HDbeammachineBeam Machine Docs
Help Center

Beam Machine Overview

Product overview for teams using Beam Machine for finance, operations, compliance, assurance, and client servicing.

publicusers

Understanding What Beam Machine Does

This page helps a new user understand what Beam Machine is for, where the main work happens, and what to check before trusting a workflow.

Product: Beam Machine
Module: Platform Overview
Role: Any Beam Machine user, Team Lead, Admin
Difficulty: Beginner
Time: 8 minutes first read
Last Updated: 2026-03-10
Version: Current Beam Machine app build in this repo

Before You Start

  • You should know whether you are using the staff app or the client portal.
  • You should know which entity you are meant to work in.
  • Keep 98-screen-map.md open if you need route-level detail.

What is Beam Machine?

Beam Machine is a business operating system for South African teams that need finance, operations, payroll, control, and advisory work to live in one place instead of being split across spreadsheets, inboxes, and side chats.

On paper, this would be your ledgers, invoice books, asset registers, payroll files, compliance binders, audit packs, and approval folders. In Beam Machine, those things are grouped into modules so the work, evidence, and review trail stay together.

When do you use this?

Use this page when you are new to Beam Machine, when you are helping another user find the right module, or when you need to sanity-check whether a feature is live, partial, or still mostly roadmap.

If you skip this orientation step, people tend to start in the wrong screen and then use workarounds that create more cleanup later.

Where do you find the main work areas?

Primary path: Use the left sidebar in the staff app for operational work.
Alternative: Use the client portal only for limited customer-facing actions such as invoices, rentals, profile, and support.
Reference: Use 98-screen-map.md for the full routed surface.

How to understand the platform before you start working

Understand the two user-facing surfaces

Workspace Purpose
app Main logged-in operational workspace for staff and business users
portal Customer-facing workspace for invoices, rentals, profile, and support

Understand the main module families

Family Main modules
Finance Accounting, Invoicing, Quotes, Contacts, Banking, Tax, Reporting, Multi-Entity
Operations Procurement, Fixed Assets, Fleet, Rental, Inventory
People Payroll, HR and Labour
Assurance and advisory Practice, Statutory, ESG, Audit, Controls, Valuation, Transfer Pricing
System Documents, Approvals, Settings

Check who normally uses each area

  1. Use Settings, Approvals, and Documents if you are an admin or reviewer.
  2. Use finance modules if you manage books, billing, banking, tax, or reporting.
  3. Use operations modules if you manage assets, equipment, rentals, warehouses, or stock movement.
  4. Use people modules if you manage employees, pay runs, leave, or labour cases.
  5. Use assurance and advisory modules if you manage audit, controls, statutory, ESG, valuation, transfer pricing, or engagement work.
  6. Use the portal only if the user should have a limited customer-style experience.

Check the four things that matter before every task

  1. Confirm the active entity.
  2. Confirm the user is in the correct workspace.
  3. Confirm the user has the right role and visibility.
  4. Confirm the workflow is live enough for production use by checking 99-functionality-gap-map.md.

Treat the live product as the source of truth

  1. Start with the visible screen and its current labels.
  2. Use the deeper manuals for the exact SOP.
  3. Use the gap map before promising advanced behavior to users or clients.

Common Questions & Issues

"I can see a menu item, so the full process must be complete"

Why this happens: Beam Machine exposes a broad route set, but not every route has the full business depth described in intake documents, checklists, or roadmap packs.

Fix: Check 99-functionality-gap-map.md before you treat a visible screen as fully productized.

"I did the work, but it saved in the wrong place"

Why this happens: Beam Machine is entity-aware. If you work in the wrong entity, the action can still save successfully.

Fix: Confirm the active entity before posting, uploading, approving, or closing anything.

"The client can’t see the same menus I can"

Why this happens: The client portal is intentionally lighter than the staff app.

Fix: Use 10-client-portal.md for portal behavior and do not assume staff-side features exist there.

What's Next

Related Pages

Still Stuck?

Was this page helpful?

[Yes] [No]