Glossary

Accounting categories

These are used in reporting to track different aspects of the business, for example, a consulting and a service arm. Accounting categories can be used with accounting packages for reporting purposes.

Accounting link

A Simpro Premium program designed to import and export data from Simpro Premium into accounting packages.

Account manager

An employee who is selected as either project manager or salesperson in their employee card, and is assigned in a customer card.

Accounting package

A third party software which Simpro Premium connects to, to export transactions.

Activity

Non-job related billable and non-billable hours. Anything associated with running your business that has an associated labour cost and can’t be charged to jobs.

Actual costs

Costs on a job that are no longer estimated, including costs for receipted materials, costs relating to schedules created in the past, and invoiced contractor work orders.

Add-on pricing

A way to apply alternative pricing to individual items on jobs.

Archive reasons

A tag applied to archived data to help track causes for loss of business.

Asset  

An item or piece of equipment you service or maintain on behalf of your customer. Customer assets could include items such as fire equipment, air conditioners, security equipment.

Asset type

A category or group of assets, such as fire extinguishers.

Audits

In Simpro Premium, an administrator can set up audits for technicians to complete while on a job site using Simpro Mobile. In Simpro Premium you can set up Safe Work Method Statements, Job Safety Analysis, and Quality Assurance audits.

Automatic syncing

Some suppliers that have an online portal have integrated with Simpro Premium to allow you to regularly receive updated price files and / or supplier invoices regularly in Simpro Premium instead of manually importing them.

Barcodes

You can create barcodes in Simpro Premium for your catalogue items and customer assets. Then, use a barcode scanner connected to your device to scan barcodes and easily find the right catalogue item / asset in Simpro Premium.

Beta release period

Beta releases provide an opportunity for users to use a new product in their everyday environment, with the goal of uncovering any issues and user feedback so they can be addressed before a general release. Beta tests can either be public or private, public BETA allows all users access to the product and the opportunity to submit feedback on the Ideas Portal while private BETA are limited to a set group of users who have signed up to participate.

BI Reporting

Previously called Report Builder. BI Reporting is a tool that allows you to retrieve data from Simpro Premium to create customised reports for informed business decisions.

Business groups

Ways to assign cost centres to various functions of your business. They are used for reporting and traceability of costs, they are also used for exporting to accounting packages.

Business toolkit

A visual representation of your profitability for the last three months that can be used to explore how your profits and margins are affected by adjusting cost and sell prices.

Catalog

AU, NZ, UK: Catalogue. A list of items used and / or sold by your business, provided by vendors. Not to be confused with inventory (AU, NZ, UK: stock).

Catalogue purchase order

A formal request to a supplier to provide an item or service. A purchase order can be created across multiple cost centres.

Change order

AU, NZ, UK: Variation. An add-on or extra work requested by the customer that falls outside of the scope of estimation. This creates a separate cost center that is invoiced with, or separately from the job, depending on the type of change order.

Chart of accounts

Create all your income and expense accounts in Simpro Premium.

CIS

UK only: Construction Industry Scheme - contractors register and apply tax deduction rates to customer and / or sub-contractor invoices.

Commission

A way of calculating the cost of commission payments for your employees.

Committed costs

Costs that are not yet actualised, but cannot be recovered, including schedules in the future, ordered materials that have not been receipted, and contractor work orders that have not been invoiced.

Consolidated invoice

For multiple jobs that share the same customer and exchange rate, you can create one consolidated invoice instead of multiple individual invoices.

Contract

A negotiated price for a set job.

Contractor

A technician you hire to perform a job.

Cost centre

A method for separating operational costs of the business for reporting and financial management.

Cost price

The price of an item when purchased from a supplier. Also called nett price.

Credit

The ability to obtain goods or services before payment, based on the trust that payment will be made in the future.

Customer

The entity (individual or company) that receives the invoice for work provided. A customer may be associated with multiple sites, for example, if they are a franchise.

Customer contact

The individual in a company you communicate with during the workflow process. Separate contacts can be used for different aspects of the workflow process, such as quotes, jobs and invoicing.

