Approval of disbursements is usually done by a superior, manager or administrator. You must give him access to the approval of disbursements in the employee configuration formmenu tab. Once the employee has access to this function, he/she will be able to approve the disbursements.
Then go to the Accounting module in the top main menu.
In the left menu, see the Disbursements function.
When the disbursement approval is up to date, you will not see anything new. However, if disbursements are pending approval, the new functionality will be present.
This is a red number in parentheses, like this one.
In this example, it indicates that there are 12 disbursements waiting for your approval in Collabox. Disbursements awaiting approval also have a red icon to make them easier to find.
When a disbursement is approved, the circle turns green.
Special situation
There may be times when a disbursement has several elements, but you are only able to approve one part. In this case, the circle turns blue.
Do you have several project managers preparing invoices? Others need to consult them, but should not modify them? Simply ask Collabox for an invoice approval to stay in control.
Access to billing
First, you decide who has the right to create and view your company’s invoices. Then, go to the employee record to give or remove access to the billing.
Select “Configuration” at the top of the page, then “Employees” in the left menu.
Choose an employee whose access is to be modified, then click on the “Menus” tab.
Scroll down the page until you see the “Billing and Accounting” module. Check the Billing box if you want to give access, or uncheck it to remove it. Save your work.
Now, still in the employee’s file, select the “Advanced configuration” tab.
Scroll down to the Accounting Module. There are several access options available to you. You can approve invoices for which you are responsible, or the entire company’s invoices. You can view the invoices in edit or view only the invoices for which you are the account manager. The choice is yours.
Invoice approval
When you are the approver of invoices, you have an action to take before you can send them to the customer.
First, open a new invoice and check the information. Make changes as needed. Then, at the bottom of the page, click on the “Approve Invoice” button.
In the list of invoices for the current month, a green check mark appears next to the approved invoices.
When they are pending approval, a red alert message is visible at the top of the invoice and no check mark is visible.
One of the features offered by Collabox CRM to manage your sales in real time is the opportunity table.
Efforts to acquire new customers are among the activities that must be constantly reviewed and updated. Management tools such as the CRM (Customer Relationship Management) are therefore becoming essential in the search for sustainability and growth of companies.
Efficient and customizable, the Collabox opportunity board allows you to “click and drag” and dynamically process your sales opportunities. At a glance, visualize a “sales funnel” by customer, by product, by amount or by service sold.
The basic steps for configuration are as follows.
Step 1
Types of intervention contact
Turn your Collabox CRM into a memory aid.
First, create your own types of interventions to keep notes on the products/services that have been presented to prospects. All this in order to obtain very detailed reports of your salespeople’s activities, among others bySolicitation report.
The following are examples of the types of interventions:
Telephone prospecting
Video conferencing
Email prospecting
Types of intervention
Contact qualifications
Then label the contacts, for example “A” or “Platinum“. Collabox gives you the possibility to customize your tracking system. By categorizing your contacts, you will be able to sort them according to their order of importance.
Examples of Contact Qualifications:
GOLD
SILVER
BRONZE
Types of contact qualifications
Opportunity products
Then, make a directory of all your products or services to follow up and find out the potential revenue per opportunity.
First, go to the “Opportunity Product” tab in the left menu. Then add a product.
Types of opportunity products
Opportunity statuses
In the methodologies related to the use of a CRM, it is recommended to use a BOM system to help track the evolution of sales opportunities.
Opportunity status” is a term used to describe a factual situation regarding a potential sale. This way, it is easier to determine at a glance the different statuses of the sales opportunity according to the stage of the sales process in which it is located.
Create your own BOM or use the one proposed by the Collabox.
Here is an example of nomenclature:
Types of opportunity status
Customization
Finally, the procedure for customizing the opportunity status nomenclature is available here.
2nd step
When your initial configuration is complete, perform step 2 from the contact form. Each tab will give you the ability to customize the contact management experience.
Assignment of “sellers ” to the contact
First go to a contact record and select the “Assignments” tab. Then check the employees who will be able to manage the selected contact.
Contact qualification
Then select the “Info” tab of the contact. Then choose the appropriate qualification type for that contact.
Follow-up date
While remaining in the “Info” tab, then add a follow-up date for the contact in the “Seller” box.
You are now ready to use the CRM function of the Collabox!
