Lanco

Clients and Projects

Manage your clients and organize work into projects in Lanco. Clients and projects form the foundation of your Lanco workflow. Clients represent the companies or individuals you work with, while projects organize specific pieces of work for each client. This hierarchical structure helps you track time, manage billing rates, and organize your work effectively.

Managing Clients

To create a new client:

  1. Click Clients in the sidebar
  2. Click New Client
  3. Enter the client's name
  4. Optionally add contact information (email, phone number)
  5. Set client-specific currency if working with international clients (optional)
  6. Configure custom day rates or hours per day that differ from your organization defaults (optional)

Each client dashboard shows:

  • All their projects
  • Total hours logged
  • Unbilled hours
  • Quick access to create new projects or generate invoices

To archive a client when the relationship ends:

  1. Navigate to their dashboard
  2. Click the Archive button

Archived clients retain all their historical data but don't appear in the main client list, keeping your workspace clean.

Client-Level Settings

Client settings that can be customized:

  • Currency: Applies to all their invoices
  • Default day rates: Inherited by new projects unless overridden
  • Hours per day: For clients who work different schedules (e.g., 7.5 hours instead of the standard 8-hour day)

Working with Projects

Projects organize work within a client and must be associated with a specific client.

To create a new project:

  1. Navigate to a client's dashboard
  2. Click New Project
  3. Enter the project name
  4. Set the day rate (determines how your time will be billed)
  5. Optionally customize the hours per day for different billing structure

Each project page shows:

  • Total hours logged
  • Unbilled hours
  • Project's day rate and calculated hourly rate
  • All associated time logs and documents

To archive completed projects:

  1. Navigate to the project page
  2. Click the Archive button

This keeps your project lists manageable while preserving all historical data.

Project Day Rates and Billing

Day rates are essential for accurate billing. Each project must have a day rate set, which can be customized based on the project's scope and complexity.

The hourly rate is automatically calculated using the formula:

Day Rate ÷ Hours Per Day

Rate Hierarchy

The rate hierarchy works from most general to most specific:

  1. Organization defaults (base level)
  2. Client level (overrides organization defaults)
  3. Project level (overrides client settings)

This flexibility allows you to maintain standard rates while accommodating special circumstances for specific clients or projects.

Example: If you set 8 hours per day at the organization level, 7.5 hours for a specific client, and 6 hours for a particular project, that project will use 6 hours per day while other projects for that client use 7.5 hours.

Client-Project Relationship

The relationship between clients and projects creates a clear structure:

  • Each client can have multiple projects
  • Each project belongs to exactly one client
  • Time logs are always associated with both a client and a project

This enables you to filter your view and track project-specific hours accurately.

Filtering and Organization

Use the client filter dropdown at the top of the sidebar to focus on a specific client's work.

The filter affects:

  • Time logs
  • Invoices
  • Expenses
  • Documents

The sidebar also shows your most recently active projects for quick access.