ochProjects (package)

Customers

A Customer record stores the billing name and address, whether it is a private person or a business, and the VAT number for businesses. Each Customer is linked to a Joomla user account, which is how they get access to the front end.

• One Joomla user can be linked to more than one Customer. This suits a bookkeeper or office manager who handles several companies with a single login.
• Each Customer chooses (or you choose for them) a payment method: one of the online payment plugins you have installed, or plain bank transfer.
• Each Customer has an invoice grouping setting. Combined lets one invoice cover several projects. Per project forces one invoice per project, which suits an agency that re-invoices its own clients per project.

Projects and billing models

A Project has its own hourly rate and currency, so one Customer can have projects in different currencies. Every Project uses one of three billing models:

For Capped and Fixed price projects, only you (the administrator) create invoices. The terms you agreed are yours to translate into invoices, so customers cannot start an invoice for these projects themselves. They can still see the logged time and materials, which lets them follow progress.

Time logs and materials

You log hours (with a description and a rate) and materials (a description and an amount) against a Project. Hours can be rounded to a set interval, such as 15 minutes - either for the whole site or per project.

Each entry has an approved state:

• By default, entries wait for approval.
• A project can be set to auto-approve, so entries are approved the moment they are created. Use this for trusted, repeat work where a review step adds nothing.
• Customers with the right permission can approve entries themselves from the front end.

Only approved, not-yet-invoiced entries can be put on an invoice. Once an entry is on an invoice, it cannot be invoiced twice.

Invoices

An invoice moves through a simple life:

1. Draft - editable. You (or a customer with invoicing permission) add approved entries, remove items, add manual lines such as a deposit or a one-off fee, or pick reusable lines from the catalog.
2. Finalized - the invoice gets its permanent, sequential number (with a prefix you choose) and is locked. If the customer uses an online payment method, a payment link and QR code are added to the document. A PDF is created and stored.
3. Sent - the invoice has been emailed to the customer.
4. Partially paid / Paid - payments have been recorded.
5. Void - the invoice was cancelled.

Voiding releases the time and materials back to "approved, not yet invoiced" so they can go on a new invoice. The stored PDF is replaced by a copy stamped VOID on every page, so your records show the cancelled document instead of one that still looks payable.

The PDF contains the invoice followed by a specification, a detailed breakdown of the underlying hours and materials.

VAT

VAT is worked out for you when an invoice is created, based on the Customer:

• Customers outside the EU get "VAT not applicable" instead of an unexplained 0% line.
• Business customers elsewhere in the EU with a VAT number that checks out against the EU's VIES service get the reverse charge, and the invoice says so.
• Everyone else - private customers within the EU, and business customers in your own country - is charged VAT at your default rate.

If VIES cannot be reached, you decide (in the options) whether to charge VAT until the number is confirmed, or to trust the number the customer entered.

Documents and templates

Invoices, specifications and the payment information box are built from templates you can edit, with shared header and footer parts. Templates can differ by language, falling back to a universal default, so a customer can receive an invoice in their own language.

Payments

Payment methods are separate add-on plugins, so you only install the ones you use:

• Stripe, PayPal and Mollie each add an online payment link and QR code to the invoice.
• Without a plugin, invoices carry your bank details for a normal bank transfer. You can record a manual payment yourself, in full or in part.

The link a customer receives always points to your own site first, and your site then creates a fresh payment page at the moment the customer opens it. An old email or PDF therefore keeps working, and forwarding an invoice to a colleague does not create a second payment.

Emails

Invoice and payment-received emails use Joomla's own Mail Templates (System → Mail Templates), so you edit and translate the wording the same way as any other Joomla email. By default nothing is sent automatically - you send the emails from the toolbar when you are ready. Switch on Automatically Email Invoices in the options to send them the moment an invoice is finalized or fully paid.

The customer portal

Give customers access by adding menu items to your site:

• Dashboard - their projects, totals and what is new since their last visit.
• Time Logs & Materials - search and review everything logged for them, and approve entries.
• Invoices - status and PDF download for each invoice.
• My Details - their own contact, VAT and payment-method details.
• Payment Link - optional; gives online payment links a clean address on your site.

What a customer can do is controlled by three permission levels that you assign to Joomla user groups, exactly like any other Joomla permission:

Customers cannot log time themselves. The people who actually do the work can, though, without needing a Customer account at all - see Team Logging.

