Clippter mixes three money stories: what you invoiced, what left (or entered) the bank, and what labor cost logged hours imply on a project. They are related, but they are not the same number.
The three layers
- Quotes and invoices: commercial value and issued invoices. Markups on rate cards and pricing shape client prices. Payment structures shape when tranches fall due.
- Bank allocations: cash you imported and classified under Cost / Expenses.
- Labor from time: hours × work contract Cost rate, stored on each time entry and rolled into project Spent.
Billing source
On Company Finance (and per project):
| Option | Label | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Clippter | Clippter (default) | Invoicing and revenue follow-up in Clippter |
| External | External (legacy invoiced/paid) | Excludes the project from invoice and revenue follow-up metrics; labor and project bank costs for External jobs are kept out of the usual company P&L cost buckets |
| Mixed | Mixed (legacy + remainder in Clippter) | Record legacy paid; remainder invoiced in Clippter |
Set External on purpose.
Company P&L (Finance Dashboard → P&L)
Calendar year, amounts ex tax where the UI says so. Costs chart through the current month (no future bank months yet).
| Label | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Revenue | Sum of issued invoice amounts (Sent, Partially paid, Paid, Overdue) by issue date, ex tax. Drafts/cancelled do not count. |
| Project expenses / direct costs | Bank lines allocated as Project cost (COGS basis) |
| Gross margin | Revenue − project expenses |
| Overhead | Bank Overhead |
| Payroll (bank) | Bank Payroll |
| Operating costs | Project expenses + overhead + payroll (bank) |
| EBITDA | Revenue − project expenses − overhead − payroll (bank) |
| Profit tax | Bank Corporate / profit tax (cash), below EBITDA |
| Net profit | EBITDA − profit tax (corporate) |
Labor on projects (sum of time-entry labor) appears for reference / informational. It does not reduce company EBITDA. Salary cash is expected via Payroll (bank) so you do not subtract people twice.
Tax cash detail: VAT / GST remittance is pass-through; payroll withholding should not be double-counted; only Corporate / profit tax reduces Net in the live metrics.
Empty P&L → import and allocate under Cost / Expenses (CAMT, MT940, or CSV). See Finance Dashboard.
Project Spent and profit
Project → Finance:
- Spent = Labor + Bank (project bank costs). Product rule: Spent = Labor + Bank.
- Labor: time entries × contract cost rate at the entry date.
- Bank: allocations Project cost on that project (or split share).
- Revenue / Paid / Net profit on the project = issued invoice revenue − Spent (project-level; not company EBITDA).
- Internal budget: estimated internal cost from the quote (or manual). Remaining = Internal budget − Spent.
A nested “Spent (bank)” widget may show bank-only vs quote lines. That is not full Spent (it excludes labor).
Markups vs live cost
- Pricing / rate cards: Default Internal Hourly Rate and markups build client quote prices and Internal budget estimates.
- Live Spent labor comes from the work contract Cost rate, not from rewriting Pricing markups on old quotes.
Income vs Record payment
- Bank → Income → linked invoice, or
- Invoice → Record payment / Mark as paid
One habit. See Invoices and Costs.
Things that trip people up
- Expecting Labor on projects to reduce company EBITDA.
- Half the bank still Unallocated.
- No Cost rate on the contract → Spent understates labor.
- Mixing project Net profit (includes labor) with company Net profit.
- External billing and “missing” follow-up / cost buckets.
- Double-counting client cash (bank Income + Record payment).
- Changing Pricing markups and expecting old Spent to rewrite itself.