Is there a better way to execute car projects

[Kurt Penner]

Great insights. We use an excell spreadsheet thing as well that I developed after a pointless search for something that was simple enough for a gearhead to use, but flexible enough for the constantly changing scope of work on some projects. Helps alot, but like has been said, if you actually show the whole thing to a prospective customer, they get scared.
Part of the planning problem too is that it is very time consuming [expensive] Doing it before the project is approved can mean tons of time down the drain if the customer gets scared, not doing it makes it really hard to be fair to someone asking about the cost of a project.
How detailed do you guys get on your invoices. Is time broken into segments? We do a list of stuff accomplished this week and a total # of hours. I keep pretty good individual record for in house but don't show it to the customer. It's sort of like the 2 week sprint but customer sees stuff in writing every week after it's done.