Most companies can tell you what engineering costs in total. Very few can answer the question a board actually asks: what did we spend on Payments this year, and what will it take to finish? Product Directions answers it from the work your teams have already done, with no timesheets.
How it works
A product direction is a named group of work: any mix of ClickUp projects, milestones, epics and tasks. Each item brings everything beneath it, so adding a milestone adds the whole milestone. Find work by name, by task ID or custom ID, or paste a ClickUp link.
For the month range you pick, the page shows:
- Spent — what the directions cost in that range. Work that belongs to two directions is counted once in the total, so the total never exceeds what you actually paid.
- Per full month — the average monthly burn.
- Remaining — a forecast of what the open work will cost, and With remaining, spent plus forecast.
- Spend by month, and By direction with an expandable table down to the item.
Where the dollars come from
Cost uses the same model as Cost Analysis: story points closed each month, multiplied by that month's delivery cost per story point (direct payroll divided by direct story points), plus an overhead uplift for the people configured as overhead. Each month is priced at its own rate, so a raise in March does not reprice January.
We are explicit about what is not priced, because a cost figure is only defensible if its gaps are visible:
- Story points with no assignee, or closed by someone with no salary on record, are not priced. They are shown as caveats, and the export names every person with no salary on file.
- Remaining counts only estimated, assigned open work. Unestimated or unassigned tasks add nothing, so treat it as a floor, not a ceiling.
An export built to be audited
Export to Excel produces a workbook with:
- a Summary of direction × month, with totals and the forecast;
- one sheet per direction, listing every item with a link to ClickUp, what it is part of, and why an item was counted on its parent rather than on itself;
- a Basis sheet showing, for each month, direct and loaded cost per story point, overhead uplift, direct and overhead payroll, and the story points that went unpriced;
- a Notes sheet with the method and its caveats.
Hand it to finance as it is. Every figure in it can be traced back to a task and a rate.
Who sees what
- Viewing requires financial access (see per-person financial access). Without it, the page and its menu entry are not shown.
- Admins and Managers with financial access create and edit directions. Directions are company-wide, so every reader sees every direction, but a team-scoped reader's cost figures cover only their own people.
Product Directions is included with Cost Analysis on the Business and Enterprise plans. See plans.