Monthly Summary and Billing Progress
When you first login to FuelGauge, the program will load the current month and display four key metrics: Goal, Projected Revenue, Billed, and Difference.
The Goal is the arbitrary number you set for your revenue goal in the Settings>Goals menu. You can edit this at any time.
The Projected number adds up all the revenue numbers for projects you have allocated in the current month.
The Billed number shows just the dollar amount of those projects that are marked as billed by setting the billing status to green (“billed”).
The Difference will show any difference between the projected revenue and the goal. This way, you know how much more business you need to generate to meet your goal for the month.
Below these key numbers, you can click the View Current Month button at any time to return to the current month. This is helpful if you have clicked forward or backward in time several months. Next to this button, you can use the View All Projects dropdown to filter all your projects by status, either In Production (white), Billed (green), or Completed (gray).
The Billing Progress bar is your fuel gauge! There are two bars to pay attention to: the green bar fills up as projects are marked as Completed or Billed. The black bar fills up as the days go by during the month. By comparing the green billing progress to the black bar, you can always compare your progress to the goal, even before the month is over.
Above the green bar are the weekly goals. These are automatically populated by dividing your month goal by four weeks. You won’t have to edit these. They are just there to guide your efforts and keep you on track. The numbers below the black bar are your total projected revenue numbers for each week of the month based on the projects you’ve added. You can see when you expect to increase the billing progress. When the green bar reaches the Killing it Zone, you’ve reached your goal and you are killin’ it!
Projects on the Dashboard
Below the monthly summary and billing progress bar are all the projects in a four-month window. FuelGauge by default shows all the projects for the current month as well as the next three months. Each project has a drag ‘n drop tile inside of one of the four weeks for each month. You can click, drag, and drop any project to another week inside of the same month or another month anytime a project deadline changes. If you have more projects than you can see on your screen, you can collapse and expand each week to show the projects that you need to see, or use the scroll bars.
Each project also has an Edit Project button. Clicking this opens up the Edit Project pop-up window, which shows all the details of the project. These details can be edited and saved, and the changes will be reflected on the Dashboard immediately.
Each month also has its own pop-out summary. Next to the month name, where it shows the projected revenue, you can click to open this monthly summary. At the top it shows the total projected revenue as well as net revenue, subtracting out any project expenses or fixed expenses. You can see these projections broken down by week as well, with the total summary at the bottom.
Ice Box
The Ice Box is for projects that are put on hold. As a business owner, there may be times that a project has been accepted but not ready for production, or perhaps a client would like to push a project off for later. The Ice Box is the place to house these projects. You can simply drag and drop any project into the Ice Box. The total revenue of all projects on hold will automatically be calculated. At any point, you can open the Ice Box and drag a project back into a month, or edit the project in the pop-up window and assign a due date.