Clients & Profits X Online User Guide

Active: Clients, vendors, and staff members are active or inactive depending on their status. Active clients may have recent billings, but the it's an agency decision. Inactive clients can be prospective new clients or old clients. Lists, reports, and mailing labels can be printed for active, inactive, or both kinds of clients, vendors, and staff members.

Aging Periods: Aging periods define when an invoice amount is past due. Default aging periods are 30, 60, and 90 days, but can be easily edited at any time. Once changed, choosing Client Account Aging from Snapshots will update your receivables and summarize the outstanding balances in the new periods.

Average Pay: Clients & Profits X counts the number days a client waits to pay the entire invoice. This count is figured each time you age your invoices, and is the invoice date less the payment date.

Bank Balance: A running total of deposits (through Client Payments and the Checkbook) and withdrawals (from the Checkbook). The bank balance is calculated whenever a payment is made or a check is written and posted.

Billable: The amount for which you are billing a cost. Billable amounts are also called gross amounts. They are based on markups or billing rates on time sheets. The billable is the amount that comes up automatically for client invoices for each task on a job. It is just a guideline, not what necessarily of client invoices posted for a job ticket. The billable is continuously calculated as the total billable amount for a job task less whatever has already been billed for that same job task.

Billing Preview: An unposted client invoice. Unposted invoices can be printed as part of the billing review process. These unposted invoices, called Billing Previews, let account executives see what looks like the final invoice, including sales tax. But since the invoices aren't posted, they can be easily changed. The words "billing preview" appear at the top of unposted invoices to prevent them from being accidently sent to clients.

Budget: Budget is the amount which the agency will pay to complete a task. It the cost before markups. This amount does not appear on the printed Estimate form, and is a net amount.

cGL: Credit general ledger account.

Closed Jobs: Jobs should be closed when the work is completed, all costs have been accounted for, and all billings are posted. Checking the Closed box closes a job, while unchecking the box opens the job. Closed jobs get a status automatically from Preferences, which can be changed. Job lists can be printed for closed jobs by entering the closed job status when printing reports.

Default: A standard setting or entry that is added automatically.

Deposits: All clients make payments against specific invoices. Any deposit or pre-payment must be applied to an invoice created for the deposit amount. For deposits against a job, add an advanced billing invoice using that job number and a task. Once posted, the deposit can be applied as a payment to the job's future invoices.

dGL: Debit general ledger account.

Discount Date: Date on which an early-payment discount is earned.

Due Date: Date on which a vendor invoice is consider due, based on the invoice date and the vendor's terms.

Enter key: Pressing the Enter key confirms an action, or saves your work.

Estimate: The actual amount the client will (or may) pay for the job ticket. This amount appears on the printed Estimate form, and should include all markups and commissions.

Expenses: In-house expenses for materials like art boards, tolls, and parking should be added into the Expenses window. In-house expenses paid by check should be added into the Checkbook.

Finance charges: Clients & Profits X does not automatically add finance charges to overdue client invoices. But it will calculate and print the finance charge amounts on the Client Account Aging report. Each client can have its own finance charge rate; enter it into the client Notes window.

Finished: A completed task. Finished tasks do not appear on Traffic reports. Tasks can be marked as finished from job tickets or from time sheets.

Freelancer: Anyone who charges time through time sheets but bills with an accounts payable invoice. They should be added as both a vendor and a resource.

Group: Groups are user-defined numbers into which job tasks are categorized. Job tasks can be categorized into groups on estimates and invoices. Groups are sorted numerically. The group number never appears on the printed estimate or invoice; instead, the group description (such as fees or expenses) appears. Tasks are sub-totaled by group. Groups are optional. You can have many different groups, too. On job tasks, leaving the group number empty keeps the tasks from sub-totaling.

History: Clients & Profits Xremembers running monthly activity for clients, vendors, and resources. Monthly client billings are updated during posting accounts receivable. Monthly vendor purchases are updated while posting accounts payable. And monthly billable dollars for resources are updated while posting time sheets. These monthly amounts are compared against last year's figures on the Client, Vendor, and Resource History window, which is opened from the Work menu.

Initials: Clients & Profits X uses initials to identify who added any record (like a job ticket, a client, or an invoice) as well as the date and time. Duplicate initials are not allowed, but are not checked.

Job Number:Clients & Profits X uses a unique job number to identify a job ticket and everything related to it. A job number may include any ten letters, numbers, or both. Jobs are numbered automatically--;optionally by client--;but may have custom job numbers.

Job Type: A customizable label that classifies similar jobs, such as print, media, brochure, can have spec sheets that contain standard information about a type of job, including estimate disclaimers and a job template (i.e., a preset collection of tasks).

Last Work: The date of the last time sheet posted for a job task.

Lead: The number of days needed to complete a task. It is used, together with the due date, to select job tasks on the Traffic reports.