Customer credit note

Raise a customer credit note to refund a paid invoice so that the credit value doesn't remain outstanding.

Custom field

An additional field created for a specific type of card file, workflow or other data entry. Custom fields can be text, list or date fields.

Customer group

A method of categorising customers. Customer groups can be used for search filters and reporting.

Customer profile

A method of categorising customers. Customer profiles can be used for search filters and reporting.

Database backups

In Simpro Premium you can create and store up to three database backups at once. A database backup is a copy of all your database information (excluding attachments) and can be restored to revert your database to a previous state.

Data Feed

Simpro Premium Data Feed is a paid add-on that extracts data from emails and attached documents to automatically generate workflows in your Simpro Premium build.

Departments - Digital Forms

Departments are the divisions of a single business. The equivalent in Simpro Premium would be individual companies within a multi-company. This allows the separation of forms and ensures completed forms are sent to the relevant Simpro Premium company.

Deposit invoice

A partial payment for a job, such as a down payment before the work begins.

Description order

A type of purchase order where the required item/s are specified in the Description rather than added from the catalogue.

Destination

The storage device or job that an item has been ordered to.

Detail form

An editable form created with blocks for large projects and tenders.

Digital Forms

Simpro Digital Forms enables form creation and management within the web portal, as well as form completion and submission via the app on mobile devices.

Digital Forms Mobile App

Digital Forms Mobile App is used to complete and submit forms in the field.

Dispatch - Digital Forms

An option to send a form to a mobile user to fill out at a specific time or immediately.

Documents

If you have files you want to make accessible to all Simpro Premium users, upload these files in Documents Forms Setup so they are available to view and download from the Documents menu.

eForms

Simpro's digital forms system. Design and manage your own forms in the eForms portal, and complete and submit your forms on a mobile device with the eForms app.

Estimated costs

Potential costs calculated in a quote or job that are not yet committed or actualised. Estimated labour costs are calculated from labour rates and estimated material costs are the total cost of all items in the Parts table.

Export

The export of data from Simpro Premium into a file format or to an accounting package. Search results and data in tables is exported to a spreadsheet. Transactions are exported to an accounting package.

Failure points

Criteria for failing a customer asset when recording test results.

Favourites

A method for grouping catalogue items used regularly or from a specific supplier.

Field

A term used in Form Builder to represent data to be populated on a generated quote form. Fields are enclosed in curly brackets, preceded by a dollar sign.

In Simpro Digital Forms, Digital forms can be built with fields to capture different types of information. Fields can be populated with information manually or use Reference Data to populate the form directly from Simpro Premium.

Flat rate pre-build

A pre-build with a pre-determined sell price, regardless of the material and labour costs involved.

Form Builder

An interface that allows you to create and edit form templates.

Gantt Chart

In a quote or job, the Gantt Chart tab visualises the progress of the project in a timeline with rows for cost centres and tasks.

Geostamping

A method of finding a mobile user's location when they are using Simpro Mobile.

Handoff

This is the action of passing a digital form onto the new user/recipient, to complete another section of the form as required.

Import

The process where data is transferred into Simpro Premium from an external source, either from accounting packages, supplier catalogues or spreadsheets.

Inventory

AU, NZ, UK: Stock. Materials currently in your storage devices. Not to be confused with the catalog.

Inventory count

AU, NZ, UK: A routine count of your inventory (AU, NZ, UK: stock) currently in storage, or a correction made to your stock levels to rectify errors and improve stock value reporting.

Inventory Tracking

The tracking of inventory movements and cost of goods sold in Simpro Premium and an accounting package.

Labour fit times

Multipliers that help estimate additional labour required. For example, if a site has small ceiling space or concrete walls, or other conditions that will make the work take longer, use a fit time that multiplies the time by a set amount.

Labour rate

The sum of an employee's hourly rate, employment cost and company overhead. For example, if an employee is paid $25 an hour, the cost of their employment is $20 an hour and the overhead is $30 an hour, the Labour Cost Rate should be $75 an hour.

