How to Create a Data Tag in Planfix and Track Expenses
To create a data tag in Planfix, you decide once what your team needs to count and which fields hold it — after that, people log the numbers inside tasks instead of in separate spreadsheets. Data tags in Planfix store tracking information that standard fields don’t cover: money, hours or any other unit your business works with. In under three minutes, this video creates an expenses data tag, adds it to a task and shows where the entries end up.
What you’ll learn: how to create a data tag
- What a data tag is: time, money or another unit you want to take into account while working on tasks and projects.
- Where new tags are added — the Data tags section of account management — and who is allowed to add them.
- How to describe the fields of the tag, such as a numeric amount and a text note, and preview the result.
- How an employee attaches the tag to a comment while working, so the task keeps a full history of expenses.
- How the collected entries become reports with tables, charts and graphs.
How to create a data tag in Planfix, step by step
Step 1. Open the data tags section
New data tags are created by account administrators. Open Account management → Data tags and decide where the new tag belongs: like most Planfix entities, data tags can be grouped, so you can add one inside an existing group or create a new group first. Then click Add data tag in the tools panel.
Step 2. Describe the fields you want to track
In the form that appears, enter a name for the tag — in the video it is Expenses — and describe the fields it will contain. Each field needs a name and a type selected from a list, and that list is almost the same as the list of custom field types; for most fields you can also set the length of the input. Calculated fields are set up the same way, and they can use values from the tag’s other fields and from the directories it relies on. The form shows how the tag will look once it has been added, so tracking time and resources in tasks can be designed before anyone starts entering data.
Step 3. Add the data tag in a task
In most cases this is a one-time job: the tag defines the data structure, and from then on every employee with the right access can add it to new tasks. Data tags are generally added to comments, because they reflect events that arise while a task is in progress. Click + next to the comment field, select Data tag, pick the tag you need and fill in its fields. The entry appears below the comment text, and clicking it shows the values that were entered, so the task keeps the complete history of what was spent and when.
Step 4. Collect the entries in reports
Every entry is a separate line of data, so a task accumulates its own small ledger without a spreadsheet beside it. A Data tag summary custom field adds up the entries inside the task, and reports in Planfix display the accumulated data as tables, charts and graphs. Data tags are built to work with reports: people enter the information in tasks, and reports bring it together for analysis. A separate screencast covers that half of the job — see how to build an expense report.
An expenses data tag: an amount and a note
The example in the video is a tag for allocating spending across projects, tasks and employees, so a company can understand where its money is going. It needs only two fields: a numeric one for the amount of the expense, and a text field named Notes for the detail behind it. The structure is the same as a pair of spreadsheet columns, except it sits in the task where the money was spent, so nothing has to be copied between systems or opened in a third-party tool. From there, revenue and expense tracking breaks the amounts out by project or by task.
Expense tracking examples: who it’s for
Data tags suit any value that builds up entry by entry:
- Finance and management: expenses logged in the task where they occurred, instead of a monthly reconstruction from receipts.
- Project managers: costs and hours counted per project and per employee, with the detail kept in the note field.
- Service and field teams: units specific to the business, such as visits, materials or items produced, described with your own fields.
- Analysts: structured lines of data that reports can group, total and chart without manual cleanup.
FAQ
Who can create a data tag in Planfix?
New data tags are created by account administrators in the Account management → Data tags section. Once a tag exists, employees with the appropriate access add it to their tasks themselves.
What field types can a data tag have?
Each field has a name and a type chosen from a list that is almost the same as the types of custom fields. For most fields you can set the input length, and calculated fields can use values from the tag’s other fields and from its directories.
Do I have to build every data tag myself?
No. Planfix includes standard data tags for time management, finance management and calls. You create your own when you need to track something those do not cover.
Start with one number your team already counts
Pick one value your team still keeps in a spreadsheet — purchases on a project, hours on a task, items delivered — and build a data tag with the two or three fields it really needs. Data tags make no pretense of replacing a full accounting system, but they keep the numbers next to the work, where they are easy to enter and hard to lose. New to Planfix? Sign up to try it.
