When adding a project to HoneyBook, one of the first few things you’ll need to decide is the project date or dates for the specific job you’re adding. When it comes to using HoneyBook as a non-event business, some of the more common questions are around project dates and how to use them.

In this article we’ll cover:

For those in the event industry, the project date should feel like a very familiar variable to define; it's the day or days the event will take place.

If you are dealing with an event that runs the course of several days, you’ll want to give your event a start date and time, and an end date and time.

For those in the non-event space, an instinct might be to leave the project date as TBD.

However, this isn't the recommended use for project dates. We'll get into this more below...

So why shouldn’t you leave the date as TBD in HoneyBook?

To mark the project date as TBD leaves you without a point of reference for the length of time you'll be working with a client and leaves your calendar open, which doesn't give you much visibility into the jobs you're working on or their timing.

As a best practice, your project date should be:

HoneyBook Tip: If you add a start and end date, the project will appear in your HoneyBook calendar as spanning that entire timeframe. To allow other clients to schedule sessions with you during that time, be sure to mark the project as available in the Project Details.

For example: If you have a 3 month contract with a client, mark the start date as the day they sign and end date as 3 months later.

Another example: If you provide some kind of deliverable or set due dates for yourself to deliver your services, that date you anticipate deliverables to be completed and sent should be your project date.

If you decide to use the project date to track the end of your contracts with clients, this will show you when a client's contract is about to expire so you can follow up with them to extend it.

Better yet, "project date" is one of the variables you can use to control your automations. That means you can tell HoneyBook to automatically send an email, or just remind you to send the email, to follow up with clients when they're signing on and/or when their contracts are about to expire and prompt them to continue services.

If you use project dates to track due dates for deliverables or other services, you'll be able to easily and quickly see what's coming up so you never miss a deadline.

Still have questions? Feel free to send us a message by clicking the Question Mark icon on any HoneyBook page. Our team is always happy to help!