First things first. Beeswax is not for businesses that make or sell widgets. More specifically it’s not for businesses that need to manage inventory or manufacture products. There are plenty of systems out there for this …this is not one of them.
Beeswax has been specifically designed for businesses that sell services. And these services are more often than not charged on an hourly or daily rate. Of course there will be physical items or other resources, like an edit suite or piece of equipment that you hire out, that will inevitably be needed as part of providing these services however we'll get to that later.
Items are simply the services (or things) that you Sell and/or Buy in order to get a Project done.
For instance, you might have different rates for different types of Services that you offer, or you may have a different rate for Senior staff vs Junior staff.
And because you may also purchase some or all of the Services you sell, such as when you engage a freelancer or contractor, Items also have a buy amount. Of course, these amounts can be changed if needed when preparing a Quote, Invoice or Expense. However, while the Amounts can and will change the Tax and Account allocation for those Items should not. This is to ensure that the Tax and Account allocation is done correctly by Users who may not know what the correct Tax or Account should be.
This is why users with the Manager Role are not able to change the Tax or Account allocation during the preparation of an Quote, Invoice or Expense. This is only able to be changed by users with the Owner, Super Admin or Accountant role.
This should be pretty obviously and it will be once it's explained but when you are preparing a Quote or Invoice, you are generally do so in order to make money. In other words, you expect to receive an income for the Items that you are Quoting or Invoice for. Therefore it makes sense that when you select an Item during the process of preparing a Quote or Invoice that the Item's Sell amount is used to populate the Line Item.
Conversely when you are preparing an Expense, the Item's Buy amount is used. Obviously you can alter the amount but it provides you with standard amounts that you are expecting to pay for that specific Item, be it a service or physical product.
Here’s another example. Take an creative agency that charges a different rates for different skills or disciplines. Concept development work may be charged out at a higher rate than say Graphic Design. Or you may have different levels of Designers in which case each will have a different rate.
It really comes down to the nature and structure of your business. In any case this is where you set your rates so that Producers and Managers, those responsible for preparing Quotes, Invoices and Expenses will be able to use these Rates without having to refer to another spreadsheet or table.
Items don’t have to be hourly Services. They could be daily rates or they could be physical things that you sell. It’s up to you how you use them.
Go luck if you can find clients willing to go down this time and materials path. It's a tough one. Clients expect a result for a specific budget and therefore it will be continually harder for companies to provide services purely based on this approach. But it still exists and certainly exist in a blend of both fix priced projects and smaller "time and materials" projects perhaps with a ceiling or cap.
If you haven't heard of the term “Time and Materials“. It refers to these two things that Items represent:
The physical things might seem like products or widgets but generally speaking they are only purchased as a result of a project needing them, not because you’re in the business of selling these things. Hence no inventory management required. You just need to know how much these things cost you and how much you wish charge for them.
Take a freelance photographer. They will usually charge for their time (hourly or daily rate) but will likely also charge for equipment that is needed for the project. Perhaps something specific to the shoot that they don’t already own. In such an instance they will likely hire it. Similarly they might need disposable items, such as cardboard for a backdrop. Again it’s only purchased for this specific shoot and wouldn’t make sense for the photographer to own every possible colour needed. Plus storage would not always be possible. Also such an Item will usually will be disposed of at the end of the shoot. That’s why they’re called disposables.
Both the equipment hired and the backdrop purchased are things that will be charged back to the client. And usually these things will be marked up by a certain amount. Hence the Buy Amount and a Sell Amount for each Item. It’s up to you how much mark up you charge but this will often depend on the cost.
