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Working in Practice

Use Beam Machine Practice to manage clients, engagements, timesheets, and billing for professional services work.

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Working in Practice

This page shows you how to manage professional-services delivery work in Beam Machine.

Product: Beam Machine
Module: Practice
Role: Practice Admin, Engagement Manager, Timesheet User, Billing Reviewer
Difficulty: Beginner to Intermediate
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 the active entity.
  • You should know whether you need client setup, engagement tracking, timesheets, or billing.
  • Keep ../15-payroll-audit-controls-and-advisory.md open if you need the wider specialist-work view.

What is Practice?

This module is the professional-services operating area. On paper, this would be the client file list, engagement tracker, timesheet sheets, and billing run pack.

In Beam Machine, it lives under Practice.

When do you use this?

Use this module when:

  • a new client must be registered,
  • an engagement must be tracked,
  • time must be captured,
  • or billing work must be prepared from practice activity.

If client and engagement work is not tracked here, time and billing quality suffer.

Where do you find it?

Primary path: Professional -> Practice
Detailed routes:

  • /dashboard/practice
  • /dashboard/practice/clients
  • /dashboard/practice/clients/new
  • /dashboard/practice/engagements
  • /dashboard/practice/timesheets
  • /dashboard/practice/billing

How to work in Practice

Review the practice dashboard

  1. Open Practice.
  2. Review the cards for active engagements, total engagements, and clients.
  3. Open the correct work area for your task.

Add or review clients

  1. Open Practice -> Clients.
  2. Review the client list.
  3. Open Add Client when a new client must be registered.

Review engagements

  1. Open Practice -> Engagements.
  2. Review active and completed engagement status.

Capture time and review billing

  1. Open Practice -> Timesheets to capture or review time.
  2. Open Practice -> Billing when the engagement work must feed billing output.

āœ… Checkpoint: You should now know whether the work belongs to client setup, engagement tracking, time capture, or billing.

Common Questions & Issues

"Should this be in Practice or in Accounting?"

Why this happens: Users mix delivery tracking with accounting output.

Fix: Use Practice for client and engagement delivery work. Use Accounting or Invoicing for the finance-side output.

"Can I skip timesheets and just bill later?"

Why this happens: Teams sometimes try to reconstruct delivery after the fact.

Fix: Capture time while the work is current. Billing quality drops sharply when time is recreated later.

What's Next

Related Pages

SA Compliance Reference

  • Follow your firm engagement acceptance, timesheet, and billing policy for final control.

Still Stuck?

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