is highly configurable, so it can be set up to closely match your business needs for quoting, job management, invoicing - and much more.
However, it's likely that some of the default configuration settings may not suit your specific requirements. For this reason, we strongly recommend that you complete the following basic setup steps. This will give you the opportunity to review, and if necessary change, the system configuration settings.
Set up your organisation
Check and set up your basic organisation settings These settings control key features of the way operates for your business. It's important to at least review (and possibly change) these settings before you start using . . These settings control the way that operates for your organisation.
Set up your staff
Add your staff Staff are members of your organisation who perform work for your clients. Staff are usually set up as users in so that they can login to enter time sheets, produce reports or invoices or perform other job-related activities. to the system, and set their staff base rates The staff base rate reflects the cost to your business of an hour of a staff member's time. It is not simply their hourly rate but needs to include an allowance for other costs such as holidays, superannuation, sick leave. , staff billing rates The staff billing rate is the cost to your client of an hour of your staff member's time. The billing rate has a default value for each staff member that can be overridden on a task, job or client basis if required. and security privileges Security privileges and their associated permissions control what users are able to do in . Typical privileges allow the user to work with clients, quotes, invoices or jobs, and to create or run custom reports. . Even if you are the only user of in your organisation, you still need to set staff rates for accurate job costing and billing.
Set up your tasks
Create the tasks Tasks are the labour components of a job - the activities that staff perform as they work to complete the job. Time can be recorded against specific tasks, and those tasks can display as line items on the invoice. A job must include at least one task if time is to be recorded against that job. that your staff will complete when they work on your jobs, and set the task base rates The task base rate reflects the cost to your business of your staff working for an hour on that task. The task base rate is only ever used at the quote stage, and only if you do not assign staff to the tasks in the quote. and task billing rates The task billing rate is the cost to your client of your staff working for an hour on that task. The rate has a default value for each task that can be overridden on a job or client basis if required. . You must create tasks before you can add them to your job templates, jobs, quotes or estimates.
Set up your clients
You need a client A client is an organisation or an individual that you are doing work for, usually on a billable basis. See also: billing client. for each job in . You can import or set up clients before creating a job for them, or simply create the client as part of creating the job.
Optional setup steps
There are some additional, optional setup steps, that you can complete if you are using Xero Powerful cloud-based accounting software that is closely integrated with for invoicing, payments and reporting. , or need to work with costs In , the term 'costs' is used to refer to expenses that you will incur when working on jobs. These costs do not include staff labour costs, which are based on the time worked on tasks. Costs may relate to physical items (such as plant, machinery, consumables) or to other expenses such as subcontractors or mileage. or suppliers Suppliers provide your organisation with the products and services that you need in order to complete jobs for your clients. .