Billing catalog

The billing catalog is the set of prices and shapes your practice bills from. Charge types say what a kind of work is called and what it costs. Agreement templates are agreements you write once and reuse for each new client. Products are the items a quote is priced from. Set the catalog up before your first agreement and your first quote.

Before you begin

• You are on the MSP plan.
• Changing the catalog needs psa:admin. Reading it needs psa:read. Salespeople with crm:read can read products too, so they can price quotes.

Open the catalog

Select Client billing > Catalog. It has three tabs: Charge types, Agreement templates, and Products.

Set up charge types

A charge type is what a technician picks when they log time, such as labor or travel. Agreement rules match on it to decide how the work bills, and it supplies the name the client reads on the invoice line.

Outpost seeds four charge types, all at a zero rate: Labor, After-hours labor, Travel, and Product or part. The rates are zero on purpose, because any rate Outpost chose would be wrong for your practice. Set your own before you invoice.

1. On Charge types, select New charge type, or Edit on an existing one.
2. In Code, enter the code agreement rules match on, using lowercase letters, digits, and underscores, such as after_hours. The code cannot be changed later.
3. In Name, enter what the client reads on the invoice line.
4. In Default rate, enter the rate. An agreement rule can name its own rate instead.
5. In Priced, choose Per hour to price the time logged, or Per item to price a count.
6. In Sort order, enter where it sits in the list technicians pick from, lowest first.
7. Leave Offer this charge type on new work selected, then save.

Turning Offer this charge type on new work off stops it being offered on new work. Entries already logged against it, and rules that match it, are kept. Deleting a charge type keeps it on work already logged, and any agreement rule that names it stops matching.

Write agreement templates

An agreement template is the shape of an agreement you sell to many clients, such as a standard managed services contract. When you write an agreement, you can start from a template. The agreement takes its own copy of the template’s lines and rules, so changing a template later never changes an agreement already written from it.

1. On Agreement templates, select New template.
2. Enter a Name, which is what you pick the template by, and an optional Description.
3. Enter the Billing day, from 1 to 28, and the Default hourly rate. Optionally pick a Default charge type, which an agreement started from this template copies. See Client agreements.
4. Select Add a line for each recurring charge. Lines work as they do on an agreement. See Client agreements.
5. Add the rules an agreement built from this template starts with. Rules work as they do on an agreement. See Client agreements.
6. Save the template.

The list shows each template’s Lines, Rules, Monthly total, Default rate, and the day it Bills on. A quote can also name an agreement template, which decides the shape of the agreement the signed quote creates. See Sales pipeline and quotes.

Add products

Products are your quote price book. The catalog ships empty, because what your practice sells, what it calls it, and what it costs are your own.

1. On Products, select New product.
2. Enter a SKU, unique across the catalog including retired items, and the Name the client reads on the quote line.
3. Enter a Description. It is copied onto a quote line when the item is picked, and can be reworded on that quote.
4. In Kind, choose One time or Recurring.
   • One time items are invoiced when the quote is accepted.
   • Recurring items become a line on the agreement the signed quote creates and bill every month. Choose the Agreement line kind: Fixed, Per device, Per user, or Prepaid block. A prepaid block also needs Included minutes.
5. Enter the Unit, such as each, device, user, or hour, the Unit price, and the Unit cost. The unit cost never leaves your practice. No quote, PDF, or client-facing page shows it. It is what quote margins are worked out from.
6. Optionally, enter a Category to group the item in the picker.
7. For a one-time item that is delivered as a project, choose a Project template. Accepting a quote that holds the item starts a project from that template for the client. Select Bill as the milestones are completed to leave the item off the acceptance invoice and bill each milestone as it is finished instead. See Projects.
8. Select Tax this item if tax applies, leave Offer this item on new quotes selected, and save.

Deliver a product from stock

A one-time product that is hardware you keep in stock can be delivered from stock. An accepted quote that holds it then raises a sales order, and the product is delivered as a stock item. See Sales orders.

1. On the product, select Delivered from stock (creates a sales order line).
2. In Stock item, start typing a stock item’s name or SKU, and pick it. See Inventory.
3. Save.

The products list shows each item’s Unit price, Unit cost, Margin, whether it is Taxed, and whether it is Offered.

To stop selling an item, select Retire. A retired product stays in the list and on every quote that names it. It is no longer offered on a new quote.

Verify

• Your charge types show the rates you set in Default rate.
• New quote in Sales offers your products when you add a line.

Next steps

• Client agreements
• Sales pipeline and quotes
• Invoice clients