If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact us, we will be happy to answer you.
The“budget items” in the Collabox refer to revenues and expenses (income and expenses).
In order to record these operations correctly, it is necessary to configure your Chart of Accounts. Make a list with the names and numbers of all the revenue (income) and expense (cost) accounts you need, based on your business activities. Your accountant can advise you on this.
The budget items will therefore have a number and a proper name in order to correctly identify the nature of the operation. This numbering system is used to produce the profit and loss statement and will help you easily find the accounts in the Collabox.
The income statement is the financial statement that summarizes a company’s revenues and expenses over a given period of time (monthly or annually). The income statement contains the two most important pieces of information about a company – its profit or loss.
Create the list of budget items
Click on the Accounting icon
Go to the menu on the left and click on budget items
Click on Add a budget item
Enter your bill of material
Record each new budget item added
Organize budget items by category
Here is the form to add a budget item in the Collabox for the first time
How do I create lists of budget item categories?
There are two ways to access the link that will take you to the category configuration area: a) From an existing budget item b) From the space for creating a new budget item (link : Adding a budget item )
Here is the procedure:
Once on the line item form, look for the heading called Category and locate the clickable link :
Updating job categories (This is where you can create your lists).
The link: Add a budget item categoryWill allow you to enter the name and order for visual display.
Create a disbursement
Each “budget item” requires the creation of a“disbursement“. A disbursement is the word used in Collabox terminology for disbursements.
Each disbursement must be associated with a supplier. You must therefore make sure that the supplier exists on your list of suppliers. However, if this supplier does not exist at the time of the recording of the operation, you will have the possibility of creating it in parallel and quickly.
The access to the list of disbursements is possible in the left menu, as it appears in the picture below. Remember that you can use the different options to search according to the criteria that may suit you best.
Image: get access to the different disbursements seized
You can see the complete procedure for entering a disbursementhere
It is essential to properly configure the employee’s file to give him access to his personal work tools. To set up the employee record, just follow these few steps.
First, select the Configuration icon in the main menu at the top of the screen. Then, new options will appear and you can click on the Employees icon located in the left menu. This will give you access to the :
“Add an employee” ** This feature is reserved for super-users
After this first step, several tabs will be displayed. The most important ones to configure the employee’s file are: info, menus, preferences, advanced configuration, rates and schedule.
Tab : Infos
The tab -Info- corresponds to the personal information of the employee. First, fill in the fields that are most relevant to you. Next, it is important to create a username and password for your employee. Thus, he will have access to his Collabox account.
Please note that the superuser is the only person who can give access to employee accounts.
Tab: Menus
The second tab, -Menus-, allows the super-user to select the Collabox accesses he will grant to his employee. Thus, he will be able to choose between the following modules, according to his needs:
Timesheet
Billing and accounting
Contacts
Management
Agenda
Dashboard
Configuration
Tools
For each of them, a series of specific assignments are possible depending on the needs of the employee. These include the expense entry in the timesheet, access to vacation reporting, administration of the customer contact record, the employee’s personal calendar and the creation of custom fields.
Tab: Preferences
The third tab, -Preferences-, has several items related to work habits and alerts. Among the elements to check are the granting of the choice of the type of timesheet to be used, the selection of types of notifications and alerts that the employee will receive based on their assignments to projects and tasks, as well as important related permissions related to the opportunity table.
In addition, it is in this tab that you will be able to configure your smtp and imap to manage the sending and receiving of emails via the Collabox. To take advantage of these functions, please contact us contact by email or by phone.
Tab: Advanced configuration
On the other hand, the tab -Advanced configuration- allows certain users to administer other employees, as in the case of a project manager. Thus, this tab is not exclusive to the super-user. Other types of authorizations, such as those associated with the company’s accounting and financial management, including viewing, locking and unlocking invoices, adding payments or administering products, are also possible. The following is a list of modules with specific assignments available:
Timesheet
Parking meter
Tasks
Projects
Accounting
Agenda
Contacts
Tab : Rates
The -Rates- tab contains the employee’s payroll and expense information. First, the salary can be established (cost and sales), and then the mileage rate conditions can be set. In addition, you can configure the information of the payroll system, as well as the rates for the various leaves (vacations, sickness, health), all according to your needs.
