Overview
Products and Services (also called Transaction Templates) define the items you sell or buy. Each product or service includes a name, billing rate, tax code, and account mapping, so adding line items to invoices and expenses is fast and consistent.
Key characteristics:
- Buy/sell usage — Choose Buy, Sell, or Buy & Sell. Use the unit (for example Hours or Units) to describe how the item is measured.
- Sell and buy rates — Each item can have separate sell (invoice) and buy (expense) amounts.
- Tax mapped — Assign default tax codes for both sales and purchases.
- Account mapped — Link each item to income and expense transaction accounts.
- Category grouped — Organise items into categories for reporting and filtering.
- Task integration — Products and services can be assigned to tasks to define billing rates for time entries.
Creating a Product or Service
Open the Products / Services page and use its New action.
Fields
| Field | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Title | Yes | A unique name for the product or service. |
| Kind | Yes | Buy, Sell, or Buy & Sell; controls purchase and sale usage. |
| Unit | Yes | The unit of measure (Units, Hours, Days, etc.). |
| Sell Amount | For selling | The rate charged to clients on invoices and quotes. |
| Buy Amount | No | The cost when purchasing (used on expenses). Defaults to zero. |
| Sell Tax | No | The default tax code applied when selling. |
| Buy Tax | No | The default tax code applied when purchasing. |
| Income Account | For selling | The transaction account for revenue (used on invoices). Buy-only items use the account's default income account internally if none is supplied. |
| Expense Account | For buying | The transaction account for costs (used on expenses). |
| Category | Yes | The item category this belongs to. |
| Description | No | A brief description of the product or service. |
| Active | — | Whether this item is available for use. Defaults to active. |
How Products & Services Work with Documents
When you add a line item to an invoice, quote, or expense, you can select a product or service to auto-fill the details:
On Invoices and Quotes
- The sell amount is used as the unit price.
- The sell tax is applied as the default tax code.
- The income account is used as the transaction account.
On Expenses
- The buy amount is used as the unit price.
- The buy tax is applied as the default tax code.
- The expense account is used as the transaction account.
Auto-filled values can be changed where your role and the document state allow it. Account and tax fields have additional role restrictions.
Item Categories
Products and services are grouped into categories for organisation and reporting.
Managing Categories
- Create categories from the item categories page.
- Each product or service must belong to a category.
- When deleting a category that contains items, you must first reallocate those items to another category.
Products Report
The Products Report on a project shows a breakdown of line items across all financial documents, grouped by product or service category.
Time Entry Integration
When a product or service is assigned to a task, it defines the billing rate for time entries logged against that task.
- The unit (Hours or Days) determines how time is calculated.
- The sell amount defines the rate charged.
- The sell tax is applied to billable time entries.
Time entries inherit the product or service from their task automatically. You can override it per entry.
CSV Import
Products and services can be imported in bulk via CSV file.
CSV Format
Each row should include:
- Title, Description, Kind, Unit, Sell Amount, Buy Amount
The import uses the category, income account and expense account you select in the import form for all imported items. These can be edited individually after import.
Editing & Deleting
Editing
Click a product or service to edit its details. Changes apply to new line items going forward — existing documents are not affected.
Deleting
The page offers deletion for items that are not used by transactions or selected as a user default. Archive used items to retain their history. System items cannot be deleted. The system prevents deletion of the last hourly-rate item to ensure time tracking always has at least one available template.
System items (e.g. Events/Reminders) cannot be deleted.
Permissions by Role
| Action | Owner | Super Admin | Manager | Accountant | Basic | Client |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View products & services | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Create products & services | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | No |
| Edit products & services | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | No |
| Delete products & services | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | No |
| Import via CSV | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | No |
| Manage categories | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | No |
Basic Plus follows Basic for the actions in this table; its extra access is to account-wide tasks and read-only projects. See Roles.
Key Notes
- Managers can view products and services but cannot create, edit, or delete them.
- Accountants have full access to product and service management.
- Basic users, Contractors, and Clients cannot access products and services.
- At least one hourly-rate product or service must exist at all times for time tracking purposes.