A service item is a simple way to store your account ledger and tax code — if you have one — for your individual services. Doing this aligns a platform like Accelo with your accounting system to streamline your invoicing and bookkeeping services.
You can make your service items unique to each service your business provides. Take a website design company, for instance. A design company can separate its services based on design work and website hosting. To make this work in Accelo, you’ll create a service item for both design and hosting.
Doing this is helpful because it lets you assign each service item to a different account and create custom tax rules for each service. If you want to keep things simple, your service items can all go to your general ledger.
All of this allows you to organize and segment your work into different services for better management, planning and invoicing, letting you shape Accelo to match just what your business needs.
Accelo created service items to be easily accessible for all people, no matter your accounting chops. Follow the four simple steps below to create your first service item.
1. Go to the Settings Section
You can create and customize service items within your Accelo account settings. Click on the menu on the left side of the screen and select the settings link at the bottom of the menu.
2. Head to the Invoices and Billing Section
Once you’re in settings, click into the Invoices & Pricing section. Once there, click the Material and Service Items link to head to the service items page.
3. Create a New Service Item
Once you arrive on the service items page, you can create your service items in two ways.
The first is to import your data from your accounting software. Click the Import button to connect with your accounting software. Once done, your service items will automatically show up on your list. In most cases, this is the option you’ll use.
Your other option is to click the “Create Item” button. Once there, you’ll see a screen that lets you put in your service item details.
4. Input Your Service Item Details
If you created your service item manually, you’ll need to input your service item information. You’ll need the following pieces of information to create your new service item:
Once you have all the details entered, you’re finished. Click save to create your new service item and start using it in Accelo.
Now that you know how to create service items, the question is, is it worth the effort to make service items for each of your services? Below are the many benefits you’ll see when taking advantage of this feature.
Accelo provides a lot of functionality out of the box, and it only gets better when integrating with other accounting platforms.
Take QuickBooks Online, for example. QuickBooks Online is a popular option for businesses to manage company finances. However, there's no built-in way to take your products and services from QuickBooks Online and bring them to another platform to use that data.
Accelo provides a direct connection to your QuickBooks Online account. You can bring your QuickBooks Online data into Accelo to help set up your projects, forecast your revenue, and seamlessly create invoices. Not only that, but you can also import QuickBooks Online services into Accelo to make your service items automatically. Once your services are in Accelo, the sync function will ensure both platforms stay up to date.
Accelo has many more product integrations, so make sure you explore all that Accelo can do.
Billing is one of the most time-consuming tasks when you don’t have a system in place. You’ll spend too much time adding each individual product and service you offer to your quotes. Service items make this easy.
Since you define your services in service items, there's no need to recreate line items on your quotes from scratch. Simply add your service item to your quote, and your pricing, taxes, and other billing details are filled in for you.
One of the great things about service items is the ability to add them to project templates. It isn't always easy to gauge how well a project does financially when looking at your projects inside a project management system. That's why Accelo lets you assign service items to your project tasks.
This makes it easy for you to see the total cost of your projects. This is great for forecasting revenue, keeping costs down, and planning for the future.
Not all revenue is pre-planned. If you're in the professional services industry, your customers will call you at unexpected times. The question is, how do you keep track of what they owe?
Using the ticketing system in Accelo gives you that ability. You can set a default service item for billing or allow your team to change the service item if the ticket requires something extra. When one of your customer service reps works a ticket, they can assign a service item during the process.
Doing this gives you insight into what work you're doing for customers and how much money they owe.
You don’t have to limit your service items to services you provide one time. You can also apply them to retainers that you charge your customers monthly or yearly.
To add a service item to your retainer, select the service item on your retainer form. Doing this allows you to create service packages and quickly add your rates to your retainer projects in Accelo. Once you set up your service item, you can pick a frequency of charges for your customers.
Service items don't just help you bill for your services. They are a way to easily categorize your services, plan how you want to bill your customers and send invoices. You can shape your service items to match whatever your business needs instead of trying to fit them into a pre-built billing system.
Do you think service items can help your business create a more efficient billing process? Sign up for a free trial of Accelo to test service items for yourself.
