A Beeswax User can exist without having to have a Subscription to an Account.
For instance, a User may have been invited into Beeswax by an existing Beeswax User.
A Beeswax User can then create their own Beeswax Account(s).
A Beeswax Account requires an active Subscription and in order to have a Subscription you need to be a Beeswax User first.
This is why when you sign up for the first time you have to create a Beeswax User before being able to create an Account.
Of course if you happen to have been invited into Beeswax before, and you accepted the invitation, AND set a password, then you will already have created a Beeswax User. In this case you can access the launch pad and simply create a new Account of your own without having to go through the Sign up stage.
A Contact in Beeswax is just like a contact in your Phone. It’s a convenient way of centrally storing all the Contacts relevant to your business. Think of it like a CRM.
By adding Contacts into Beeswax you make them available to others in your business who need them. You can avoid that question we’ve all had in the past… “Can you just send me that persons contact details again?”.
No more! Any person that you deal with, whether a Client or Supplier, should be entered into Beeswax by you and your staff. Period. It’s just a good habit to get into.
Now when you create a Contact in Beeswax, just as when you create a Contact in your Phone, that person does not know that you have created a Contact for them. Indeed, no one outside of your Beeswax account even knows that this contact exists.
That is until you wish to Invite them into your Beeswax Account. In which case they would become a Beeswax User. In other words, a User has to start out being a Contact and only after you invite them, and they accept, will they become a User.
Now here’s the thing. You can send invitations to Contacts until the cows come home but that Contact won’t become a User unless they chose to accept your invitation. And if they aren’t already a Beeswax User then just clicking on the link in the email isn’t even enough, they have to set a password first in order to officially activate their Beeswax User.
The only reason for you to actually Invite someone into your account and turn them into a User, is if you wish for them to do things in your Beeswax Account. The things that they will be able to do within your Beeswax Account will depend on the Role that you assign to them.
For instance, someone needs to be a User if you wish to assign Tasks to them. A Freelancer or external contractor may very well need to be invited into your Beeswax Account so that you can assign Tasks to them.
Your Accountant may need access to Reports in order to prepare your Tax Return. In which case they would need to be a User. Your Book Keeper who needs to reconcile you Bank Accounts will also need to be a User in order to do this.
Basically anyone who needs to do something within your Beeswax Account needs to be a User.
A Client who you wish to just send invoices to does not need to be a Beeswax User in order to receive these invoices via the Beeswax system. You can still send invoices to any Contact that exists within Beeswax even if they are not a User.
Contacts are people you work with, and for, each day. And generally speaking, for the majority of businesses for which Beeswax is for, these Contacts work for another Company. That’s the reason we group Contacts & Users under Companies.
Now, of course that may not always be the case. Such as in the situation where you engage an independent freelancer, who sends you an invoice for the work they do under their own personal name. In other words, they don’t operate under a Pty Ltd or LLC company. In this instance you would still create a Company for them so that you can generate Expenses to account for their time and cost.
The reason being that Expenses (as well as Quotes and Invoices) can only be associated with a Company and not directly to a User. I know. You can’t please everyone. It’s just the way it is in Beeswax. You can find out more about this under the Quotes, Invoice or Expenses section.
