What's in this Article
What is This?
You may be asking yourself, "What is this contraption?!". Well, this is a game-changer. But, don't worry, it's gonna be okay. Take deep breaths, we've got you!
Engagements make it simple to create detailed work plans, including descriptions, services, billing, and tasks. You can easily share these plans with clients, who can then accept the terms. Automation for tasks will handle the specifics outlined in the engagement. In essence, it's a fast and smooth process for acquiring clients, completing work, and receiving payment.
The Engagement Builder is the first piece of the experience. The builder is split into five pieces:
- Engagement Details
- Engagement Items
- Billing and Payment
- Terms
- Tasks
Five elements follow you through the Engagement Builder experience. Take a look below.
1. Steps
Keep track of where you are in the process of building the engagement. You can always click to jump around to other steps in the engagement.
2. Accept proposal
Accepting a proposal on behalf of the client sets the engagement to active and cancels the eSign request.
3. Archive
Click this icon if you need to archive the engagement.
4. Save as draft
Saved drafts are found under the Proposals tab of the Engagements List.
5. Save and send
Saved and sent engagements are in the Active tab of the Engagements List.
For further explanation on each of the sections, read on!
Engagement Details
The details section is where you can add clients, assignees, and signers to the engagement.
a. Engagement name
Type a name for your engagement. We recommend establishing a naming convention with your team so that nobody gets confused. As an example, I've done [Service][YYYY] - [Client First and Last Name] for the title, so I would expect all other team members at my firm to use this format when naming engagements.
b. Start date / End date
Select a start and end date for the engagement. Keep in mind that they are fixed dates and relative dates are not used in this feature.
c. Client
From the dropdown, select an existing client. You can also create a new client or prospect from here if you choose.
d. Assignee(s)
Assign as many roles and users as you'd like to the engagement.
e. Signer(s)
In the dropdown, select any signers from the list. If someone is not listed, go ahead and select the + Add new signer option.
Canopy Tip: If the client has more than one user added to their portal, you may see an info icon like this image:
Not to worry! To put it simply, at least one client portal user who is authorized to make payments should be added as a signer.
Engagement Items
We suggest creating Engagement Item templates before filling out the Engagement Builder. Visit this article to learn more about creating the templates!
Click the option to + Add engagement item.
Take a look at the different parts of the Engagement items section below.
a. Engagement item
Type an engagement item or select the Template option just to the right. Use your premade engagement item templates here so you're not wasting precious time!
Take note that engagement items show as service items when the client views the engagement on their end.
b. Service item
Select a service item from the dropdown.
1. Rate - Enter a rate in USD for the service.
2. Rate type - Select a rate type by hour or item.
3. Billing frequency - Choose the frequency at which the client will receive invoices. Options include:
- Weekly
- Monthly
- Quarterly
- Yearly
- Upon acceptance
- Upon completion
4. Tax due with invoice (%) - Enter a tax percentage due with the invoice.
c. Description
Enter a description of the engagement item. You can also format the description in the text box.
d. Add engagement item
To add more services to the engagement, select the blue + Add engagement item option.
e. Delete
Click the trash icon to remove an engagement item.
Billing and Payment
Now we get to the fun part... billing options! There are three main parts of the billing info section of an engagement. Read more about each section below.
a. Itemized rates toggle
If this switch is toggled on, only a list of itemized services and their totals will appear to the client on the engagement. Itemized rates will not appear on the engagement.
b. Billed engagement items
This area will look different depending on the billing frequency you choose. In here, you can set specifics of billing frequencies and invoice end dates. For the engagement I'm building above, I set the invoice to repeat every month on the 1st day starting on 3/1/2024 and ending on 5/1/2024.
c. Invoice settings
When you toggle this switch on, recurring invoices for non-hourly rate types will automatically be sent. This section also lets you toggle on or off the Single line invoice and Client note options. You can add descriptions for each when the associated toggle is on.
Scrolling down the page, you'll see some more information to review.
d. Billing summary
In this section, you can see monthly totals, subtotals, taxes, engagement totals, and totals due upon acceptance.
e. Payment settings
Check the boxes if you want to require a payment method for future payments. You can also enter a Deposit payment and view the signer responsible for making the payment.
Terms
a. General Terms
Enter terms in the provided text box or, better yet, select a terms template to speed up the process. You can find your terms templates in Canopy under Templates > Letter.
b. Service Terms
The service terms are listed based on which engagement items you add to the engagement. So if I add engagement items of Audit and Bookkeeping, both Audit and Bookkeeping terms are listed in this part.
Tasks
Tasks are created from the assigned task templates once the engagement has been accepted by all parties. Once created, tasks can be managed from the Engagements List.
a. Task templates
This is the list of all Task templates that you attached to the Engagement. You cannot change the Task template or Engagement item names, but you can change or add Assignee(s) if you need to.
b. Add task template
To add another Task template to the Engagement, simply use this + Add task template option.
c. Delete task template
Feel free to delete any listed Task templates from the Engagement. Once they are deleted, if you need it again, you'll have to choose the option to add a Task template to re-add it.
Now that you've got this puppy all built out, click Save and send, grab a coffee, and breathe easy for at least a few minutes. 🤪