Every project turns on four numbers: what the client will pay, what was planned, what was committed once people were allocated, and what has actually been spent. Propeoll holds all four on one record and keeps them current.
| O Order | ₹20,00,000 | signed 12 Mar |
| B Budget | ₹8,00,000 | approved, v3 |
| P Planned | ₹7,60,000 | 12 people allocated |
| A Actual | ₹5,20,820 | 806 approved hours |
Each number answers something different and belongs to somebody different. Read together they show whether the project is making money, and where it began to slip.
What will the client pay?
Business development
The signed deal, agreed before work starts. Everything after it is measured against this.
O = Order value
What did we plan to spend?
Operations, then approved
A percentage of the order, fixed once it clears the third approval level.
B = Order × Budget %
What have we committed?
Ops, allocating people
What the work adds up to once named people are allocated at their real rates. It should come in under budget.
P = Σ Planned days × Rate
What have we spent?
From approved timesheets
Approved hours at each person’s rate. This is the figure margin is worked out from.
A = Σ Approved hours × Rate
Time is logged in Zoho Projects and approved there by the project lead, exactly as today. Propeoll takes it from that point: approved hours multiplied by that person’s rate. The rate itself is not entered anywhere. It is the salary held in Zoho Payroll, divided by the working days in the period and the hours in a day, with designation averages as a fallback where a salary is not held.
This is the difference from a rate parked in a user profile. A salary revision reaches every project the same day it takes effect, and no project carries on costing at last year’s figure because nobody went back to change it.
No rate card to maintain, and no per-user profile to remember to update.
There is no batch job and nothing to wait for at month end.
Every rupee links back to an approved entry with a name and a date on it.
A project billed in another currency converts at that point, so no second rate is kept.
| Role | Approved | Rate | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Senior architect | 120 h | ₹1,100 | ₹1,32,000 |
| Project manager | 180 h | ₹850 | ₹1,53,000 |
| Designer | 246 h | ₹520 | ₹1,27,920 |
| QA engineer | 260 h | ₹415 | ₹1,07,900 |
154 h rejected or absent. Contributes ₹0 to the figure above.
| Milestone | Order | Budget % | Budget |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1, discovery | ₹4,00,000 | 40% | ₹1,60,000 |
| 2, build | ₹8,00,000 | 40% | ₹3,20,000 |
| 3, rollout | ₹6,00,000 | 40% | ₹2,40,000 |
| 4, handover | ₹2,00,000 | 40% | ₹80,000 |
The order is written the way a sales order is written: a line for each stage, with the amount payable against it. Reaching that in a task-management structure takes a pass through screens built for something else, which is why it is usually done once and left. Here it is one list, edited the way a quote is edited.
The budget then comes off the same lines. Each stage takes either a percentage of the order or a cash amount, and Propeoll derives the other. Because the budget is a share of committed revenue, the working margin is visible before the work begins.
Stages and amounts in the order the work is delivered, not buried in a task tree.
Enter a percentage or an amount. The other is derived.
What is payable and what it may cost sit on the same line, so margin reads stage by stage.
Once finance signs off, the budget is fixed and any change starts a new version.
Orders, budgets and plans travel the same three steps. Each submission creates a new version and the previous one is retained rather than overwritten, so what finance approved, and the basis for it, remains demonstrable long after a project closes.
Verifies scope, allocation and the effort required.
Confirms capacity, rate accuracy and acceptable delivery risk.
Fixes the budget and signs off the margin the project is run to.
| Step | Approver | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 1 · Scope and effort | Project lead | Approved |
| 2 · Capacity and rates | Dept head | Approved |
| 3 · Commercial | Finance | Pending |
These are the two places project costing normally falls apart. Propeoll deals with both without a side spreadsheet.
Handled anywhere else, a project in another currency means a rate entered against every individual, in that currency, and kept in step as salaries and exchange rates move. Here the rate stays in the organisation’s base currency and converts as cost is calculated, so INR cost and USD billing sit on one project with margin correct on both sides.
Operations plan in days; hours are logged in Projects. Propeoll converts between the two using a configurable working-day definition, so planned and actual effort compare directly.
| Project | Done | Spent | To finish | Profit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Project Alpha | 58% | ₹5.21L | ₹3.77L | 72% |
| Project Beta | 80% | ₹11.2L | ₹2.80L | 65% |
| Project Gamma | 35% | ₹14.4L | ₹26.7L | 31% |
| Project Delta | 90% | ₹5.10L | ₹0.57L | 77% |
The project manager enters the percentage of work complete. That is the only judgement required. From it, and from cost already recorded, Propeoll derives the rest.
Actual spend against the approved budget, as it stands.
The cost of remaining work at the current burn rate.
Where the project lands if nothing changes.
The margin the project finishes on, rather than the one quoted.
Cost to complete = (Pending % × Actual) ÷ Completed %
Propeoll is built on Zoho Creator and runs in a Zoho account held in the customer’s name. Licences are provided with the plan, and project and cost data remains in that account. No separate database holds a copy.
Where tasks, allocations and timesheets already live. Approval status comes through with them.
Where Propeoll itself runs: orders, budgets, plans, rates and the approval chain.
The data layer. Projects, Payroll and Books all feed it, Propeoll works from the consolidated result, and the dashboards come from the same place.
On the Complete plan, invoicing from milestones and real cost per person, with nothing to upload.
Data remains on Zoho infrastructure, under the customer’s account and access rules.
Approval levels map onto the existing organisation structure and Zoho user roles.
Every application here is provided with the plan. Nothing purchased separately, nothing reconciled across two invoices.
A 30 minute walkthrough, configured to actual project structures rather than a demonstration dataset.