Message: Two lines of customizable, temporary text that appears at the bottom of Estimates, Invoices, Statements, and Purchase Orders.

Overhead: Any cost that is not charged directly to a job. To skip job costing when adding an accounts payable invoice, time sheet, or cash disbursement for overhead, enter NONE in place of a job number.

Pay date: The date on which a vendor invoice is scheduled to be paid, regardless of terms.

Posting: Posting takes transactions and makes them permanent. Since jobs, the general ledger, and clients and vendors aren't updated until posting, transactions can be entered as they happen without much concern over accuracy.

Preferences: Clients & Profits X can be customized to your liking through "preferences." Preferences include client aging periods, default general ledger accounts, and several miscellaneous settings. To change preferences, choose Preferences from the Setup menu, make your changes, then click OK. New preferences take effect immediately.

Preferred Tasks: Each vendor and resource can have a preferred task indicating the usual task one performs. For example, if vendor CENTR is a typesetter, and almost always provides type, it should have a preferred task of TYPE. The preferred task is a time-saver, since it is entered by default on purchase orders, accounts payable, and time sheets. Preferred task is entered on mailing label window for vendors, and on the Rates window for resources.

Profitability: The gross profit (i.e., gross margin) calculated as: Job Billing - Job Costs. Profitability reports summarize job profitability from three perspectives: job, task, client, and type. Each report shows total cost, billings, and gross profit margin. The "job" report lists jobs numerically. The "task" report lists tasks alphabetically--;for all jobs to date. The "client" report summarizes all job tasks by client for easy comparison from client to client. "Type" shows profitability by job type.

Project: Job tickets can have a "project" name or number. A project can indicate several separate jobs for one campaign, or identify like jobs (such as "Print" or "Media"). Reports, such as job summaries, can be batch printed for a selected project. Projects can be set up by client. The word "project" is customizable in the Names window in Preferences.

Proof List: A summary unposting records for error-checking prior to posting. The proof list is printed automatically during batch posting.

Report Heading: The titles of the Estimate and Invoice forms can be changed temporarily, but only for the reports printed. For example, the word "estimate" can be changed to "authorization" or "quotation" as needed.

Revision: The number of times and estimate was edited on a job ticket. All new estimates has a "0" revision number, which prints on the Estimate as original. Once the user has started the first revision, Clients & Profits will count the number of times the estimate is revised. When you print out revised Estimates, the current revision number prints too.

Sales Tax: Clients & Profits X can add two different taxes to your client invoices. Tax rates are set in Agency Information with a description and a default general ledger accounts. Each client, as well as job tasks, can have two special tax rates. Tax rates are passed from the Task Table to the Job Ticket to the Invoice automatically, but can be changed at any point along the way. Sales tax isn't calculated until an invoice is posted.

Scheduling Task: Job tasks checked as scheduling only do not appear on Estimates and do not get billed automatically. (However, they can be billed if desired, but Clients & Profits X will alert you that this task is internal.) Internal tasks should be any task that is no chargeable to the client, such as Account Service.

Standard Client Terms: These terms (such as Net 30) are standard terms entered automatically to every client when they are added. A client's terms can be edited at any time by entering new terms over the old.

Standard Markup: A default setting for your standard agency percentage markup on goods and services purchased from vendors. The standard, or default, markup is entered automatically to every new vendor when adding, but can be changed.

Status: Job status indicates something about the job's progress, based on a number from 1-999. Status codes are completely customizable. Define your own terms.

Suspense: A general ledger account used to track unallocated amounts. During posting, Clients & Profits X checks your debit and credit GL numbers against the Chart of Accounts. If found, the amount is added to the right account. However, if an account number is not found, the amount is added to Suspense. Any suspense amount should be manually adjusted with a journal entry, usually at the end of the month. The suspense account number, 999998, is reserved and can't be changed or deleted.

Tab key: Pressing Tab moves forward one field to the next. Pressing the Shift key and pressing Tab moves backwards to the previous field.

Task: A task tracks estimate, budget, cost, committed, and billing amounts--;as well as billable and non-billable hours. Each task supports two taxable rates. A job ticket can have from one to hundreds tasks (10-20 tasks are typical). Each task can include several lines of notes, which may or may not appear on estimates and invoices. Tasks remember the last date worked from time sheets. Tasks can be grouped on estimates and invoices, then sorted. A task's income and expense settings--;the dGL and cGL--;are added to vendor and client invoices automatically.

Template: A user-defined set of job tasks that saves time when adding routine job tickets. Templates are part of the job type spec sheet. You can create many spec sheets, each with its own template. Templates can't be applied to existing jobs, only new jobs.

Year-to-date net income: A general ledger account used to track net income. Net income is calculated while the financial reports are printing, and is the difference between your revenue and expenses. The year-to-date profit and loss account number, 999999, is reserved and can't be changed or deleted.