Question 1

How do I create a project and associate it with a client?

Accepted Answer

Creating a project in Mataee takes only a few seconds. Here's how to properly organize your time tracking from the start.
Accessing project creation
Go to Structure > Projects, then click the "New project" button. A form allows you to enter all the essential information.
Filling in the project details
When creating a project, you can define:

The project name: choose a clear and identifiable title (e.g., "Villa Dupont Renovation").
The client or company: select an existing client or create a new one directly from the form.
The hour budget (optional): set an hourly allowance to track project consumption.
The hourly rate (optional): useful for automatically calculating the financial value of time spent.

Understanding the Client > Company > Project hierarchy
Mataee organizes your data according to a logical three-level structure:

Client: the person or entity you work for.
Company: the business linked to the client (a client can have multiple companies).
Project: the specific assignment on which you log time.

This hierarchy lets you easily group your projects by client and get consolidated views of your activity.
Start logging time
Once the project is created, it immediately appears in your project list and in the time entry selector. Your collaborators (if you work in a team) can also access it according to their permissions.
You can modify the project details, adjust the budget, or change the associated client from the project settings at any time.
To discover all project management features, check our features page.

Question 2

How do project milestones work?

Accepted Answer

Milestones allow you to break a project into distinct phases, each with its own hour budget. They are an essential tool for closely managing the progress of your assignments.
What is a milestone?
A milestone represents a key stage of your project. It can correspond to a design phase, an intermediate delivery, or any other step you want to track individually.
Each milestone has:

A name to clearly identify it.
A dedicated hour budget, independent of the project's overall budget.
A consumption tracker that shows you in real time the hours logged on that milestone.

Creating milestones
To add milestones, go to your project settings and navigate to the dedicated section. You can create as many milestones as needed and reorganize them as you wish.
When logging time, your collaborators select the relevant milestone in addition to the project. This allows precise allocation of hours by phase.
A concrete example: mission phases in architecture
Milestones are particularly suited to professions that work in structured phases. In architecture, for example, a project follows the French MOP law phases: sketch (ESQ), preliminary design (APS), detailed design (APD), project studies (PRO), etc.
With Mataee, you create a milestone per phase and assign each one the hour budget specified in your contract. You can then instantly see whether a phase is consuming more or less than planned.
For more on this topic, read our article MOP phases and time tracking: hour allocation.
Tracking and alerts
The supervision dashboard displays the progress of each milestone. When a milestone approaches its budget, you are notified so you can anticipate any necessary adjustments.

Question 3

What happens when a project's budget is exceeded?

Accepted Answer

Budget overruns are a common reality in project management. Mataee helps you detect them as early as possible and react before they become problematic.
Alerts and visual indicators
When a project's consumption approaches its budget, Mataee warns you in several ways:

Progress indicators: visual gauges in the supervision dashboard clearly show the percentage of budget consumed.
Threshold alerts: when you reach a certain percentage of the budget (e.g., 80%), the interface flags the risk of overrun.
Color coding: projects that are over budget are highlighted to immediately draw your attention.

Time entry continues
Mataee never blocks time entry, even when the budget has been exceeded. This is a deliberate choice: it is essential to continue recording the time actually spent to have reliable data.
Blocking time entry would distort your statistics and hide the reality of the effort put into a project. By maintaining accurate tracking, you can analyze the causes of overruns after the fact and better estimate your future projects.
Anticipate rather than react
The real benefit of budget tracking lies in anticipation. By regularly checking your supervision dashboard, you identify at-risk projects and can make informed decisions:

Review the scope of the assignment with your client.
Adjust the resources allocated to the project.
Negotiate an amendment if the overrun is justified.

Going further
To understand in detail how to leverage budget tracking in your business, read our article Budget overrun in architecture: how to detect and control it.
Also discover all our management tools on the features page.

Question 4

How do I close or archive a project?

Accepted Answer

When a project comes to an end, Mataee offers two distinct options: closing and archiving. Each serves a different purpose.
Closing a project
Closing allows you to permanently lock a project so that no new time entries can be added to it.
How it works

Close request: from the project settings, you initiate a close request.
Grace period: a configurable delay (from 3 to 14 days) is granted to allow your collaborators to finalize any overdue time entries.
Lock: once the grace period has elapsed, the project is permanently locked. Data remains viewable, but no modifications are possible.

This progressive approach prevents losing unrecorded hours and gives your team time to complete their timesheets.
Archiving a client
Archiving works at the client level. When you archive a client, all associated projects are automatically hidden from current views.
Archived projects:

Disappear from active lists: they no longer clutter your daily interface.
Remain accessible: you can find them at any time by enabling the archived items filter.
Retain all their data: no information is deleted; your history and statistics are preserved.

Which option to choose?

Action
Level
Main effect

Close
Project
Locks time entry after a grace period

Archive
Client
Hides the client and its projects from current views

In practice, you can combine both: close a completed project, then archive the client once all their assignments are finished. This ensures a clean workspace while retaining your complete history.

Question 5

Can I track project profitability in real time?

Accepted Answer

Yes, Mataee gives you a complete and up-to-date view of each project's profitability through the supervision dashboard.
What you can track
The supervision dashboard centralizes your projects' key indicators:

Consumed budget: see at a glance the percentage of the hour budget used, displayed as progress gauges.
Logged hours: view the total hours recorded by your team, broken down by collaborator or by milestone.
Financial valuation: when an hourly rate is set on the project, Mataee automatically calculates the amount corresponding to logged hours.
Consumption trend: identify whether the current pace is sustainable or whether the project risks exceeding its budget.

Tracking accessible at any time
Data is updated as time entries are made. Every hour logged by a collaborator is immediately reflected in the project's indicators. You don't need to wait until the end of the month to know where you stand.
This responsiveness is particularly valuable for professions where margins are tight, such as architecture firms or engineering offices. Detecting a deviation during an assignment allows you to correct course before the project becomes unprofitable.
Leveraging data for decisions
Beyond simply observing, profitability indicators help you make concrete decisions:

Reallocate resources to the projects that need them most.
Start a discussion with the client if the workload exceeds initial estimates.
Improve your future estimates by comparing forecasts to actual results project after project.

For more on this topic, read our article Project profitability in architecture: tracking and optimizing.
Find all management tools on our features page.

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