Lead

A potential customer not yet associated with a quote, job, or invoice.

Linked change order

US: Linked variation. An add-on or extra works requested by the customer that fall outside the scope of estimation. This creates a new job (or quote if required) that is invoiced separately from the original job.

Linked item

Catalogue items that have been linked together for the purposes of searching.

Linked variation

AU, NZ, UK: Linked change order. An add-on or extra works requested by the customer that fall outside the scope of estimation. This creates a new job (or quote if required) that is invoiced separately from the original job.

Loop

Used in Form Builder to add fields of repeating data, such as section and cost centre information.

List Price

AU, NZ, UK: Trade price. The standard sell price of a supplier, excluding trade or account discounts.

Maintenance planner

An add-on that tracks customer assets and alerts you when they are due to be serviced.

Margin

The percentage difference between sell price and profit.

Markup

The percentage difference between sell price and actual cost.

Membership

A way to give different levels of discounts to regular customers.

Minimum pack quantity

The number of items that are delivered in a pack when ordered from a supplier.

Minimum stock level

When an item in stock (US: inventory) falls below this level, you will receive an alert to restock it.

Mirror - Digital Forms

A specific type of field in Simpro Digital Forms that copies the information entered in a different field. Mirrors are useful if you want to capture information and repeat it in another section of a form. They can also be used to set up dependent reference data.

Multi-company

A Simpro Premium build comprised of multiple companies / franchises.

MYOB AccountRight Live

AU and NZ only: A cloud-based accounting package available to integrate with Simpro Premium.

NetSuite Integration

If you use NetSuite as your accounting package, integrate with Simpro Premium to send transactions and card file information directly from Simpro Premium to NetSuite.

Nett price

The price of an item when purchased from a supplier. Also called cost price.

Notifications

A method of issuing email or SMS messages regularly, or when workflow requirements have been met.

One off item

Billable or non-billable items not necessarily added to the catalogue. These could be travel costs or specialised tools engineered for a specific job.

On stop

When a customer is placed on stop, you cannot create any new jobs, quotes, recurring jobs or recurring quotes for them.

OnlyOffice

An online document editor which is used as base to create the Form Builder interface.

Option

Used in Simpro Mobile. A collection of parts and labour that becomes and corresponds to a cost centre in Simpro Premium.

Outlook

Simpro Premium integrates with both your Outlook email and calendar. When you integrate with Outlook Calendar, you can see your Simpro Premium calendar appointments in Outlook and your Outlook calendar appointments in your Simpro Premium schedule. When you integrate with Outlook Email, you can easily create new Simpro Premium contacts, leads and notes from within your Outlook emails.

Overhead

The costs required to run a business, including rent, accounting fees, marketing, vehicles, internal staff and management wages, and other costs. In Simpro Premium, this figure should be consistent across System Setup and your employee card files.

Payment method

A type of payment that your business accepts, such as cash, credit card, vouchers etc.

Payrix

NZ only: An extension that allows Simpro Premium users to process credit card payments online.

Plant & equipment

Equipment that your business owns and maintains, such as vehicles, mobile devices, machinery, specific tools and more.

PO number

A blank purchase order created for technicians to use to purchase from a supplier. Items are then added prior to receipting.

Pop up notifications

Enable pop-up notifications to receive an on-screen notification whenever an important event is triggered in Simpro Premium.

Plugins

A menu option in Form Builder used to access the fields' list.

Pre-build

An assembly of materials and / or labour to be added to a quote or job as a single billable item.

Preferred technician

An employee who has been selected as a preferred technician can be added as such to a customer, site, customer asset or asset service level. The selected employee will be selected preferentially when creating jobs.

Pricing tier

A way to encourage customers to buy larger quantities of items by applying discounts based on the quantity purchased. Used in Simpro Premium to control markups.

Prepaid labour

Labour purchased and paid for prior to a job being performed. Prepaid labour is similar to using gift vouchers. Invoices are sent and charged against prepaid time purchased.

Product Portal

Accessed through the Help menu, the Product Portal is a place to submit and vote on feature ideas to be added to Simpro Premium.

