Your First Project

Step 1 — Add a Customer

Customers represent the organisations you serve. You need at least one customer before you can link a project for invoicing.

1. Click Customers in the left sidebar.
2. If this is your first customer, you will see the empty state: “No customers yet — Customers represent the organisations you work with. Add your first customer to start managing relationships.”
3. Click New Customer.
4. Fill in the customer details — at minimum, provide a name (for example, “Acme Holdings”). You can also add contact information and notes.
5. Click Save.

Your new customer starts with a Prospect status. This is the default for all new customers. As you begin working together, the customer will move through the lifecycle stages (Prospect, Onboarding, Active, and beyond).

To learn more about customer statuses and management, see Customers.

Step 2 — Create a Project

Projects organise all the work, documents, and time tracking for a client engagement.

1. Click Projects in the left sidebar.
2. If this is your first project, you will see: “No projects yet — Projects organise your work, documents, and time tracking. Create your first project to get started.”
3. Click New Project in the top-right corner.
4. Fill in the project details:
   • Name (required) — give the project a clear name, such as “Annual Tax Return 2025” or “Company Formation — Acme”
   • Description (optional) — a brief summary of the scope
   • Due Date (optional) — pick a target completion date
   • Customer (optional) — select the customer you created in Step 1 from the dropdown
5. Click Create Project.

You are taken to the project detail page, which is where you will spend most of your time managing the engagement.

To learn more about project features and settings, see Projects.

Step 3 — Add Tasks

Tasks break your project into individual pieces of work that can be assigned, tracked, and timed.

1. On the project detail page, click the Tasks tab.
2. Click New Task to create your first task.
3. Give the task a title — for example, “Gather supporting documents” or “Draft financial statements.”
4. Optionally, assign the task to a team member using the Assignee field.
5. Repeat for each piece of work in the project.

Tasks move through four statuses: Open (not started), In Progress (being worked on), Done (complete), and Cancelled (no longer needed). Update the status as work progresses.

To learn more about task management, see Tasks.

Step 4 — Log Time

Time tracking is central to how HeyKazi handles invoicing, budgets, and profitability reporting. You log time against tasks.

1. In the Tasks tab, find the task you want to log time against.
2. Click Log Time on the task.
3. Enter the hours spent (or use the timer to track time as you work).
4. Choose whether the time is Billable or Non-billable:
   • Billable time can be charged to the client and appears on invoices.
   • Non-billable time (such as internal meetings or admin) is tracked for visibility but is not invoiced.
5. Click Save.

Logged time entries accumulate in the project’s Time tab, where you can see a summary of all hours by team member, task, and billing status.

To learn more about time tracking and timers, see Time Tracking.

Step 5 — Generate an Invoice

Once you have billable time logged against a project, you can pull it into an invoice.

1. Click Invoices in the left sidebar.
2. Click New Invoice.
3. Select the Customer you want to invoice and a date range for the unbilled time.
4. HeyKazi automatically pulls in all unbilled billable time entries for that customer within the selected period.
5. Review the line items — you can adjust descriptions, amounts, or add manual line items.
6. When you are satisfied, send the invoice to your client.

Invoices start as Drafts. Once reviewed, they move to Approved, then Sent when delivered to the client. They transition to Paid when payment is received, or can be Voided at any stage before payment.

To learn more about the invoice lifecycle, see Invoicing.