Project Administration: A Crucial Part of Project Management
When thinking of project management, most people only think of task planning. Maybe this is also the reason why many project management tools focus only on this area.
However, project management is not just about planning tasks and activities. The value a project management tool can bring to the administration and financial management process is highly underestimated.
In this article, we will explain why the administration is such an important part of project management and why you need a tool that supports all the business operations in the chain.
What is project administration?
The definition of project administration is: collecting, maintaining, and updating any piece of information that relates to projects.
When it comes to planning and task management, there is already a lot of administration involved that needs to be maintained. The task descriptions, due dates and timelines, and even the schedules themselves are all considered project-related information.
Project management tools do a great job of maintaining this information for you. Once a team member clicks “completed” on a task, for example, the overall timeline of the project is updated, allowing the manager to see this progress at all times.
The number of hours spent on tasks directly impact the project’s budget and timeline, while expenses also need to be recorded and accounted for. Thus, being able to see reports and insights on performance, budget, and expenses helps business and project managers to make better projections and identify potential delays.
Last but not least, many projects require invoicing clients, which demands a great deal of administrative work too.
Related: The Best Way To Set Up Your Project Administration
Project management is not just planning and task management
Considering just how much administration is involved with other aspects of project management besides planning tasks and activities, it’s quite astonishing this is frequently overlooked.
Other processes such as budgeting, estimating, time tracking, invoicing and reporting also are an integral part of project management.
Yet, people often don’t look for other features in tools besides a planner. This is very unfortunate, as this means they will have to spend a lot of time maintaining the administration for all other operations themselves. Or, they will have to find other apps or tools to manage these aspects separately.
Related: The Ultimate Guide for Creative Project Management in 2022
Project administration from the financial perspective
We have already touched upon this a bit, which was just the tip of the iceberg; there are quite a few different project management operations that deal with finance.
Usually, a project starts with a budget. Sometimes a budget is given beforehand by the client, but sometimes they just give a project description while inquiring for an estimation of the cost.
Either way, budgeting and estimating are the first steps in the process before you even start to plan the tasks and activities.
Once you have an approved budget and an estimation of the costs, you can plan the rest of the project accordingly.
Also read: Project Administration: A Crucial Part of Project Management
With an intuitive project management tool such as Rodeo, you can track time spent on tasks and deduct them from the budget. You can also deduct all other expenses you make along the way.
After the project is completed, the budget or the tracked hours can be simply copied to an invoice and sent to the client. Having an overview of which invoices are paid or still outstanding will certainly help you maintain a continuous influx of cash.
The last step in the process is reporting. Rodeo collects data from each step in the cycle to generate comprehensive and insightful reports. A lot of financial information can be tracked, to show whether projects are staying within budget, for example.
You probably get the gist of what we’re saying by now. These financial operations are inextricably linked to planning and task management. And all the operations together represent the typical project cycle.
Related: How to Write a Persuasive Project Proposal
Why project administration is important
It’s extremely important to have your project administration set up adequately, as it helps keep your projects moving.
Throughout the project lifecycle, team members need to have access to the information that will help them understand what to work on next. Managers need access to the data that will help them make the right decisions.
How easy and fast information can be accessed and assessed, depends on how well it’s maintained and updated. Moreover, the accuracy of this information also depends on competent management.
Thus, project administration is an important part of project management because it has a huge impact on the success rate of your projects.
Why you need an all-in-one project management tool
We have established that there are multiple components to project management besides just task planning. All the steps in the project cycle are linked to one another, which is why they should all be managed with one tool.
If you just use a task management tool, you will have to keep track of all other related operations with other tools and apps. Or even worse, keep track of them and maintain administration for them manually. Who has time for that?
To make the right business decisions, meet deadlines, and make sure your projects are profitable, you need to be able to compile information from all business operations into one report. You will lose far too much time and have a higher risk of inaccuracies if this information has to be extracted from different sources.
With an all-in-one, project management system such as Rodeo, all the features you need are in one app. Interlinked and synchronized, you will have access to real-time data at any step in the process.
Are you curious yet? Find out about all the ways Rodeo can make your projects more profitable during a free demo, and put it to the test during a free trial.