Project job

A medium to large job with multiple stages. You can then create progress claims (US: progress invoice) to invoice the customer for part of the job, for example, when a stage has been completed.

QuickBooks Online

A cloud-based accounting package available to integrate with Simpro Premium in Australia, Singapore, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Quick Help

Quick Help is a tool in Simpro Premium that gives you quick knowledge on new features. Hover over the icon to learn more information.

Quote and Sales Module

A module within Simpro Mobile, used for creating and presenting quotes to sell to customers.

Recommendation

Actions to be taken when a customer asset fails an inspection / maintenance service level.

Recurring invoice

A regular financial record independent of existing jobs in your system. This is typically used for regular billable services provided for the customer, such as security monitoring or planned maintenance.

Recurring job

A job template for multiple use, where you can set the frequency of the job to receive an alert when the job is next due to be created.

Reference data - Digital Forms

Reference data allows users to populate forms with Simpro Premium information or an imported CSV. Dependent reference data automatically fills in forms based on user input.

Reminder

On the dashboard, reminders display scheduled or due follow-ups, tasks, leads, quotes, jobs, and activities.

Request for claim

A progress claim (US: progress invoice) that requires approval from your customer. This is not posted to your accounting package, so that if your customer rejects the request you do not need to void the claim.

Resources

The collective name for employees, contractors and plant items, which can all be scheduled.

Response time

A time that a job is required to be started by. Depending on the industry these could be set up as same day response, 48 hours or any time required to be on site.

Restock level

The number of items to order to restock an item when it falls below its minimum stock level.

Retainage

AU, NZ, UK: Retention. A portion of your payment withheld either from you by the customer, or from a contractor by your business until the project is completed to specific standards.

Retention

US: Retainage. A portion of your payment withheld either from you by the customer, or from a contractor by your business until the project is completed to specific standards.

Run sheet

A chronological list of scheduled quotes, jobs or activities generated in Simpro Premium.

Schedule rate

Keep track of actual costs and manage types of time worked. For example, you may wish to create schedule rates for various levels of overtime, leave and activities.

Script

Preset text that can be selected and automatically added to any communications emailed from Simpro Premium, including quotes, jobs, and more.

Seats - Digital Forms

The equivalent to a Simpro Premium Licence. The number of users that can access a Simpro Digital Forms account. Unlike Simpro Premium, Simpro Digital Forms seats are assigned to specific users and only that user can make use of the seat. Simpro Digital Forms cannot be shared.

Security group

Provides access to various features within Simpro Premium. For example, not all employees require access to system defaults, so a security group could be set up to restrict access to system defaults.

Service fee

An additional charge added to a job or quote, such as a call-out fee including or excluding labour.

Service job

A standard do-and-charge or time and materials job.

Service level

The frequency of a regular asset servicing.

Service module

In Simpro Mobile, use the Service module in the field to access current project information and manage quote / job work in real time.

Service quote

An estimation of work to be performed, including parts and labour. Create quotes for 'do and charge' jobs, or service quotes, in Simpro Premium. Technicians can also create service quotes in the field with Simpro Mobile.

simPOS

Simpro Premium Point of Sale is a point of sale system that allows you to scan or choose what you are selling and then process the transaction.

Simpro's Learning Toolbox

The Simpro's Learning Toolbox is a resource included with your Simpro Premium licence, and offers self-paced learning materials on various Simpro Premium features and functionality.

Simpro Mobile

Simpro's mobility application, containing the Quote and Sales Module, Service module, Tasks module, Stock module and Timesheet module.

Simtrac

Simpro's live vehicle tracking software, involving GPS trackers installed in vehicles.

Site

The physical location where a job is performed.

SMS

Simpro Premium's built-in short messaging service, allowing you to send text messages to customers and employees.

SPF record

A Sender Policy Framework record is set up by your domain host or IT administrator to allow specific programs (in this case Simpro Premium) to send emails on your behalf. This ensures that your contacts are actually receiving emails sent to them from Simpro Premium.

Split price

The price of an item when purchased individually, instead of in bulk.