Reporting for your bookkeeper

On the invoice list, Download VAT Report produces a PDF for a year, quarter or month. It lists every issued invoice in that period grouped by how VAT was treated - outside the EU, EU reverse charge, VAT charged on an EU business customer, and standard - each with amount excluding VAT, VAT, and total, per currency. A separate list of reverse-charge VAT numbers with their totals gives you what you need for an EU sales listing. The report uses the treatment recorded when each invoice was finalized, so it does not change if a customer's details are edited later.

Each project also shows its own totals: hours, value logged, invoiced so far and outstanding.

Team Logging

Time does not always need to be logged by you. A Team Member - someone who works on a project but is not the customer being billed for it - can log their own hours from the front end, without any back-end access at all.

A separate role from Customer

Team membership is entirely independent from the Customer relationship described under Parts. The same Joomla user could be a Customer on one project and a Team Member on another - or even both on the same project - without the two roles affecting each other. A Team Member never sees who the customer is, what the project's hourly rate is, or anything else about the commercial side of the work.

Setting it up

1. Create a Joomla User Group for your team (for example, "Project Team"), and grant it the Front End: Log Time as Team Member permission under Users → Permissions.
2. Add the people who will log time to that group.
3. Open a Project's edit screen and go to the Team tab. Everyone you just added to the group appears there - tick who may log time on this specific project.
4. Add a My Time Logs menu item pointing your team to the front end.

Only people in a group with that permission ever appear on a Project's Team tab, so picking the right person stays quick even on a site with thousands of users.

What a Team Member sees and can do

• A plain list of the Project names they are assigned to - nothing else about the project.
• Their own logged time only. They cannot see or manage anyone else's entries, even on a project they share with other team members.
• A log entry records a description and a start/end time, exactly like the entries you log yourself. The hourly rate always comes from the project - a Team Member never sets or sees it.
• An entry can be edited or deleted right up until it is approved. Once approved, it is locked, the same as everywhere else in ochProjects.
• Materials are not covered yet - Team Members log time only, for now.

How it fits the rest of the pipeline

A Team Member's entry flows into exactly the same approve-then-invoice pipeline as anything you log yourself. If the project has auto-approve switched on, it is approved immediately; otherwise it waits, just like any other entry. It shows up in the Customer's own Time Logs & Materials view automatically - the customer sees and approves it exactly as if you had logged it, with no extra step on your side.

A freelancer billing by the hour

Create a Customer and a Project with your hourly rate. Log your hours during the month, approve them, and use Create Invoice on the project to pull everything approved into one draft. Check it, finalize it, and send it. The customer pays through the link in the email.

An agency where the customer reviews the time

Give your customer contact the Approve level. You log time as normal, and they log in, read the descriptions and approve what they agree with. Disputes are settled before any invoice exists. Turn on auto-approve for the projects where a review adds nothing.

A customer who invoices for themselves

Give a trusted customer the Invoice level. They approve their own entries, select the ones they want, and create and finalize the invoice on your site, which delivers it to them the same way as one from the admin. Suits customers who need invoices on their own schedule, such as at month end for their bookkeeping.

A fixed-price website build with a deposit

Set the project to Fixed price and enter the agreed amount. Create the first invoice for the deposit, and later ones for progress payments. The final invoice is pre-filled with whatever remains. The amounts and the number of invoices are entirely up to you. The customer can follow how much time went into the work while you bill against the agreed price.

A support contract with a monthly hour limit

Set the project to Capped at budget with the agreed number of hours. Invoice the actual hours each month. If an invoice would take the project over budget, you are warned first and can decide whether to go ahead - for example, when the customer has agreed to extra work.

A bookkeeper managing several companies

Link one Joomla login to several Customers. After logging in, the bookkeeper sees the projects, logs and invoices of every linked company, each clearly tied to its own Customer.

An agency re-invoicing its own clients

Set the Customer to Per project invoice grouping. Each project always gets its own invoice, so the agency can pass each end client's costs on separately.

Selling to customers in several countries

Projects can use different currencies, and VAT is treated automatically for each customer's country and VAT number. At quarter end, the VAT report gives your bookkeeper the figures split by treatment.

Subcontractors who log their own hours

Add each subcontractor as a Team Member on the projects they work on, instead of relaying their hours from an email or spreadsheet yourself. They log their own time from the front end, seeing only the project names they are assigned to. Their entries follow your normal approve-then-invoice flow, and the customer sees them exactly like any other entry.

What ochProjects is not

• It is not a public portfolio or project showcase. It is for billing.
• It does not run subscriptions or recurring charges. Each invoice is created by you or by an authorized customer.
• It is not a full accounting package. It records what you invoice and what has been paid, and gives your bookkeeper the VAT overview, but it does not keep your ledger.