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Meet Beacon Electric

Every example in this manual comes from one company, Beacon Electric. Beacon is an electrical contractor. BigWave suits any service business that sends people to do work, tracks equipment and sends invoices. An electrician is just the example.

The people

Beacon has twelve people.

  • Marcus Chen owns the company. He started as an electrician. Now he spends most of his week on project setup and reports.
  • Priya Nair runs the office. She books the jobs, assigns the crew and chases the paperwork.
  • Grace Bennett is the accountant. She sends the invoices and keeps the books.
  • Nine electricians work in the field. Steve Watkins, the senior electrician, appears in most of the field examples.

Harbor Grill Restaurants

Harbor Grill is a regional restaurant chain with twelve locations and one facilities department. In BigWave, Harbor Grill is one Customer record with twelve Sites. Each location is a site under that one customer.

The Customers grid, searched for Harbor Grill Restaurants. One customer record holds all of the chain's locations, counted in the Number of sites column
The Customers grid, searched for Harbor Grill Restaurants. One customer record holds all of the chain's locations, counted in the Number of sites column

Beacon has the annual inspection contract for every location. Once a year, a technician checks the panels and the emergency lighting at each restaurant. Beacon also fixes what breaks between inspections. Harbor Grill pays only invoices that carry its purchase order number. It also wants a signed inspection report for each visit.

The commercial examples come from Harbor Grill: projects that span many sites, contract rates, equipment records, recurring maintenance, and a portal login for their facilities manager.

The Sites panel for Harbor Grill Restaurants, with one row for each restaurant location
The Sites panel for Harbor Grill Restaurants, with one row for each restaurant location

The Okafors

The Okafors own a house with an old electrical panel. They call Beacon to ask what a new panel costs. That is one customer, one site, one quote, one job and one invoice.

Later the Okafors buy a lake house. The lake house becomes a second Site on the same Customer record.

The residential examples come from the Okafors. They show fast intake, a quote the customer approves by email, and an invoice emailed to the homeowner.

How Beacon organizes its work

Beacon runs three projects:

  1. Residential Service holds every homeowner job.
  2. Commercial Service holds commercial calls that come in one at a time, with no contract.
  3. Harbor Grill Annual Inspections holds the inspection contract. It has its own statuses, paperwork and rates, so it is a separate project.
The Projects panel under Manage on the home page, listing Residential Service, Commercial Service and Harbor Grill Annual Inspections
The Projects panel under Manage on the home page, listing Residential Service, Commercial Service and Harbor Grill Annual Inspections

In BigWave, a project is a line of work in your business. Beacon has three lines of work, so it has three projects. Chapter 2.5 shows how to build one.