Setting up projects
Book bid costs to a presales project
Open a presales project from an opportunity so the hours and expenses of preparing the bid are recorded before any award exists.
2 min readLast updated
In this article
Preparing a bid costs money: engineers' hours, site visits, printing. A presales project gives that cost a home before there is any award, so you can see what each bid cost to win or lose.
Before you start
Your company needs a project type marked Presales in Projects › Process Settings. Installing a process pack adds one called Presales (before award).
You need permission to manage projects.
Open the presales project
Open the opportunity in CRM › Sales › Opportunities.
Select Presales project at the top.
The first time, the project is created and opens: its code is PS- followed by the opportunity number, you are its manager, and it is already active. The next time, the same button takes you to it.
Record the costs
Book hours and expenses to the presales project as you would to any project: timesheets, expense claims, custody settlements. A presales project needs no award, even where your company requires one for other projects.
Common questions
The button says to add a presales project type. Ask your administrator to install a process pack or add a type marked Presales in Projects › Process Settings.
We won the bid. What happens to the presales project? It stays as the record of what winning cost. The job itself gets its own project from the award: see Create a project from a won award.