Client & Project Tracker — Methodology Handbook

The Client & Project Tracker is a small CRM for freelancers, consultants, agencies and service businesses: the people and companies you work for, the deals in your pipeline, the projects and their tasks, the hours you spend, and a timeline of everything that happened with each client. What sets it apart is the money: it does not ask you to type what a client paid — it reads it from the invoices, paid bookings and income you already keep on CalculatorAI, so every client shows what they paid, what they owe and how fast they pay. This handbook explains what the tracker stores, how every figure is worked out, and what it deliberately does not do.

👉 Open the tracker: calculatorai.app/client-tracker

A record and an estimate, not accounting. The tracker adds up the payments, invoices and hours you have recorded and matches them to clients by name and e-mail. Your books and your accountant decide what counts as income; what the tracker guarantees is that every figure can be traced back to the record it came from.

Who it is for

Anyone who works for clients and wants one place to see them: freelance designers, developers and writers, consultants and coaches, small agencies, photographers, tutors, salons and other service businesses, tradespeople. It works for a handful of clients or thousands, for people and for companies, in any currency and in ten languages. There is no limit on clients, deals, projects, tasks or hours, and the whole tracker is free; Pro adds a client book shared with your team.

The one idea everything follows from

A client stores who they are — the money is read from where it already lives. A client is a name, how to reach them, a status, tags and your own fields. What they paid and owe is computed every time from your paid invoices, your paid bookings and your P&L income, matched to the client. Mark an invoice paid in the Invoices tracker and the client's card shows it at once; there is nothing to copy and nothing to keep in sync.

Clients — people and companies

A client is a person or a company. A person can be filed under a company of the same book ("Maya Chen, Practice owner — Brightline Dental"), and a company's card lists its people. A client carries:

• Name, e-mail, phone, website, address, job title.
• Status — from your own list. The tracker starts with Lead (not a customer yet), Active and Past; every status has a meaning (lead, customer or inactive) that decides who counts in the numbers. You can rename, recolour, reorder, hide and add statuses.
• Tags and Came from (a referral, your website, Instagram…) — so you can see which channel brings the money.
• Your own fields — text, number, amount, date, choice, link, e-mail, phone or yes/no, for people, companies or both: a contract number, a birthday, a tier.
• Hourly rate and currency — what an hour for this client is worth unless a project or an entry says otherwise.
• Get back to them — a follow-up day and an optional note. It shows on your calendar, in the morning summary and under Needs attention.
• Also appears as — other names and e-mails this client is written under on invoices, bookings or trips ("Brightline Dental LLC", "billing@…"), so their money is matched to them.
• Notes, and Archived — hidden from lists and from the numbers, never deleted.

How a payment finds its client

Most records on the site write the client down as text: an invoice's Bill To block, a booking's name, e-mail and phone, a shift job's employer, a trip's "client", a P&L counterparty. The tracker recognises the client in that text, in this order:

1. An e-mail address — the strongest key. An invoice's Bill To usually carries one.
2. A phone number, compared on its last nine digits, so "+1 (512) 555-0147" and "512.555.0147" agree while two different numbers do not.
3. A name — the client's own name, its "also appears as" names, and a person's company — compared after folding case, accents, punctuation and the legal form, so "Acme, Inc.", "ACME inc" and "Acme" are the same. A name only matches when it is the whole name: "Acme" does not claim "Acme Plumbing".

When a record could belong to two clients equally, it belongs to neither. Money is never attributed on a guess. If a payment is missing from a client's card, add the name or e-mail it was written under to Also appears as.

What is read, and from where:

Quotes, pro-formas, purchase orders and drafts are never counted as money. Money from the other trackers is read for your personal client book only — see Shared client books below.

The numbers on a client's card

• Paid in total / in 12 months / this year — the sum of the payments above, in the currency shown in the header.
• Owes now and overdue — what is still open on sent invoices, and the part past its due date.
• Pays in — the average number of days from an invoice's date to the day it was paid, over the client's paid invoices.
• Pays late — the badge appears when the client pays, on average, more than a week after the due date, or owes something 30 or more days past due.
• Hours — every hour logged for the client, plus Shift tracker hours.
• Not invoiced — billable hours not yet marked invoiced, at their rates. Hours on a fixed-fee or retainer project are left out: those are paid as an amount, not by the hour.
• Real hourly — what the client paid, less what working for them cost (trips and cost lines above), divided by all the hours. It is the honest answer to "is this client worth it?": a fixed fee spread over too many hours shows here first.

The pipeline

A deal is a piece of work you hope to win: a title, a value, a currency, the client, a stage, an expected close date, where it came from and notes. Stages are your own list, in order. An open stage carries the chance a deal in it closes (New 10%, Contacted 20%, Proposal sent 50%, Negotiation 75% to start with); won and lost stages end it. You can override the chance on a single deal.

