Expenses

Track all costs related to a project or your business

Overview

Expenses allow you to track costs for a Project as well as your overall business. Expenses work in a similar way to Invoices and Quotes. Expenses have specific states relevant to them.

Expenses can be used as Purchase Orders if your business works this way. So if and when you send an Expense as a PDF to a supplier it will appear as a Purchase Order.

Everyone and every system has their own taxonomy for Expenses. Purchase Orders, Orders, Costs, etcbut as they say “a spade is a spade under any other name’. It simply semantics. An Expense is just what it sounds like.

What are Expenses?

Expenses are things that cost your business money. These costs might be general business expenses, such as office rent, or they might be costs that are specific to a Project, such as contractor fees, purchasing materials for a project or any other cost that is incurred during the course of completing a project. Either way anything that costs the business money is considered an Expense.

Expenses, like Invoices, are created under a Project. This is why we suggest running a general admin Project that correlates to your tax reporting period as this gives you the ability to monitor and track general business expenses in the same what that you would any other Project. You can think of it like treating your business as a Project.

You might also think about having internal Projects where you can also specifically monitor costs. Moving Office Project, hiring a new employee project. All these things could and should be considered projects in their own right and by thinking in this way you will form the habit and discipline of accounting for and tracking everything in your business and not just your clients projects.

You can also track time that this spent on general business activities in order to get a better picture as to what time is spent on non income generating activities.

All financial documents: Invoice, Quotes and Expenses, are colour coded so that you can see immediately what type of document you are working on.

Expenses are RED so there is not mistaking what type of document you are working on.

Expenses States…how do they work?

Expenses have the states shown above. Each state determines:

  1. What can and cannot be edited or updated
  2. When the Expense impacts your accounts
  3. When Payments can be made

Let’s look at each state…

Expenses start in a Draft state which means:

  1. You can update and change anything on the Document without impacting your accounts.
  2. You cannot apply a payment.
  3. The transactions do not appear on any reports. In other words, your accounting ledger is not affected.
  4. You cannot send an Expense (such as in the case of using it like a Purchase Order) or download a PDF although you can preview it.
  5. You cannot schedule it.

Expenses then move to a Finalised state which means:

  1. The Expense gets assigned and ID number which can be changed if needed.
  2. A Payment can be applied.
  3. If you are using the Accrual Accounting Method then the transactions will appear on your reports. In other words, your accounting ledger is affected.
  4. You can send an Expense (such as in the case of using it like a Purchase Order)
  5. You can download a PDF
  6. You can schedule it.

Note that before you can Finalise an Expense the User is required to manually select the Company the Expense is for. This is unlike an Invoice which gets automatically assigned the company based on the company the Project is under. Obviously the Expense could be for any number of random Companies and it is not therefore possible to automatically assign this when the Expense is first created.

If you wish to send Purchase Orders to suppliers (which is a sensible business practice as it confirms what both parties are expecting) then you can send an Expense via the Beeswax system and it will present as a Purchase Order.

If you do send an Expense then the state will change to Sent, which means:

  1. You can continue to edit the Expense
  2. A Payment can be applied.
  3. You can download a PDF
  4. You can schedule it.

When a payment is made against the Expense the state will show one of the following:

  1. Part Paid or
  2. Paid:

This is pretty self explanatory. Sometimes an expense may not be paid in full in which case you will see the Part Paid state.

There could be several Payments made to an Expense over time and only when it is paid in full will it move to the following state of Paid.

The Expense will move to the Paid state when it is fully paid. That is when the total payments equals the total amount of the Expense.

Let's look at each Role

Owner

AKA: The Boss

This is the Owner of the Account and more often than not they are also the Owner of the business. The business Owner should obviously see everything so of course they have Full Access to all parts of the application but importantly they are unique in that they are the ones who are responsible for managing the Beeswax Subscription and associated Plan.
It's likely they have a business partner or a dedicated senior staff member who needs to be able to see and do all the same things that the Owner can. That's what the Super
Admin Role which we get to next.

Super Admin

Business Partner or a Senior Employee

The Super Admin User also has Full Access to everything however they don’t have access to the Subscription but that’s all. These are usually Partners in the business or Senior Employees who need to see and control everything in the Business. Warts and all!

