This thread is for suggestions related to the system.
This is really a question for a subcategory which hasn’t been released yet:
Since I can’t wait to use the Standardized Structure, I’m wondering about where you’re thinking a list of projects for clients would go. in 10-19 or 20-29? I’m guessing 10-19, because 20-29 has been identified as ‘My Product’, and keeping track of what you’ve done for whom is just admin.
A first guess is that there will be a category in 10-19 for ‘Projects’. Or, more likely, an ID under a yet-to-be-determined category.
This is something I need to get organised RIGHT NOW! Like, half an hour ago. And I’ve always made a mess of this because I overthink it (creating a whole normalized structure, really). So if the proprietor would like to drop a hint what his thinking is, I can maybe anticipate that with where I put this for now.
And any advice from others is also greatly appreciated, and we can move these comments to the right place when it appears.
I’m aware of the discussions on this topic elsewhere on the forum, but my question is really where you’re thinking this will end up in the business system numbering.
Will talk to Lucy about this today and get back to you asap.
Edit: clarifying question. So this is a list of future/planned/quoted projects for a specific client? Assuming then you’d have more of these such clients in the future.
Initial response: it’ll be in the 20-29s.
10-19 is internal company admin. You can set a company up and be compliant and file taxes and never have a product or a customer.
20-29 is your customers (including those you haven’t won yet), marketing (to those not-yet-customers), and product (which makes no sense without someone to sell it to) including the research, building of said product(s), and selling it either directly, through channels, etc.
Working thoughts, I can see the categories in the 20s being something like:
21 Channels22 Products23 Customers24 Marketing, advertising, & communications
This keeps the flow of things. Per the dotted line through the middle of the diagram:
- You earn money,
- via a payment processor,
- both of which live in
13 Money
- both of which live in
- linked to a
channel, - where you sold a
product, - to a
customer, - because you convinced them to buy it with your
marketing.
What type of business are you?
The shape of 20-29 will change depending on the type of business you run.
- You sell something physical.
- POP Canberra (a local tourist/novelty store).
- Farmer.
- Restaurant.
- You sell a physical service, but the primary product isn’t a physical thing.
- Hairdressing salon.
- Although you might still sell some stuff, e.g. fancy shampoo.
- Gardener.
- Masseuse.
- PT.
- Cleaner.
- Outdoor adventure.
- Driver.
- This isn’t just a service as it’s impossible to do remotely. Being in a physical thing – the car – is integral.
- Hairdressing salon.
- You sell a service.
- Adam the financial advisor.
- Celebrant.
- You could, theoretically (if the law allowed), do this remotely.
- Teacher/tutor.
- Accountant.
- Consultant geologist (Lucy’s dad).
- You provide a digital product.
- When we sold the JD workbook.
- It’s a thing, but it’s not physical: so no stocking, manufacturing, etc.
- Decimal.Business. It’s all digital.
- When we sold the JD workbook.
For some of these, the ‘freelancer pattern’, i.e. expand an area might be more appropriate in some sections, e.g. customers.
TBC! HTH? TTFN.
1 Like
thanks!
Pre-script: (opposite of a Postscript?) Don’t let this derail too much, but it’s great to get a preview of your thought process. Really helps me to start thinking in that direction too. And it’s comforting to see that you’re also breaking it all down into small pieces, I guess I just hadn’t found the right model yet.
Oh, and sorry for the all-caps. I didn’t mean to come across as shouting.
Future and ongoing and past projects for a specific client.
These need to have IDs so that I can reference them easily from time tracking, note-taking, etc.
I’ve taken the categories you named and tested it out with my current real situation (names changed). I came up with this, with the addition of another category for ‘sales’ .
.
├── 20 Meta
├── 21 Channels
│ └── 21.11_Direct sales (invoices emailed to clients manually)
│ └── INV-23yc-1a0 PAYED 23t1-2a6 moneyman.com.pdf
├── 22 What I offer (Products and Services)
│ └── Static websites
│ └── Web service integrations
├── 23 Sales - Closing Deals on Products and Services Delivered
│ └── 23t1-2a6 COMPLETED website for ADMM AKA moneyman.com
#then a year later ...
