Project Governance

Project Governance items let you account for standard yet dynamic overhead effort related to Professional Services — things like project management time, documentation, and general contingency.

On this screen: The project Governance section shows a card with a “Governance” heading. A line above the table displays the project’s Total Service Effort in hours. The table lists governance items with columns for Governance (name, as a clickable edit link with a pencil icon), Phase, Resource, Calculate Hrs By (percentage or fixed), and Hours. When no items exist, a placeholder row reads “Add governances to get started.” Rows support drag-and-drop reordering when more than one item is present. An “Add Governance” button appears in the card header when the project is in building status.

Required vs. Non-Required Governance Items

Governance items default to being required, meaning they are added to every project automatically.

Non-required governance items can be added to a project via a survey. These are useful for more complex projects that need additional overhead coverage.

Example Uses

Common governance use cases include:

• Project management time
• Documentation generation effort
• General contingency for risk

How Governance Relates to Services

Governance represents overhead effort derived from service effort, not instead of it. Services define the base level of effort on a project, and governance effort is calculated from that service effort — either as a percentage or a fixed amount.

Because governance depends on services, it can only be applied to phases where service effort exists. This relationship matters when configuring how governance appears in pricing summaries.

Effort, Price, and Cost Calculation

Governance price and cost are calculated using a resource in your account. You can define effort in one of two ways:

1. As a percentage of the total effort on the project, multiplied by a resource rate and cost
2. A fixed amount of effort, multiplied by a resource rate and cost

Governance effort is always calculated separately from services. How that effort is displayed in pricing summaries is controlled independently via the Assign Effort to Service setting.

Create Default Governance Items in Settings

Navigate to Settings > Governance > Project Governance to see and manage the full list of governance items.

On this screen: The Settings page for Project Governance (under Settings > Governance > Project Governance) shows a list of all governance items defined for the account. Each row displays the governance description and whether it is Required or Non-Required. An “Add Governance” button appears to create a new item.

Click Add Governance to create a new item.

When creating a governance item, you can configure:

• Description: A label for the governance item
• Resource: The resource used to calculate effort, cost, and price for this item
• Effort Type: Choose whether to define effort as a percentage of total project effort or a fixed number of hours
• Percentage or Hours: The specific value, depending on your selection above
• Phase Alignment: Choose how the platform handles the effort. By default, effort is spread across all project phases proportionally by service. You can also align it to a specific phase or to a Project Management phase. This affects how governance items are handled in ConnectWise Manage integrations.

Click Submit to save.

Governance in a Project

Within a project, you can modify or remove any governance items that were added automatically at project creation. You can also create new items using the same parameters available in Settings. Items created within a project only exist in that project.

Governance price and cost are calculated from the rate table selected for the project.

On this screen: The project Governance table shows the list of governance items applied to this project. Selecting one or more items via checkbox reveals a delete bar above the table showing the count of selected items and a trash icon. Each item’s name is a clickable link that opens the edit form for that governance item.

Phase Alignment of Price and Cost

Unless you align a governance item to a specific phase, a “Project Management” phase will appear on the PS Pricing page to account for project management revenue and cost.

The Assign Effort to Service setting does not affect PSA integrations. Governance items are sent to the PSA independently of how pricing is displayed in ScopeStack.

Assign Effort to Service

The Assign Effort to Service option controls how governance effort, cost, and revenue are presented in pricing summaries. It does not change total project effort, service effort, or what is sent to a PSA.

• Enabled: The calculated governance effort is redistributed into services in the selected phase. Each service absorbs a proportional share of governance based on its percentage of the phase’s total service effort. Governance does not appear as a separate pricing line.
• Disabled: Governance is reported as its own pricing line and is not blended into service pricing.

Important allocation behavior: Governance effort can only be allocated to services when the selected phase contains at least one service with non-zero effort. If a governance item is aligned to a phase with no services, or services with zero hours, the effort still exists but cannot be reapplied to services and may not appear in pricing summaries. This can result in differences between totals shown in pricing views and project breakdown documents.

Governance Alignment to Resources, Line of Business, or Service Category

You can specify which services contribute to governance effort, and how that calculated effort is reapplied to your project. Options include alignment by Phase, Line of Business/Service Category, and other default items. You can also choose to include governance effort within service revenue, which keeps the project management component out of client-facing line items.

Governance in Pricing

Governance items contribute to your project’s professional services pricing. Their hours and costs roll up into the PS totals alongside regular services.

In the pricing views:

• Resource Summary: Includes governance hours and costs in the per-resource totals.
• By LOB / By Phase / By Service: Governance items appear in a separate “Governance” section below the service breakdown. If you don’t see governance in a drill-down view, scroll down — the governance section may be below the fold.
• Overall Pricing: Governance hours and costs are included in the Professional Services line.

If a governance item is assigned to a specific phase, its hours appear under that phase in the By Phase view. If set to “Prorate,” the hours are distributed across all phases proportionally.

Permissions

Two permissions control access to governance features:

• Project Governance (projects.projects_governance): Controls whether a user can view and edit governance items within a project.
• Settings Governance (settings.project_governance): Controls whether a user can create, edit, and delete default governance items in Settings > Governance > Project Governance.