Projects are the core of Cobalt. See it as a general term for any category you can make. Maybe that’s not always clear instantly.  If you want a good overview of a certain aspect of your company, create a project for it. Maybe you sell mostly products? Then see the product as a project.

Eg If you run a small kite shop this can be a possible option:

• Toy Kites (project group)
  • Purple kite
  • Orange kite
• Professional Kites (project group)
  • Powerkite delta F100
  • Powerkite delta F121
  • Powerkite 4-liner

You have project and project groups. Start by creating the project groups. After that you can start making projects attached to a project group. Also we advice you to create a general project group, with this example you’ll have something like:

• General (project group)
  • General
  • Rent
  • Accounting
  • Promotion
  • Salaries
• Toy Kites (project group)
  • Purple kite
  • One line
• Professional Kites (project group)
  • Powerkite delta
  • One line

This is the first in an FAQ serie where we’ll try to explain some of Cobalt’s features in a clear way. One of the key features in Cobalt is how the invoices are linked to their payments. Keeping track of all your payments is really important and in Cobalt there are several ways to make the links.

• Create or edit an invoice and choose “Add a payment”. Cobalt will add a payment entry in the payments section and link it with your invoice. This is perfect for cash receivings.
• The safest and most professional way.  Import your credit card or bank info statement in the payment section. Create or edit an invoice and choose “Link payment”. Cobalt will search in the payments section if there is a payment for the client from the invoice. Choose a payment entry and the link is made. Additionally, you can also make a link in the other direction, from the payments to the invoice section.

• From the invoices (in & out) sections. If you check the details of the payment links from an invoice you’ll see that cobalt makes a difference between the ways you made the payment link (see above 1a and 1b). If you did choose Add payment (1a) you can edit and delete the payment straight from the invoice tab. If you have made a real “safe” link (1b) you can only delete or edit the link, not the payment entry.
• From the payment section. If you delete a payment entry in the payment section then you just delete it.

It might look a bit cumbersome to enter all your payments, but it’s the only way to keep track of your accountancy.

• It means that you’ll see instantly what got paid, on which account and on which date, and what people owe you. You can resend an invoice if you like.
• You can see what you paid, when and how and what you still have to pay.
• You’ll also see if of an invoice is missing. That happens more then you think. eg A restaurant charged you 45eur for a business dinner but you forgot to put the bill in the accountancy.
• You’ll be able to make exports and overviews for the acccountant