Square Payments

Square is a third-party software and hardware for processing credit card payments. You can integrate Simpro Premium with Square to process credit card payments in Simpro Premium.

Standard price pre-build

A pre-build that calculates the price based on materials and labour. The price of individual components can be changed to affect the total price.

Status code

Colour-coded statuses that provide a more detailed breakdown of your workflow than stages. You can customise status codes to suit your workflow and assign them to automatic triggers.

STCs

AU only: Small-scale Technology Certificates, an Australian Government rebate used in conjunction with the renewable energy sector.

Stock

US: Inventory. Materials currently in your storage devices. Not to be confused with the catalogue.

Stock adjustment

US: Inventory count. A correction made to your stock levels to rectify errors and improve stock value reporting.

Stock module

With the Stock module in Simpro Mobile, you can create purchase order numbers that are assigned directly to stock rather than assigning it to a job, without requiring access to the Service module.

Stock take

US: Inventory count. A routine count of your stock (US: inventory) currently in storage.

Storage device

A location / vehicle / building where stock (US: inventory) is stored.

Submissions

Completed forms or data entries that have been submitted within the Simpro Digital Forms mobile app.

Supplier quote

A list of items required for a job that is used to compare pricing from different suppliers.

Tag

A method for categorising jobs, quotes and customers.

Take off template

A combination of materials and labour commonly used together. Although similar to pre-builds, take off templates can include catalogue items, pre-builds, service fees, labour rates, one off items and other take off templates. The individual components are displayed separate items on the job or quote.

Takeoffs add-on

Simpro Takeoffs is a paid add-on. You can create takeoff estimates quickly and easily using drawing tools to add items to your plans.

Tasks

An interactive to-do list assigned to an employee, that can be related to a specific customer.

Task template

A collection of tasks that can be added together to a job.

Tax code member

US only: A tax code that has been added to another tax code.

Taxify

US only: The Taxify integration allows you to easily calculate tax on quotes, jobs, recurring jobs and recurring invoices, based on site addresses.

Teams

A group of employees, contractors and / or plant items that can be scheduled as one unit.

Template

Can be created and edited in the Form Builder, and are used to generate forms such as quotes.

Test readings

Customisable fields in addition to pass / fail test results, used for more detailed maintenance programs. For example, voltage, pressure, temperature, and other readings.

Timesheet module

In Simpro Mobile, the Timesheet module allows technicians to distribute and record scheduled labour time while on the job.

Trade price

The standard sell price of a supplier, excluding trade or account discounts.

Trade split quantity

The quantity of items required to purchase the item for the trade price instead of the split price.

Units of measurement

A way of defining what quantities items are sold in, such as metres, and if they can be sold as fractions of a whole quantity.

User licence

The licence required to be able to log in to Simpro Premium.

UPC

Universal Product Code. An exclusively numeric code used for tracking trade items.

Variation

US: Change order. An add-on or extra work requested by the customer that falls outside of the scope of estimation. This creates a separate cost centre that is invoiced with, or separately from the job, depending on the type of variation.

VEECs

AU only: Victorian Energy Efficiency Certificates, a Victorian state government scheme for the renewable energy sector.

VoIP

Voice over Internet Protocol. Integrate Simpro Premium with your VoIP service to make and receive phone calls in Simpro Premium.

Walk Me Through

A learning resource available in Simpro Premium that gives you step-by-step instructions for workflows.

Work Hub - Digital Forms

Area to manage forms that are in progress, view submitted forms and Dispatch forms so that they are scheduled for completion at a specific time.

Workflow - Digital Forms

Workflows allows you to work with multiple users on a single submission. Allowing you pass a submission to another user for approval or to complete different screens in a form.

Work order

A formal request for a contractor to provide a job to your customer on your behalf. Also known as a contractor job.

Xero

A cloud-based accounting package available to integrate with Simpro Premium in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Zapier

With the Simpro Premium Zapier integration, you can integrate Simpro Premium with hundreds of other software applications.

Zone

A designated area or territory that can assist in scheduling and reporting.