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Project Dashboard

An easy to use report for DesignerLink 2.0 users to bill back price changes on Purchase Orders/Bills.

Updated over 4 months ago

The Project Dashboard will serve as a way to view price changes for your items, payments received, payments issued to vendors, and order statuses without ever having to source the information from QuickBooks. Use this tool to know exactly where every Item for each project stands, and also take action on price changes by adding them as expenses to be invoiced to your customer directly in DesignerLink.

Table of Contents:

Accessing the Project Dashboard

  • Access the Project Dashboard via a single Project page

  • The Project Dashboard report will be to the far right list of buttons in your project's details

  • Access the Project Dashboard from the Reports page

Key Features

  1. All Proposals and Purchase Orders that have been synced with your Quickbooks Online (QBO) account will be visible for each Project.

  2. Review any Price Changes that have been added in QBO for a Bill (Purchase Order).

  3. Add any Price Changes as an expense in DesignerLink directly from the Project Dashboard, which can be added to a future DesignerLink Invoice.

  4. View any payments from your Clients which have been applied against the proposal's invoice in QBO.

  5. View any payments made to Vendors which have been applied against the Purchase Order's Bill in QBO.


Navigating the Project Dashboard

  • Select the project you would like to view using the 'Project' drop down menu:

  • Use the toggle switch to filter projects: view only those with price changes, or view all projects, regardless of price changes or whether changes have already been reviewed:

Viewing projects with price changes:

Viewing all synced bills and proposals for a project:

Dashboard Layout

The Dashboard displays information corresponding to key project aspects: Price Increases, Payments Received, Payments Issued to Vendors, Order Statuses, etc. Each section provides a quick overview, ensuring you have all the necessary details at your fingertips.


What each Column displays:

Understanding the columns and row structure for the Project Dashboard:

The Dashboard shows each Purchase Order (Bill) in a grouping which can be expanded to show all items and costs associated with that order.
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  1. Actions

    1. Mark as Reviewed button -- this button appears for every Proposal + Bill line (see below for more details on marking a bill as reviewed).

    2. Add Expense button -- this button will only appear when there is a price change entered on a Bill in QuickBooks Online. Once the price change has been added as an Expense, the line item will be marked as reviewed automatically (see below for additional details on adding price changes as an expense).

  2. Accessing Proposal/Estimate and editing/viewing Item details

    1. Proposal/Estimate Number -- click on the number to access the Proposal/Estimate in DesignerLink.

    2. Click the item name for any item on a Purchase Order (Bill) to open the edit item page and review additional item details.

      1. All costs on the Purchase Order, including shipping costs or price changes will show as a separate line item.

  3. Photo

    1. For each item -- the Primary Product Photo will appear.

    2. If no Photo has been added, users will see the "Add Photo" button.

  4. Client Description

    1. For each item -- the Client Description will be displayed. If using a longer description, you can hover over the text to see the full Client Description or edit the Item by clicking the Item Name.

  5. Client Paid

    1. This column will allow you to identify if the proposal has been paid in full, partially paid or has received no payment.

      1. Green Checkmark = the QBO invoice for this Proposal has been paid in full by the Client

      2. Yellow Checkmark = the QBO invoice for this Proposal has been partially paid by the Client

      3. No checkmark = the QBO invoice for this Proposal is unpaid by the Client

  6. Bill Name

    1. Bill Number -- this represents the Bill Number from QBO, which is also the number associated to the original Purchase Order created in DesignerLink. Click this number to access the Purchase Order in DesignerLink.

    2. The Vendor Description of each item will also appear in this column.

  7. Vendor

    1. Click the vendor name to access and edit the vendor details.

  8. Vendor Paid (%)

    1. This will show the percentage paid to the vendor for this Purchase Order (Bill). For example, if you the vendor has been paid a 50% deposit, this value will be displayed as '50'.

  9. Expediting Order Status/Item Status

    1. This will display the order status as input by the DesignerAdvantage expediting team.

    2. If you are not using the DesignerAdvantage expediting service, the 'Item Status' will be displayed which you can update within each item.

How to utilize the Project Dashboard

The Project Dashboard allows you to view all costs associated with your orders, as well as other details such as the amount paid to the vendor and the item status. It also acts as a way to streamline your review of price changes, which would otherwise only be shown in QBO, and have to be managed directly with your bookkeeper. The utilization of the Project Dashboard will reduce the back and forth between you and your bookkeeper to review and handle price changes.

  1. Identify if there are price changes needing your review

    1. Within a project, the 'Project Dashboard' button will show an alert icon to indicate if there are any price changes that have not been reviewed.

    2. In the report page, the Project Dashboard tab will also display this alert icon to indicate there are price changes that have not been reviewed.

    3. Additionally, when viewing price changes, the Project drop down menu will display a number next to each project name to indicate how many price changes have not been reviewed.

  2. Adding Price Changes as an Expense to be invoiced

    1. Once a price change has been added to a Bill (Purchase Order) in QBO by your bookkeeper, the price change will also be displayed in the Project Dashboard.

    2. If the price change should be invoiced to the Client, click 'Add Expense', shown in the Actions column.

    3. A 'Create New Expense' window will appear, allowing you to edit the expense and input any additional details.

      1. The Project's markup % and taxable default settings will be used to automatically add the markup percentage to the expense and mark if it is taxable. You can also edit both of these fields as needed.

  3. Mark a Price Change as Reviewed

    1. If you are not going to be invoicing your Client for the price change, you can simply select the "Mark as Reviewed" button for the Purchase Order.

    2. You will receive this pop up notice after selecting "Mark as Reviewed" to verify that this is the intended action and prevent marking a price change as reviewed if you actually need to add it as an Expense to be invoiced to the Client.

Note: Group Items + the Project Dashboard

Only Component Items will be displayed in the Project Dashboard, this is due to the Purchase Orders being displayed. Group Items themselves will not have a Purchase Order associated since it can be made up of multiple Vendors.
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To view the Group Item, click on the Proposal # and view the Group Item via the Item List tab of the Proposal Details.

Note: 'Proposal' + 'Estimate' are synonymous terms. This is an Account level label setting. Please contact the DesignerLink Support team if you want to change this label for your Account.

Video Guides

Full Walkthrough video ~ 4 minute

Adding a Price Change as an Expense ~ 1 minute

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