Settings

The default labour rate feeds BOM costing; document sequences drive quote/order/invoice/PO numbering.

Upload size limits and the file-extension allowlist for the whole workspace are set here.

Under Notifications, “Order status → customer” is the master switch and a matrix beneath it decides which statuses actually send. Received, acknowledged, invoiced, shipped, completed, cancelled and refunded are on by default; the internal steps — in production, engineering review, QC — are off, so shuffling an order between them no longer emails the customer four times. Staff can still silence any single change from the order.

Under the Orders tab: the cost method behind valuation and cost of goods — moving average by default, FIFO or standard cost if that is how you account — and the safety-stock days the reorder helper adds to an item's lead time. Receipt layers and averages are kept under every method, so changing it later needs no rebuild; the choice only changes which figure is reported.

One card, four switches, all off when you start: Quote expiring → customer (three days before, once per quote); Overdue invoice → customer accounts email (with the day steps beneath it); Monthly statement → customer accounts email (first of the month, for the previous month, only when something is owing); Credit line expiring → admin email (accounts expiring within 30 days). Everything runs once a day at about 7am Sydney time.

• Start quietly — ticked by default when you switch overdue reminders on — skips what is already overdue that day, so a customer is not chased for three steps at once.
• Any customer can be excluded from all of it with the Reminders pill on their page.
• Each send is logged on the customer’s timeline and in the audit log.

Settings → Requests is the form builder — the forms your customers fill in, one tile per request kind on their New request page. Start from a template or a blank form; the standard kinds become yours to edit the moment you change one. Fields come in twelve types — short and long text, number, dropdown, tick list, yes/no, date, part picker, method and material pickers, file upload and an information block — grouped in sections, two half-width fields to a row, with show-only-when rules against an earlier answer. Connect a field to a standard request column (quantity, priority, the part it relates to, attachments…) and the answer lands where the rest of the system reads it; a field with no connection is simply a question on the form.

• Required fields, an acknowledgement tick with a link to your terms, allowed file types per upload and a reference prefix per kind.
• A live preview beside the editor.
• Save is immediate — customers see the new form straight away. Field keys are frozen once saved because answers reference them; archive a kind rather than delete it, and keep at least one available to customers.

Customer requests is the master switch. Off hides the Requests menu, the New request buttons and the request-a-change links across the portal; requests already submitted stay visible to the customer, and staff can still log a request on a customer’s behalf from the intake screen. Use it for a business that takes work by phone and email, or an online store that sells finished items.

Methods & Materials → Customise sets what the two catalogs are called across the workspace — Processes & Sheet stock for a sheet shop, Service types & Spares for a service business — and which properties each entry carries: numbers, 1–5 ratings, text and yes/no, with a “show to customers” tick that puts the property in the compare table under the pickers on request forms. Numbers and ratings draw a compare bar; “higher is better” decides which way it fills. Start from an industry template (names, properties and the starter entries you don’t have yet), or reset to the default engineering set.

In Settings, Use methods and Use materials switch either catalog off entirely — materials only while you have none, because stock, BOMs and purchase orders can reference them.

Let customers choose pickup at checkout adds a “Customer pickup / own freight” option to the portal checkout: no freight is charged and the confirmation email names your address. Staff can always set pickup on an order themselves, whatever the switch.