how the Status is about the
Budget-, Contracts-, Supppor-hours-, Customer-Plugins ?

So Far i understand the Budget Plugin becomes contracts,
but i can See anything yet.

Thanks for any Feedback