• Open deals — the sum of open deals' values.
• Weighted forecast — each open deal's value × its chance to close, summed. It is what the pipeline is worth on average, not a promise.
• Closing in 30 days — the weighted value of open deals expected to close within 30 days.
• Won this month / this year — deals that reached a won stage, by the day they did.
• Win rate — won ÷ (won + lost) over the deals closed in the last 365 days.
• Days to win — the average number of days from a deal's creation to its win, last 365 days.
• Past its date — an open deal whose expected close has passed.

Moving a deal to a won or lost stage stamps the day it closed and writes it on the client's timeline; reopening it clears the day. A won deal offers to start a project from it.

Projects and tasks

A project belongs to a client (and optionally to the deal it came from) and has a status from your own list, a start and a deadline, a colour and a way it is priced:

• Fixed fee — the hours show what the fee really pays per hour (real hourly = fee ÷ hours logged). An optional hours budget shows how much of it is used.
• Hourly — hours × rate, with an optional cap in hours or money; the bar fills as the hours come in.
• Retainer — an amount and a number of hours per month.
• Not tracked — no budget.

Past 85% of the budget the bar turns amber, past 100% red. A project past its deadline and still open is flagged.

A task belongs to a client and optionally a project: a title, a due day, a priority, and whether it is a milestone (shown as the project's next milestone). Ticking it stamps the day it was done.

Hours and the timer

An hour entry is a client, an optional project, a day, a duration, what was done, whether it is billable and whether it is already invoiced, and optionally its own rate. The rate an hour is worth is the entry's own, else the project's, else the client's, else the book's default.

The timer runs on the server's clock: start it on a client (and a project), close the laptop, stop it later — the minutes are worked out when you press Stop, so a sleeping computer neither loses nor adds time. One timer runs at a time; a timer left running for more than a day counts as 24 hours until you correct it.

Needs attention

The overview lists what wants you, overdue first: a follow-up day that has come, an invoice past due, a task due, a project deadline, a deal expected to close — and a quiet client: a lead or an active client with no timeline entry, finished task or hours for longer than your Quiet after setting (30 days to start with; you can change it or switch it off). A person and their company share their last contact, so neither goes quiet while the other is busy. A client with a follow-up day set is never "quiet" — you already have a plan.

The calendar and the morning summary

Follow-up days, open tasks' due days, open projects' deadlines and open deals' expected closes appear on your workspace calendar under the source Clients, and today's ones in the morning summary. From the calendar, Contacted clears a follow-up and Mark done ticks a task. A missed follow-up stays on today for 30 days. Overdue invoices are not repeated here — the Invoices tracker already puts them on the calendar.

Send to — the other tools

From a client's card:

• Invoice — an invoice addressed to the client, with their billable hours not yet invoiced as lines (one per project and rate) — or a blank one when there are none. An hour without a rate, or hours priced in two currencies, cannot be invoiced automatically; the tracker says so. After it opens the invoice, it asks whether to mark those hours as invoiced now, so they are not billed twice.
• Quote — a quote addressed to the client, with their open deal as the first line.
• Record a payment — a P&L income line with the client as counterparty, for you to complete.
• Log a trip — a trip in the Mileage tracker for this client.

Each one opens the other tool filled in for you to check and save — nothing is written there behind your back.

Importing and exporting

Import reads a CSV file — this tracker's own export, Google Contacts, Outlook, HubSpot or any spreadsheet with columns such as Name, Email, Phone, Company — or your phone's address book as a vCard (.vcf). Columns are recognised by their names in several languages. A row with a person and a company becomes a person filed under that company (the company is created once). Before anything is saved you see every contact; the ones already in your book (same e-mail, phone or name) are marked and unticked. You can import them as leads.

Export downloads everything as one CSV: clients with your own fields, deals, projects, tasks, the timeline, hours and your lists. Export is free on every plan, always.

Shared client books

A shared client book is a client list a team keeps together (Pro). Everyone in it sees the same clients, deals, projects, tasks, timeline and hours, and each row shows who added it.

• Owner and admins change the book's settings (stages, statuses, fields, currency, default rate) and manage members.
• Editors add and change clients and everything under them.
• Viewers read everything and change nothing.
• Pro is needed to write in a shared book — each editor needs their own; viewers do not. A member whose Pro lapses keeps reading, nothing is hidden.
• Private money stays private. A shared book does not read anyone's personal invoices, bookings or P&L: matching one member's private invoices against the team's clients would show the team what is not theirs. The shared book's numbers come from its own hours and deals.
• Export of the whole shared book is free for everyone in it.
• Subscriptions, campaigns, reviews and files belong to the shared book like its clients: editors add and change them, viewers see them, and the Analytics tab counts the book's own rows.
• Services, categories, enquiry forms, project templates, e-mail templates and "When a deal is won" are the book's settings — owners and admins change them; editors use them (start a project from a template, pick an e-mail template) but cannot edit them.
• A letter from Write goes under the sender's own name, and replies come to the sender's own mailbox — never to the book's owner. Writing needs the sender's own Pro.
• Files count against the space of the member who uploaded them; every member of the book can open them.
• Merging works between two cards of the same book.

