🕰️ Est. Time: 5 minutes
🎯 Goal: Understand how items work across Streamtime, how to set them up and add them into your projects
🔑 Requirements: Access to the Master Settings within Streamtime, and an understanding of your job building requirements across the business
How do items work?
Items in Streamtime can take on a few forms, but the most common use case within Streamtime is using items as tasks or deliverables. For example, your item might be “Graphic Design”, or “Social Media Setup”. They represent the main services you offer, and make it easier to track the time and cost associated with each service.
Building a library of reusable items
While not every job will be the same, some tasks will pop up more frequently across your business. For instance, if you run a marketing agency, you might often need to add a Social Media Post task to your projects.
To streamline this process, you can create a master item, and quickly add this into any job to reduce admin time. Master items are items that can be added into your projects and retain key information such as the name, pricing method and description, making it easy to build a list of reusable items across your business.
Why should I create master items?
Master Items can significantly streamline your workflows and improve efficiency in various ways. Here’s why you should consider adding Master Items to your account:
Speed up your planning: No more starting from scratch every time. With Master Items set up in your account, you can whip up a job plan in no time.
Consistent pricing: Master Items come with set prices, making quoting a breeze and keeping your financials in check.
Enhanced reporting: Master Items help you generate detailed reports, giving you a clear picture of your business’s productivity and profitability.
How do I create master items?
In the ⚙️ Menu, select Items.
Click Item in the ➕ Create menu.
Name your item. Ensure the item name is unique, especially if you have similar items in your agency. This avoids any mix-ups.
Decide how the item should be priced.
Indicate whether the item is billable or not. For more details on non-billable items, see here.
Enter the Standard Sell Rate for the item.
Note: If you’ve selected the Price by Person option, this field won’t be available.
Add your description. This is a lifesaver if you’re not great at naming items. It also adds transparency for your clients, as you can choose to include this on their invoice.
Hit Save to finish. All set!
Adding items into your jobs
Adding a Master Item into your job
Adding a Master Item into your job easy. To do so, follow the steps below.
Adding a Master Item to a new Job or Phase
Adding a Master Item to a new Job or Phase
Click New item in the Job Plan Section
Click in the Item name field to bring up the drop down menu with all your master items
Select your master item
Your master item will now be added to your job with its pricing method automatically applied. You can now assign time and the team to the item as normal.
Adding a Master Item into an already existing Phase
Adding a Master Item into an already existing Phase
Click the ➕ button to the left hand side of your already existing phase
Click Add Item
Search for your Master Item, or scroll to find the Item you’re looking for
Plan your item as normal
Adding a one off Item into your Job
We recognise that some of your items will be specific to a particular Job - and in that case, you probably won’t want to add them as a Master Item. Blank Items were designed for this purpose - allowing you to create an item that doesn’t exist within your Master Items list in a few clicks.
To add these to your job, follow either of the below workflows.
Adding a one off Item to a new Job or Phase
Adding a one off Item to a new Job or Phase
Click New Item in your Job plan
Name your item
Choose how you want to price your item
Plan your item hours, rates and team as normal
Adding a Blank Item into an already existing Phase
Adding a Blank Item into an already existing Phase
Click the ➕ button to the left hand side of your already existing phase
Click add blank item
Choose how you want to price your item (more on this here)
Name your item
Plan your item hours, rates and team as normal
How do Items appear in the Job?
Within the job, your items will appear in the same format across the board. Below is an overview of each section of your Item, from left to right.
Expand your Item
Clicking this button will expand your item, allowing you to see the key details around the team members or roles assigned to the itemItem Name
This is where you will enter your item name, or search for your master item within the jobItem Dates
This is the timeline attached to your item - it will impact your teams resourcing in the schedule and availability module, and support your job scheduling. You can learn more about the availability feature here.Hours Logged / Hours Planned
This gives you an overview of any time your team has logged, compared against the time that is planned for the item within the job. You can learn more about creating a job here.Hourly Item Rate
This contains your hourly rate for the item, which is the cost to your client per hour for your teams time. Please bare in mind that this field will be empty if your item is priced by person, or if your item is fixed price and you’re tracking this against your team members usual sell rates. You can learn more on the different methods of tracking fixed price items here.Item Pricing Method
This contains your method of item pricing. You can learn more here.Non Billable Items
Any non billable items within the job will have a visual indicator within the item, as shown above.Logged Sell / Planned Sell
This shows the logged sell of your item, compared against the planned sell of your item - helping you keep track of how your job is going as you move through the project.
How does item pricing work?
Your item pricing is the method you use to charge your client, so it's important to consider this when creating a master item, or adding a one off item into your job.
Items within Streamtime can be priced in three different ways. You can read a more in depth overview here, but here is a brief overview how each method works:
Price by item rate
Set a fixed hourly rate for the item, regardless of who’s doing the work.
Price by person
Charge for your item based on each team members hourly rate.
Fixed price items
Set a fixed price for the item, regardless of who works on it, or how many hours it takes.
A note on Fixed Price Items
If you’re pricing your item as fixed price within the job, there are two options you can choose from.
Fixed Price - same rate for all logged hours
Streamtime will automatically calculate a blended rate for your team member hours within the job, based on the hours planned vs the fixed price of your item.
Fixed Price - tracked by team member sell rate
If you’d like to track your hours by the rates of the team members assigned to this, you can switch to tracking per team member within the job item.
You can learn more about fixed price item options by heading here.
Items and accounting
Some of our integrated accounting platforms also allow you to link your items with account codes/nominal codes. By doing this, you can link your items to their relevant unique identifiers within your accounting package, ensuring simple accounting reports and bookkeeping.
You can learn more on this and how to action it here.
Using and managing Items
Now you’ve got your Master Items set up and you understand the basics, the article here will help you understand some key workflows and uses across your jobs, so you can be sure that you're set up for success!