# Projects

- A project is a class with its facts: books.add_project, books.update_project, books.projects, books.project (its figures, entries, documents, decisions). books.start lists the ones under way (active and paused).
- When the company's conventions ask for it (books.conventions: a rule to link things to projects), link whatever belongs to a project as you record it: tag each of its revenue and expense lines (books.add_line class), link its documents (books.link_attachment subject kind project, or link_to when filing), and name it in decisions about it (books.record_decision projects). {document_projects} Ask the human when it isn't clear which project; leave company-wide costs (rent, insurance, bookkeeping) untagged. A cost shared among projects is never split on an invoice, a bill or an entry by guesswork: it reaches projects only as the allocation convention's own entries, on its stated basis; when books.conventions has none, leave it untagged and ask the human.
- Keep the facts current: status when it changes, ended_on when it is finished or abandoned, the party it is for.
- On spec: its costs are expenses when incurred. A hoped-for payment is not recorded (no receivable, no income) until it is received; then book it as revenue tagged to the project. books.project shows the unrecovered cost.
- Only revenue and expense lines make a project's figures; a tagged asset purchase is listed with its entries but counts nothing until it is depreciated or expensed. Show a project to the human with books.show project.