Give a client job a finish line.

Prepare the workspace

You need access to edit the client/project, coordinate its milestones and manage relevant tasks. Recording invoices or payments may require additional finance permissions.

Example: North Studio

North Studio’s Website refresh for Willow Bakery has three checkpoints: brief agreed, homepage delivered and handover complete. The design task is smaller than the homepage delivery milestone.

Start with one client and one project

1. Open Clients. Add the client, then open the profile and choose Add project.
2. Name the project after the job, not the month. Open it and add the milestones you can already describe.
3. On a milestone, set the responsible member, priority, and start and target dates when you know them. Add checklist items for the checks inside that checkpoint.
4. Create the actual work in Tasks and link those tasks to the same client or project. Open Milestones when you want the checkpoints assigned to you.

Keep three kinds of done apart

A checked checklist item does not complete the milestone. A linked task marked Done does not complete it either. You mark the milestone when that checkpoint is actually done, stuck or skipped.

Check the project’s dependency mode. Sequential delivery makes the next checkpoint wait. If independent checkpoints can move together, use the dependency mode that allows that, and keep the prerequisites valid.

Client acceptance is a separate record. It asks for explicit evidence. It does not replace the internal decision that the work was delivered.

Name the checkpoint the client would recognize

"Homepage approved" is a finish line. "Phase 2" is a label. Use the first kind when you can. Put a revision round on its own checkpoint if revisions are part of the job.

Waiting on a task means the work is blocked. The milestone still means the checkpoint. Those two statuses answer different questions, so leave them independent.

Check the outcome

Review four separate facts: task Done, milestone delivery status, client acceptance evidence and invoice payment. Link the issued invoice to the appropriate client/project and inspect its payment record in Receivables.

Avoid a common mistake

A completed checklist, a delivered milestone, client acceptance and receipt of money do not substitute for each other. Never mark a payment merely because the client approved the work.