Manager

Production Manager or Account Manager

The Manager Role is generally the person who takes care of the day to day running of Projects, and oversees Tasks.
This Role would be for a Production Manager,  Studio Manager or Account Manager for instance.
They generally don’t get involved in Payroll financial reports and as such are not expected to know anything about Accounting or Tax related matters.

Of course these things aren’t necessarily that difficult to understand, however,  so as to avoid the potential pitfalls associated with incorrectly allocated transaction Accounts and / or Taxes we have chosen to limit this Users access and control over such things.
So, while Manager can create Quotes, Expenses and  Invoices, they can’t change the Transaction Account and Tax when working on any of these documents. While Managers can create Quotes, Expenses and  Invoices, they can’t change the Transaction Account allocation nor the Tax Allocation when the are preparing any

These are defined by the Items that make up these documents and are therefore meant to be set up specifically by someone with this knowledge such as your Bookkeeper or Accountant.

Accountant

Your Accountant (obviously) or your Bookkeeper

This Accountant Role is obviously for the Accountant or Bookkeeper who need access to all things Money. They essentially have full access to the entire system with the exception of being able to manage the subscription.

Basic

A User who primarily works on Tasks

This Accountant Role is obviously for the Accountant or Bookkeeper who need access to all things Money. They essentially have full access to the entire system with the exception of being able to manage the subscription.

Contractor

External Resource

This is someone who usually is a freelancer that needs access to Tasks but not much more. They have a similar level of access as the Basic User but we've included this for future use.

Client

The Client

Someone who probably would like to get access to all your stuff but really you only want them to see things you want them to see. Like outstanding invoices and access to Files you share with them but apart from this you don't really need much more.

Roles
Owner
Super Admin
Accountant
Manager
Basic
Contractor
Client

Dashboard

Projects

Companies & People

Companies

The businesses you work with every day

Contacts

Just like the ones in your phone only it's for everyone in your business

Users

Users are those people you wish to invite into your account to do something

Money

Items

The Services you Sell or the things you Buy

Templates

Templates will save you heaps of time

Bank Reconciliation

Bank reconciliation or statement check

Bank Import

Import your Bank CSV file to allocate transactions

Scheduled

Used to automate the generation and sending of regular invoices

Bank Transfers

Move money from one bank account to another

Manual Journal

Need to fudge something. That's the only reason you should be here

Chart of Accounts

The heart of any accounting system

Reports

Reports

Reports...the ones you need and non you don't

Who Owes Me

See at a glance your Accounts Receivables

What I Owe

Your Accounts Payable Report

General Ledger

The report you accountant needs

Profit & Loss

Perhaps the most important report for any business

Tax Report

Yeah...no getting out of it

Time

Logging time is easy in Beeswax

Statement

A list of all outstanding Invoices

Subscription

Subscription

Manage your Plan under the Subscription page

Overview

Companies exist for two main reasons:

  • Assigning Projects & other related things
  • Grouping Contacts and Users

1. Assigning – Projects and other related things

Projects

Quotes

Expenses

Most things in Beeswax, like Projects, Quotes or Invoices, need to be assigned to a Company. These things can’t be assigned to a specific User or Contact.

Why? Because small businesses, those businesses that Beeswax is specifically built for, generally work with and provide services to other businesses rather than individuals or customers. In other words, we think of Beeswax as being a B2B application rather than a B2C. It’s one of the key assumptions we’ve made when building Beeswax.

Remember a Quote or Invoice is technically a legal document that relates to the obligations that your business has to another party. And therefore the name of the other party, which is usually a business, should be stated specifically. Of course you will have a contact who will receive documents from you but they are still technically representing the third party and are usually not themselves obligated to fulfil their financial obligations to pay you.
It’s the company or business they represent. When they leave the company still owes you money.However, while we think of these entities as Companies, it’s not to say that a Company can’t be something else. That’s for you to decide.In any case just remember that Projects, Invoices, Quotes and Expenses are all allocated to this idea, this entity, this concept, that we call a Company.

2. Grouping Contacts & Users

SM

JC

DJ

JC

It’s the way Beeswax groups or organises Users and Contacts. We think it makes sense to keep all Users and Contacts under the specific Company that they are associated with.