Nothing moves between your personal book and a shared one: a deal stays with a client of its own book.

A business card or an e-mail signature

In the new-client form, Scan a card (Pro) reads a photo of a business card or a screenshot of an e-mail signature and fills in the name, company, title, e-mail, phone, website and address. The same works from the assistant's paperclip: attach the picture and it opens the client form filled in. Nothing is saved until you check the fields and press Save; the picture is kept with your other uploads under Files.

Contracts and e-signature

On a client's card, Contracts & portal → New contract opens an agreement you write yourself or start from the template (scope, timeline, price and payment, revisions, ownership, cancellation). Send it, and the signer gets an e-mail with a private link; they read it, type their full name, tick that they agree to sign electronically and may draw a mark with a finger or the mouse. No account is needed on their side.

What makes the signature hold up — a simple electronic signature, as the US ESIGN Act and UETA and the EU's eIDAS regulation recognise it:

• The text is frozen when it is sent. A draft can be edited; a sent contract cannot. To change it, withdraw it and send a new one. A fingerprint (SHA-256) of the exact text is kept, so a single changed character would show.
• Intent and consent are explicit: the typed name, the consent box, and the button that says what it does.
• An audit trail: when it was sent, when the link was first opened, when it was signed, by what name, from which IP address and browser.

You get a notification the moment it is signed or declined (with the reason, when the signer gives one), and the timeline of the client records it. A deadline is optional: after it, the link says the offer has expired. A new send replaces the previous link. The link is shown to you once, when it is sent — anyone holding it can sign, so it goes only to the signer.

What it is not: a qualified electronic signature (the kind some EU countries require for a few specific documents, made with a certified device), and not legal advice — the template is a starting point to adapt.

The client portal

A private page for one client, behind a link you create on their card: their invoices (paid, open, overdue — matched exactly the way the card matches them), their projects with progress and the next milestone, and, if you choose, their open tasks, with a message from you at the top. It is read-only and needs no account. You decide what is shown and can change it at any time; New link replaces the link and Turn off stops it at once. You see when it was last opened and how many times.

In a shared client book the portal shows projects and tasks only — invoices belong to each member personally and never reach a shared page.

Enquiry forms for your website

Settings → Enquiry forms opens a builder with a live preview: a heading and an introduction, name and e-mail always, any of phone, company, website, budget and message (each optional or required), and your own questions — short or long text, a number, a date, one or several choices from a list, yes/no, a link, a social profile, or the service the person is interested in. The look (accent colour, light or dark, rounded corners, button text), a consent checkbox, the language the visitor reads the form in (eleven, Ukrainian included), and what happens after sending (a thank-you message or your own page, an e-mail to you) are set in the same window. Copy the link, or the code for any site builder that accepts HTML.

Each enquiry becomes a lead in the book the form belongs to, with the message and every answer on its timeline, the form's tags, the form's name as its source and — when you pick one — the form's campaign. When the sender is already a client — the same e-mail, phone or name — the enquiry goes on that client's card instead of making a duplicate. You get a notification unless you switch it off.

Against spam: a field people never see, a minimum time to fill the form in, a human check when the site has it switched on, and limits per sender and per form per day. A switched-off form stops answering at once, and embedded on a site it simply draws nothing.

Services, categories and social profiles

Settings keeps your list of services (with their usual price) and client categories (individual, freelancer, small business, corporation, non-profit — rename or add your own). Name the service on a deal, a project or a subscription and its price fills in; give a client a category; add their Instagram, LinkedIn, Telegram or other profiles on the client form. All of it is what the Analytics tab counts by.

Client subscriptions and memberships

A client's card → Subscriptions lists what that client pays you regularly — a retainer, a membership, hosting, a support plan: the amount, the cycle (weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly), the start and an optional end date, and whether it renews by itself. The next renewal is worked out from the start date and shows on the card and on the workspace calendar (with a line in the morning summary on the day). Paused or cancelled subscriptions stop renewing. Their monthly total is the recurring revenue the Analytics tab shows. Invoice for this cycle opens the invoice generator filled in with the subscription; nothing is ever charged by itself. You can also tell the assistant — "Northwind pays me $300 a month for site care since March" — and the subscription form opens filled in for you to save.

Campaigns and Analytics

The Analytics tab answers where clients come from and what pays — for the last 12 months or any calendar year: new clients, how many became paying (paid in the period or won a deal), conversion, revenue, recurring revenue per month, and the average rating; then the same split by source, by category and by service, and every client status with its count.

