An internal project is usually one that is not meant for invoicing but is used to track operational costs and hours spent on activities essential for the agency’s operations. These can include internal marketing efforts, time spent on training and education, and other overhead tasks.
Best practice is to set up internal projects under an internal brand/client. Agencies are advised to create a client named “Agency Name – Internal” (or similar) and then structure internal projects by creating brands under this client. For example:
Client: Agency Name – Internal
Brand 1: Internal marketing
Brand 2: Education and workshop
Brand 3: Social media
This structure allows you to easily filter and manage internal projects using the brand filter in Allfred.
Setting up an internal project in Allfred
Billing category
Select the ‘non-billable’ option:
When creating a new internal project in Allfred, simply check the “non-billable” option. This indicates that no invoicing is expected for this project.
Project category
Use tags in project categories: To clearly distinguish between different types of internal non-billable projects, we highly recommend using tags or project categories. This lets you define and filter projects. For example:
Internal: For tracking hours on internal marketing tasks.
Overheads: For monitoring internal costs.
Project type
Time and materials:
You can build the project structure using the “New budget item” button in the project detail view (e.g., one item for PPC, SEO, blog posts, etc.). In this type of project, you are not specifying costs in the budget, so you are unable to track spending against a dedicated internal budget.Fixed price:
This option is useful if you want to specify via the budget exactly how much internal cost you plan to spend on the project.Fixed price project without budget:
Alternatively, if the project is relatively small and does not require detailed task breakdowns, you can create a fixed price project without a budget and work solely with a not-budgeted item. In this case, you can create tasks and subtasks under this pre-created item – an approach that works well when minimal work is anticipated, but you are unable to track spending against a dedicated internal budget.
Rate card
Internal hourly rates:
If you want to view how much time and money your agency is spending on internal projects, then apply a rate card with internal hourly rates. This allows you to see, from an operational perspective, the cost of the work performed.
If such an internal project has an agreed maximum budget that your agency is willing to spend (i.e., it is a fixed-price project with a specified budget), you will clearly see the status in terms of both hours worked and their monetary value. After finishing the project, you can review the final internal costs based on tracked hours and the internal hourly rate for each user.
In the rate cards and commissions section, you can create a separate rate card for internal projects under the designated internal brand (for example, brand “Internal projects”).
Important: The internal hourly rate at the individual level is considered sensitive information. Only roles such as Managing Director, CFO, and Admin should have access to this data. When these rates are included in the budget, they are visible to all roles assigned to the project. Remember, the budget specifies a position—not a specific person—so it is up to the agency to calculate an average internal cost (for example, for a copywriter across several employees). Often, these internal projects are managed by higher-level roles, and other team members are simply assigned tasks, so under normal circumstances, the lower roles will not see these sensitive rates.
Zero hourly rates
If you do not specify a sum to be spent on the internal project in the budget, but instead set the work item’s price to zero (using the dollar icon), you can use a rate card where every position has an hourly rate of zero. This approach ensures that in the project detail view the monetary value of tracked time does not visually drop into negative red numbers. However, each budget item will still display the current spending in hours.
If every user has an internal hourly rate defined, then—even though the client’s rate is set to zero—Allfred will calculate the real cost to your agency based on the internal rate and the number of hours tracked.
Both types of rate cards can be applied to any internal project, and the choice will determine the project structure and reporting.
Team
To differentiate internal projects from client projects that generate profit, agencies often distinguish these projects by using a specific team. In Allfred, the team field is one of the filters for financial results. Typically, the “Backoffice” team is used for this purpose, or agencies may create another team called “Internal.” It is not necessary for users to be assigned to this team; in this case, the team designation is only relevant to indicate where the project belongs and which team’s financial results will include the project outcomes.