The Business Projects form is the base for tracking information related to projects that your business is engaged in. You can create a new Business Project form by clicking the Business Projects folder (or choosing the Business Contact Manager menu on the toolbar and selecting Business Projects) and then double-clicking on an empty line in the Business Project folder. Alternatively, you can create a new Business Projects form by selecting the New Business Project in the Projects page of the Business Contact Manager Home page.

Using this form, you assign a name to the project, note the person it is assigned to, and define the type of project, such as fixed fee, hourly, or a custom billing schedule. In addition to this basic project information, you define the account or business contact to which the project is linked and can add any related accounts or business contacts (see Figure 19-21). You specify the Start Date, Due Date, and Priority, as well as configuring the Project Status and % Complete throughout the project to reflect the current state of completion. In addition, you can review or create the related Project Tasks that make up the elements of the project. The Details page provides a Comments field to enable you to put in related project information along with a date/time stamp, and the History page (similar to the History pages in the Business Contacts and Accounts forms discussed earlier in this chapter) maintains a list of communications and scheduling items related to this project.

Figure 19-21. The Business Project form enables you to centrally track the information related to a project.