Campaigns are added there: a name, the channel, the budget and dates. Mark a client with a campaign on the client form, or pick it in a website form so every lead from that form carries it; the tab then counts the campaign's leads, paying clients and revenue by itself and shows the cost per lead, the cost per paying client and the return on the budget — over the campaign's whole life, whatever period the tab is showing, because a budget is spent once. Nothing is typed by hand.

Client reviews

On a client's card, Add a review records a rating from one to five stars with their words — from an e-mail, a call, a message. The client can also leave one on their portal ("How did we do?"); it lands on their timeline and you get a notification. The card shows the client's average, and the Analytics tab the distribution and the latest reviews. Telling the assistant "Maya gave us five stars" opens the review form filled in. Reviews are private to your book — there is no public review page.

Project templates and won deals

Settings → Project templates describes the work you do again and again: its pricing (fixed, hourly, retainer or none), its usual price, how long it takes, and the tasks it always starts with — each due a number of days after the start ("brief on day 0, design on day 7, launch on day 30", with milestones). On a client's card (or on the Projects tab, choosing the client), From a template turns one into a real project with every task dated from the start day you pick; a preview shows the dates first.

Settings → When a deal is won decides what happens the moment a deal moves into a won stage — on the board, in the deal form or on the card: nothing; offer a project (a window asks which template, or an empty project, or not now); or start the project by itself from the template you chose, starting that day. A deal that already has a project never gets a second one.

Writing to a client

Write on a client's card sends an e-mail from the tracker: pick one of your e-mail templates (follow-up after a call, proposal, thank you, payment reminder, asking for a review — edit them or add your own in Settings) or start blank. The client's name, first name and company, and your name and company, are put in where the template says so. The letter goes out from CalculatorAI's address under your name, and replies come to your own mailbox. It can only go to an address on that client's card, a line at the bottom says who sent it, and a copy is kept on the timeline. Writing from the tracker is part of Pro and opens three days after signing up, once your e-mail is confirmed; there is a daily limit per person and per client.

Files

A client's card → Files keeps briefs, contracts signed elsewhere, photos and anything else about the client — up to 25 MB a file and 1 GB in all. Members of a shared book see and open them, and your own uploads also appear on the site's Files page next to your other documents. Deleting a file (here or there) puts it in the tracker's bin for 30 days; deleting a client bins its files with it, and restoring the client brings them back.

Merging duplicates

When one client ended up on two cards (an enquiry form and an import, say), the Clients list shows "…look like the same client" — the same e-mail, the same phone or the same name — with a Merge button; any card can also be merged from its own header. You choose which card stays. Everything under the other one moves over — deals, projects, tasks, timeline, hours, subscriptions, files, contracts, the portal link and filed e-mails — empty fields are filled from it, and its name and e-mail are kept under "also appears as", so payments recorded under the old name still count. The other card goes to the bin.

Where to start

On the Overview, Where to start lists six steps — add a client, put a deal in the pipeline, list your services, put an enquiry form on your site, log time, send a contract — each one button away and ticked by itself the moment it is done. Hide it with ×; it disappears on its own when all six are done.

E-mail forwarding

Settings → E-mail forwarding gives you your own address. Put it in Bcc when you write to a client, or forward a client's e-mail to it, and the message appears on the right client's timeline — matched by the client's e-mail among the recipients, or by the sender in the forwarded message. Nothing connects to your mailbox.

Only mail sent from your own addresses is accepted (your account e-mail, plus any you add), so nobody else can write on your timelines. A message that matches no client waits under Unsorted, where you file it to a client or dismiss it. Forwarding works for your personal client book.

Deleting and restoring

Delete puts a client — together with its deals, projects, tasks, timeline and hours — into Recently deleted for 30 days; restoring brings back exactly what was deleted with it. A single deal, project, task, note or hour entry can be deleted and restored on its own. After 30 days the bin empties itself.

The example book

A new account starts with an example: a US web designer with two companies and their contacts, a pipeline with a deal in every stage, projects of every pricing kind, tasks, hours, a timeline and payments — so every number above has something to show. It disappears by itself the moment you add your own first client (or anything under an example client — that client is then kept as yours), or when you press Clear example.

What the tracker does not do (yet)

• Sync your mailbox. It does not connect to Gmail or Outlook and does not send automatic e-mail sequences. You can write one letter at a time from a client's card, and the forwarding address above is how other e-mail reaches a timeline.
• Take a payment in the portal. The portal shows invoices; the client pays from the invoice itself.
• Send invoices or take payments itself. Invoices are made in the invoice generator and payments are recorded where you keep them; this tracker reads them.
• Guess. A payment that matches two clients, an hour without a rate, an amount in a currency that cannot be converted right now — each is left out and said to be left out, never filled in.