│ └── 24z3-1a0 QUOTED payment processing website integration for ADMM AKA moneyman.com-payments
│ └── 24z3-1a1 EXPLORATORY website for Zoe's Garden Design AKA greenzoe.com
├── 24 Customers
│ └── 24x1-2a5 Adam the Money Man AKA ADMM
│ └── 24x1-2a6 PROSPECTIVE Zoe's Garden Design
├── 25 Marketing, advertising and communications
Sales could also be called Projects. If this is ‘admin’, though, then we’re primarily interested in tracking the money.
I can now use the ID of the project in 23 Sales everywhere: in emails, in my notes, in the name of the git repository with the website’s code, in invoices so it show up in 21 Channels. I can also use the project alias (the part after AKA).
To fully normalize this, category 24 might be called Relations because you could have companies that are both suppliers and customers.
QUESTION ANSWERED: I think that does it for me, for now, while I await the final revelation.
A few more thoughts on the thoughts you shared:
Lots of businesses offer multiple kinds of things. But I presume business.decimal can be progressively expanded in this regard too. In my Channels above, I start out providing pure services in the Netherlands, so all my clients pay via direct bank transfer. Then I start offering hosting services (in some parallel universe where I’ve lost my mind. Maybe instead: I start offering workshops that people can sign up for), so I start using a payment processor and automatic invoicing. That would be 21.12 Online Payment Processors. And each subsequent ID would be the next step I needed as my business scales.
Regarding putting the invoice under Channels: that makes sense to me looking at your diagram, because if I have automatic payment processors they’ll come in in one place (as a CSV download, perhaps), and not within the project folder.
Quotes/proposals, could go under the project folder, but also under 24 Communications. And in fact, a business might very well have automatic quoting (e.g. a steel cutter business provides a fully automated (initial) quote based on an uploaded drawing). So here, too, the quotes documents might be coming in from some online provider in a stream or in bulk download, so it would make sense that they go under ‘communications’.
This relates to my question: I just need to know where to go/look to define/reference a project and/or a customer. So in my mind, 23 Sales and 24 Customers can be pretty minimal. Just the ID, contact details, and whatever other notes. But in my experience, not having that keeps me from doing effective administration because I get duplicates and inconsistency.
It just so happens that yesterday, my wife talked to a woman who, today, is witness via Zoom at her son’s marriage, her son and daughter-in-law being in Turkey and the marriage taking place in U.S. jurisdiction …
yes, and buy all the printers and comfy chairs for yourself 
No but seriously, I like how you guys have defined this boundary.
Final addendum: I realize a lot of this could probably shift a level down, to IDs. E.g.:
├── 22 My Work
│ └── 22.10 ■ What I Offer
│ └── 22.11 Products
│ └── 22.12 Services
│ └── Static Websites
│ └── 22.20 ■ Sales
│ └── 22.21 Product sales in Store -- occasional or anonymous customers
│ └── ...
│ └── 22.21 Projects -- Working with Clients
│ └── 23t1-2a6 COMPLETED website for ADMM AKA moneyman.com
├── 23 Customers
I’m a big fan of how the membership pdf has all relevant links, including a link to my account sign-in.
I think a solid JD system is self-sustaining, and being able to store a pdf that organizes my interaction with decimal.business from within the folder I have it stored in is 
.
All JD products should be like that, I think. Or have an admin file that can be saved like that.
100%. This is how I think of 00.00 The index as a note: it should be all you need. The only note whose location you remember. From there, everything else should be explained/linked/etc.
Good reminder for me to do this … if you see us slipping, it just means we forgot. Please remind us and we’ll correct course.
1 Like
Interesting – we’re still working on 13 Money but I’ll come back to this when we hit the 20s.
1 Like
Yeah this feels right.
Some of these places are just recognition that you need a place to store that PDF you got. We’re just looking at the money stuff and thinking, you sign up for an Afterpay account. So from here on they’re just a payment mechanism you use: but you got that onboarding letter with your member number and you have to store it somewhere.
So we’ll give you those places, even though they may be sparsely populated. That’s totally okay.
1 Like
Do you have a name for 20-29 yet? Suggestion: Enterprise. Or something else in the ‘entrepreneurship’ semantic realm.
Internal company admin, is, indeed, something you can set up and organise all on your own, without doing anything risky.
Entrepreneurship is in relation to the outside world – customers, for example, or ideas of others that you build on.
Not yet. It might be as simple as 20-29 Products, customers, marketing. I personally don’t mind Enterprise – ‘the enterprise’ being a term in common use in commercial circles – but I fear that a significant percentage of people wouldn’t connect with it?
I think you’re probably right.