When working on a project, you'll be dealing with two types of costs: internal and external.


The internal costs include all time tracking you and your colleagues spent working on a specific project. Want to know more about the different ways to track time on a project? Click here.


External costs are linked to external materials or expenses needed in order to complete the project. This could be rent for a venue, raw material for a construction site or something completely different. The types of external costs can be just as diverse as your projects. Find out how to add them, the influence on the budget and how to invoice them.


Adding external costs

  1. Navigate to Projects and click on a project.
  2. Click on the three dots next to the project > Add external cost or go to the tab Project info and scroll down to the + next to 'External costs'.
  3. Fill in the product(s) you need. Either choose one of the products you saved in Teamleader Focus or fill in an article manually. If you choose to use existing products and a purchase price has already been added to the product page, it will appear automatically.
  4. Specify the project (first dropdown after VAT rate) and the phase (second dropdown after VAT rate)
  5. Decide whether you want to create an order as well by setting the slider next to "Create order as a PDF" to "Yes". For more information on the order workflow, click here.
  6. Click "Save".
  7. The external costs are added and are shown in a separate field under "Invoices" on the Project info page. They are also visible as "Materials" under "Budget spent".


Editing/Deleting external costs

  1. Navigate to the project in question > Project info > scroll down to "External costs".
  2. Hover over the specific costs and click on the pencil or the bin to edit or delete the external cost respectively.


Who has access to external costs?

A decision maker has access to all details of the project, he/she can see the external costs.

You can decide who should be able to manage the costs of a project by navigating to Settings > Projects > Preferences > Limit access to financial information on projects.


In case you do not want to show the costs to your employees, you do not only need to set this preference to "Yes", you also need to remove their access to invoices. Check this article for more information. 

  • If a participant has access to external costs, and to invoices = he or she can see all external costs
  • If a participant has access to external costs, but not to invoices = he or she can only see his own external costs


In case you do want to show the costs to your employees, you need to set this preference to "No":

  • If a participant has access to external costs, and to invoices = he or she can see all external costs 
  • If a participant has access to external costs, but not to invoices = he or she can still see all external costs 


External costs in the project budget

  • The external costs are of course part of your project budget. You can see them under "Materials’ below "Budget Spent" on the Project info page.
  • The external costs will also be calculated automatically into the Profit of your projects. Click the link to find out more.


Invoicing external costs

  1. Ensure that the invoicing settings of the phase you would like to invoice are set on "Time & Material". In order to check those settings, click on the 'Details' of a phase to Edit it.
  2. Go to the Project info page > Invoices> Click on "+"-sign
  3. Select "Invoicing based on phase" as type
  4. Choose the phase you would like to invoice
  5. Click on "Go"
  6. Internal and external costs are invoiced together and will be shown as separate positions on your invoice grouped under the right phase.