If your business sells time, your work probably lives in three places: a task list, a timesheet spreadsheet and an invoice template. At month-end someone matches them up, hours slip through the gaps, and the invoice goes out a week late.
Saauzi Projects puts the project, its tasks, the hours and the client invoice in one app. This guide explains how it works, walks through an hourly project from tasks to timesheet to invoice, and is honest about what it doesn't do.
What Saauzi Projects is
Projects is project management software with invoicing built in. It is one of the apps in Saauzi, an all-in-one ERP for small businesses (our plain-English guide to ERP explains the idea), and was released on 12 September 2026 alongside CRM and HRM, as our launch post on Projects, CRM, HRM and industries describes.
Every project belongs to a client and records:
- Status: active, on hold or done.
- Billing type: hourly or fixed-price.
- Hourly rate and budget: what an hour costs the client, and what the whole project should cost.
- Start and due dates: when the work begins and when it is promised.
Plan the work on a task board
Each project has a task board with three columns: to do, in progress and done. You break the work into tasks, assign each one to someone on your team and give it a due date, so everyone can see where the project stands without a status meeting.
Keep tasks small enough to finish in a day or two, so the board stays honest and the timesheet readable.
Track hours with timesheets
Timesheets record hours against a project and, where it helps, a specific task. Each entry is billable or non-billable. Billable hours are what the client pays for; non-billable hours are real work they don't see on the invoice, such as internal reviews, rework or a pitch meeting.
Tracking both is what makes timesheet and invoicing software useful. If a fixed-price project keeps collecting hours, you learn what the fee should have been. If non-billable hours keep climbing on one client, you have a conversation to have.
Invoice the client from the project
When it's time to bill, you create a client invoice from the project. Invoices are numbered, can include a discount and taxes, and move from draft to sent to paid. Taxes are set once in Settings and apply across Saauzi's apps (multiple taxes on the paid plan), and invoices print your business's own name, address and PAN/VAT number.
Hourly billing suits work where the scope moves, such as retainers and support. Fixed-price suits well-defined work, such as a logo or a set of drawings. Log hours on fixed-price work too: the timesheet shows how the fee compares with the time the job took.
Worked example: an hourly project from tasks to invoice
Say you run a four-person design studio, and a hotel asks you to rebuild its website over October. The numbers are hypothetical.
- Set up the project. Client: the hotel. Hourly at NPR 3,000 an hour. Budget: NPR 180,000. Dates: 1 to 31 October. Status: active.
- Plan the tasks. Design goes to your designer, building the pages to your developer, and loading content to a junior, each with a due date.
- Log the hours. By 31 October the timesheet shows the designer with 22 hours (20 billable, 2 non-billable for an internal review), the developer with 26 billable, the junior with 8 billable, plus 4 non-billable hours of team meetings: 60 hours logged, 54 billable.
- Build the invoice. 54 hours at NPR 3,000 is NPR 162,000. A 5% first-project discount (NPR 8,100) brings it to NPR 153,900. Tax at 13%, Nepal's VAT rate, adds NPR 20,007, for a total of NPR 173,907. Use your own country's rate.
- Get paid. The invoice moves from draft to sent. When the hotel pays, you mark it paid and record the money in Cashbook.
Before tax, the invoice came in under budget, and the 6 non-billable hours show what the project really cost you in time. Billing in dollars at US$40 an hour, the same month is US$2,160, or US$2,052 after the discount, before tax.
Who Saauzi Projects is for
Projects fits any business that delivers client work over days or months: marketing, design and IT agencies; architecture and interior design studios; construction businesses; and accounting and law firms running engagements or matters. For these industries, Saauzi switches on Projects, CRM, HRM and Cashbook at sign-up; see how that set works for a marketing agency. Winning the work usually starts in Saauzi CRM, a simple sales pipeline, and your team is managed in Saauzi HRM, for employees, leave and hiring.
What Saauzi Projects doesn't do
- No estimates. Prepare quotes elsewhere, then set the rate, budget or fixed price once the client agrees.
- No document management. Briefs, drawings and contracts stay in your own file storage.
- No client portal. Clients don't log in to see progress; you send updates and invoices yourself.
- No automations. No rules and no automatic reminders. Your team moves tasks and sends invoices.
- Not accounting software. Cashbook gives your accountant clean exports, but full books and tax returns stay with them.
If you need client portals, detailed estimating or automated workflows, a specialist project tool or a broader suite is the better choice. If you need tasks, hours and invoices in one place without a setup project, Projects covers it.
What it costs
Your first Saauzi app is free forever, so Projects can be that app. One flat subscription unlocks every app: NPR 1,500 per user per month or NPR 12,000 per user per year, or US$20 and US$200 internationally, with no commission on sales. Four users come to NPR 6,000 (US$80) a month, or NPR 48,000 (US$800) a year. See the Saauzi pricing page.
FAQ
Can I track billable and non-billable hours separately?
Yes. Every timesheet entry is marked billable or non-billable, against a project and, if you want, a task.
Does Saauzi Projects handle fixed-price projects?
Yes. Each project is hourly, with an hourly rate, or fixed-price. You can set a budget on either and still log hours.
Can I add VAT or tax to client invoices?
Yes. Set your tax once in Settings and it applies across the apps; the paid plan supports multiple taxes. Invoices can also carry a discount.
Can my clients see the task board?
No. There is no client portal. The board and timesheets are for your team, and you send the client their invoice.
If your hours live in one spreadsheet and your invoices in another, bring them together. Start with Saauzi Projects free, run one client project from tasks to invoice, and add CRM or HRM when you need them.
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