Tab: Schedule
Finally, the tab -Schedule-, is the last one to use to configure an employee. It is used to establish the start and end times of the day, as well as break and lunch times. These items must be entered correctly, as they will have a direct effect on the timesheet, primarily in the“full day” box.
To add banks of hours, a box has been specially designed for this purpose. If you need help with the configuration of the banks or if you have other questions or specific requests, please contact us by email or by phone. We can then help you configure your Collabox to meet your needs.
Produce an employee record configuration report
Finally, it is possible to duplicate employee configurations for new employee records. This saves you time and avoids handling errors. These configurations are also visible in a single report for quick and efficient management.
If you have super-user access, you can view all the access and rights of each employee in your company in a single report here.
In this article, we introduce you to a little-known feature of Collabox: the Employee Configuration Report. It allows the Collabox super-user or administrators in your organization to display in table formats all the access and rights of each of your users in your company.
1- In the top menu, choose the CONFIGURATION function – the famous wheel that is only accessible to super-users or administrators of the Collabox in your organization. If you don’t see it, you don’t have those rights.
2- In the left menu of your Collabox you will see the section: Employee configuration.
3- Click on the word: Employees. The list of all your users-employees will appear.
4- At the top of this list you will see : Employee configuration report.
5- Click on the link: Employee configuration report. You will have different types of tables that will allow you to display specific information.
a- Infogeneral information found in the employee’s file
b- Menu: the menus to which employees have access
c- Preferences all preferences that employees use
d- Advanced configuration Customized options granted to certain employees upon request
d- Services Services that are assigned to employees, especially time sheet management
e- Project Projects that are assigned to employees, for their timesheet, access to reports, project sheets and others.
Collabox allows you to set up a budget and income statement by department in its Accounting Module. If your organization operates with independent budgets per department, this option is for you!
Set up a department
Start by setting up your departments. Go to the main menu “Configuration”.
In the left-hand menu, select “Departments”.
Then add a new department.
Fill in the required fields and repeat the last two steps until all your departments are created.
Create budgetary positions
Then create your budget items. The budget and income statement work closely with the budget items. It is therefore important to configure them well and link them to the right transactional accounts of your company. The following video explains how to properly create your budget items.
In the left-hand menu, select “Statement of Results”.
Add a budget or select one from your list.
Choose the “Revenues” tab and then select the department for which you want to create or modify a budget.
Add your forecast by line item for the year. Start with income, then go to the “Expenses” tab. This is your projected budget.
Consult the results by department
At any time during the year, view your statement of results by department. Return to the main “Income Statement” menu and click on the link of the same name rather than the budget.
Check the box of the department you want to view and that’s it!
If you have any questions, please contact us and we will be happy to answer you.
The service groups are used to have by default the services by project type. Use them to save time when setting up your projects and entering timesheets!
Preconfiguration
Before creating your service groups, go to the “Organization” menu at the bottom left of your screen. Then select the “Projects” tab.
Scroll down the page until you see the “Use service groups” function. Make sure the box is checked.
Add service groups
Go to an existing project or create a new project. Then click on the “Services” tab.
You will see the option to update the service selections at the top of the page, as well as a list of all the services in your organization. Click on the update.
Then add a new selection of services.
Give it a name and select the desired services.
Collabox keeps your selections in memory. So, when you start a new project, you only have to select the desired service group!
Watch several videos on our Youtube channel and visit our Tips and Tricks section in the Blog to continue your Collabox configuration!
If you have any questions, please contact us and we will be happy to answer you. info@collabox.com (418) 907-9274
Since you are a serious company, you certainly want to add your corporate signature to your emails. It can easily be added to your Collabox to send your service offers and invoices with signature.
Add your signature
First, go to the “My Preferences” menu at the bottom left of your screen.
Then click on the “View” tab.
A series of options are available to you. As you scroll down the page, you will see several places to add your signature.
Bill
Service offer
Order form
Account statement
You are free to fill in one or more of these signatures. The system allows several font and style options. You can also copy and paste your logo for a corporate customization.
Default message
In the signature fields, you can also add a default message. This feature is optional, but it can save you a lot of time when sending out account status notices. Here is an example of a message.
Watch several videos on our Youtube channel and visit our Tips and Tricks section in the Blog to continue your Collabox configuration!
If you have any questions, please contact us and we will be happy to answer you.
