How services work
A service is work you sell besides equipment: crew by the hour, transport by the kilometer or a fixed fee. Its type sets the price and who you assign.
People with the «Services» permission. View mode opens the list and every service, costs included; edit mode also creates, changes and deletes them.
Every account includes services, with no add-on to buy. Clients never see your service catalog: not in the client area, the web catalog or the mobile app.
A rental job is more than equipment. For the Landmark Venues wedding, three large 33 × 49 ft frame tents, 120 Chiavari chairs and 12 round tables need three people to put the tents up, a truck to take everything there and back, and maybe a site visit before the big day. That work costs you money, and you charge the client for it.
In Filmo, that work is a service: anything you sell or plan besides equipment, such as a technician by the hour, transport by the kilometer or a fixed-price concept. Like an item, you define a service once in your catalog and then add it to as many orders as you need.
One service, three places
What you call “the tent crew” lives in three separate records that don't update each other. The is the template. When you add it to an order, Filmo copies it into a . Work you plan without selling anything, such as a day cleaning the tents after the wedding, is an .
| Record | What it holds | Where you see it |
|---|---|---|
| Catalog service | Name, type, rate, cost, default expenses and taxes, default quantity. | «Services» and the service page. |
| Service line | A copy of the catalog service, plus its own dates, hours or kilometers, quantity, discounts, assigned people or vehicles and status. | The order, its documents and the Planner. |
| Internal service | Name, dates, project, how many people and vehicles it needs, who is assigned and its state. No price, cost or documents. | The Calendar and the Planner. |
Say your tent crew costs €35 an hour in the catalog. You add it to the wedding, and next month you raise the rate to €38. The wedding keeps €35, so a quote you've already sent doesn't change behind your back. To apply the new rate to an order, edit its line.
- Changing or deleting a catalog service never changes the orders that already use it.
- The Planner is the exception: it shows each line with the catalog's current name and type.
- Selling a service doesn't create an internal service, and an internal service never creates an order line. Work you've sold is planned on the order line itself.
What a service can be
Service types: crew, fleet and general
Every service has one of three types, and the type decides how it's charged and what you can assign to it on an order. A is charged by the hour and staffed with people. A is charged by the kilometer and assigned to vehicles. A is a fixed amount with nobody assigned on the order.
| Type | Price on the order | What you assign on the order | Group on the order |
|---|---|---|---|
| Crew | Price per hour × hours + fixed price | People, in «Staff assigned» | Staff |
| Fleet | Price per km × kilometers + fixed price | Vehicles, in «Vehicle assigned» | Transport |
| General | Fixed price | Nothing | Others |
Catering, travel and accommodation aren't types. They're that any service can pass on to the client, each with its own cost and price, and they're added on top of the type's formula.
- «Create service» starts on «General». Opened from «Crew» → «Services» it suggests «Crew», and from «Transport» → «Services», «Fleet».
- An internal service gets its type automatically from the people and vehicles it asks for.
- Changing a service's type only affects the lines you add afterwards. Lines already on orders keep their type, formula and group.
Warning: When you change the type and then save the «Accounting» card, Filmo keeps only the rates of the new type. A service moved from «Crew» to «Fleet» loses its price per hour.
The quantity is the number of people or vehicles
On an order, a service line's quantity does two things: it multiplies the price, and it sets how many the line has for people or vehicles. A tent crew line with quantity 3 charges three people and accepts three names. To add a fourth person, raise the quantity, and the price goes up with it.
Where to do each task
| You want to | Where | How |
|---|---|---|
| Find a service and its history | «Services», in the «Others» group of the sidebar | The services list and service page |
| Add a service to your catalog | «Services» → «Create service» | Create a service |
| Set its rate, cost and expenses | The service page → «Accounting» and «Expenses» | Create a service |
| Add it to an order | The order's search box, «Services» group | Add equipment to an order |
| Change the hours, distance or price on an order | The amount button of the service line | Change the hours, distance or price of a service line |
| Put people or vehicles on it | Expand the service line → «Assign staff» or «Assign vehicle» | Assign staff and vehicles to a service |
| Find out why someone can't be assigned | The «Not available» list, or the message when saving | Why can't I assign a staff member or vehicle? |
| Plan work you don't sell | «Calendar» → new event → «Internal service» | Create an internal service |
| Remove a service from the catalog | The service page → «⋯» → «Delete» | Delete a service |
Good to know
- A new service line doesn't start at its final price: a crew line starts at eight hours a day and a transport line at zero kilometers. Check every line before you send documents.
- Anyone who can open a service, or a service line on an order, sees its cost and margin.
- There's no way to archive a service. You keep it or you delete it.
Up next
Find your way around: The services list and service page.