On 19 Dec 2006, at 21:19, Steve Jacobs wrote:
Wow! Quick answer! Like under 5 minutesAny thoughts on a 'better' way than creating separate services? OR - is there a way to create a service so that an individual can only 'sell' the ones that he 'owns' - and restrict the time card to only show those? Otherwise, time cards entry will get completey unwieldy for more than a couple of people working in such a firm.
Honestly, the best way to do this IS to have a range of services AR001 to AR005 indicating "Junior ... Senior" Architect.
The architect doing the billing types "AR" into his browser and hits enter, causing the "update" button to be triggered and a list of part numbers to be displayed; the architect chooses the part number corresponding to his hourly rate and then thereafter the BROWSER will tend to auto-complete AR003 or whatever corresponds to that particular user.
There is no need for the customer's invoice to show the part number or it's description - you can customise invoice.tex so that only item notes ("design of new barn") and quantity ("4 hours") is displayed.
If you REALLY need 8 services for each of the 12 architects then I suggest each architect has a a range of part numbers beginning with their initials. JS-BD-01 might indicate Joe Smith's rates for Barn Design, JS-CC-01 might indicate Joe Smith's rates for Colour Co- ordinating the paintwork; likewise RJ-BD-01 & RJ-CC-01 would indicate Rob Jones' rates for the same services. Each user will quickly become familiar with the idea that the just enter their initials into the "part number" field and their rates are displayed as soon as they hit enter and additionally they will know they can easily bill they customer for their colleagues' time if several of them attend a meeting about Colour Co-ordinating, simply by hitting "cc" and enter.
Stroller.