Internal Projects

Understand internal and external projects and use them for accurate time tracking and reporting.

Leadtime records every type of work in a project, whether it is performed for a customer or for internal purposes. This structure makes all company activity transparent and available for planning, review, and analysis. Leadtime distinguishes between external and internal projects.

Learn more about project structure.

Internal Projects – Overview

External projects

External projects are billable customer projects that generate revenue directly. They represent the operational core of the business and typically include:

Customer engagements
Implementation or consulting projects
Maintenance and support agreements
Retainers or ongoing service packages

Purpose:

Time recorded in these projects supplies the basis for invoices, proposals, and revenue analysis.

Internal projects

Internal projects are not directly billable, but they are essential to operating and developing the business. Examples include:

Administrative work such as accounting, HR, and organization
Sales and marketing
Research, development, and product work
Strategic initiatives and internal improvements

Purpose:

Time in internal projects supports internal cost control and efficiency analysis. It contributes to value creation indirectly.

Ongoing and one-time projects

External and internal projects can both be ongoing or one-time:

One-time projects have a clear objective, such as a product launch or customer delivery.
Ongoing projects represent continuous work, such as marketing, support, or customer care.

This keeps recurring processes and completed initiatives visible.

Structure internal projects effectively

Internal Projects – Suggested structure

Suppose your company delivers customer projects, develops products, and handles continuing internal work such as marketing and accounting.

A clear structure under Your Company → Internal Projects could look like this:

📈 Sales – lead management, outbound prospecting, and customer follow-up
📣 Marketing – campaigns, content creation, and website maintenance
💰 Accounting – incoming and outgoing invoices and payment reconciliation
🧠 Product development – planning and delivering new features or services

This structure makes internal time precise and keeps operational work separate from strategic projects.

Recommendations

Record activities: Document recurring work such as acquisition and accounting through tickets in the relevant internal project.
Book time without a ticket: Employees can record uniform activities such as accounting directly against the project.
Use separate projects for objectives: Create a dedicated project with defined work packages for a clearly bounded initiative such as product development.
Analyze and report: Use internal projects to make internal effort visible and assess efficiency over time.