Frequently Asked Questions
From Clients about our Services
- a) About AWEbase®
- b) Subscriptions and Data
- c) Titles and Releases
- d) JobOpps
- e) Deliverables and Jobs
- f) Custom Settings
No, AWEbase® does not facilitate monetary transactions between parties. Rather we enable your team to generate detailed internal payment requests that should provide all the information for your accounting staff or service to easily execute payments without the back-and-forth clarifications.
While AWEbase® does not automatically come with any legal templates, we do provide a few free templates on our Resources page.
Yes, AWEbase® supports 20+ different currencies (exchange updated daily), but is restricted to one currency type per contract.
No. While an individual contractor may have have more than one AWEbase® client, your contractor list, job history, and project data is proprietary to you.
No, AWEbase® does not get between your company and its contractors. Our fee is fully encapsulated in your cost of user and module subscriptions.
You can upload any type of file to be used as a reference, and your contractors can upload almost any type of image, audio, video, DOCX, PDF, or 3D file as Deliverable file for review, as detailed in this article. When you add a new contract template, you may only upload DOCX files.
A Deliverable is discrete component of work, such as a single illustration, news article, or 3D model. A Deliverable can also be a service, such as catering at an event, or software development performed for a specified period of time. Each Deliverable is tied to a Release, and each Release can have any number of Deliverables.
A Job uses a contract to connect a single contractor to any number of Deliverables that they have agreed to deliver.
You can create a new JobOpp that includes multiple Deliverables by checking those Deliverables on the Deliverables screen, then choose “Create JobOpp from Deliverables” from the master drop-down menu. Note that in order to create the JobOpp, the Deliverables must all be assigned to the same staff member, share a category, and be marked “assignable.” See here for complete details.
A Title is a master product, such as a board game, a magazine, an event, or a piece of software.
A Release is a specific version of a Title. For example, if the Title is a book, a Release might be the hardcover version of that book. Or if the Title is a magazine, a Release might be the October issue of that magazine. A Title may have many different Releases.
You can set the budget for a Release (as detailed here), determining how much you want to spend in each category, and can adjust the budget even after Deliverables have been assigned to it. (Note that you can restrict budget-changing privileges to admin members of your team.)
If you have created a budget for a Release, AWEbase won’t allow you to create Deliverables with costs that exceed that budget. If you try to do so, the system simply won’t allow it to be created.
No. Every Release must be associated with a Title, as detailed here.
While “Title” and “Release” are the default terms in AWEbase®, your organization may prefer to customize one or both of them to better reflect your activities. For example, “Title” might be “Product Line” or “Department” for you, and “Release” might be “Product” or “Project.” You can change these two terms to anything you want, as detailed in these instructions.
Not currently. AWEbase® was created to assist your team in recruiting contractors (from a roster of contractors you supply) and in managing and closing contractor projects. There are many helpful websites that can help you locate contractors for your industry,
An AWEbase JobOpp is a collection of:
- all the Deliverables you’d you like to contract for a given project, and
- all the contractors to whom you’d like to offer the work.
For example, if your magazine needs 10 articles, you could add all 10 of them to a JobOpp, along with any number of writers who you think might be interested in writing those articles.
By default, staff members have one of four roles in AWEbase:
- Admin staff have all privileges.
- Manager staff have most privileges, but can’t change organization settings.
- Coordinator staff can solicit and hire contractors, but can’t create or edit Titles or Releasees.
- Basic staff have no privileges beyond adding contractors, but can still monitor projects.
To better meet your organization’s needs, you can can add your own roles with their own privileges to the system.
This is probably due to the word processor you’re using the create the contract template. When Pages documents with numbered lists are exported as DOCX files, for example, their lists may become mis-formatted. (One possible work-around is to copy the contract from its original program, paste it into a Google Doc, and export it from there into DOCX.)
Yes. With AWEbase® you can import your own .docx templates (using AWEbase® provided variables) to use as legal agreements.
Contractors can’t currently join AWEbase on their own, but organizations may invite them to join AWEbase and create their own AWEbase contractor account.
In AWEbase, contractors enter and maintain their own profiles, including their e-mail addresses and contact information. If a contractor changes their information, that information will automatically be updated when you next need it, such as when creating a contract or submitting a payment order. (Note that you can, however, add tags, notes, and skill lists to a contractor’s profile that only staff in your organization can see.)
Contractors have their own AWEbase accounts, separate from your account, which they can use to maintain their portfolios and contact information.
- You may invite a contractor to connect with your organization, regardless of whether or not that contractor already has an AWEbase account.
- If you try try to send a Solicitation or Job to a contractor without an account, the system will invite the contractor to both join AWEbase and connect with your organization. (Note that the contractor may join AWEbase without connecting to your organization.)
- Once a contractor connects with your organization, you can send that contractor work solicitations, and can see the contractor’s portfolio and contact information. A contractor may be connected to any number of organizations.
No. Every Deliverable must be associated with a Release, and every Release must be associated with a Title. If you need to create a Deliverable before you have all the details of its Release worked out, go ahead and fill in whatever you can on the Release just to get started; you can update the Release later.
By default, when you create a Deliverable, its payment amount is set in your native currency. However, you may change the currency to any number of other worldwide currencies if you wish. This does not change the value that you entered, but AWEbase does display the current exchange rate and the amount converted to your native currency.
When you a create a Job, all of its Deliverables must be in the same currency. If you need to contract multiple Deliverables with multiple currencies, you need to create a separate Job for each currency.
If you assign a budget to a Release, and that Release includes Deliverables in multiple currencies, AWEbase tracks the exchange rates on those currencies and updates your budget automatically (in your native currency) as described here. If exchange rate fluctuations cause your Release to go over budget, AWEbase won’t let you create new Deliverables that require additional budget.
You can create a new Job and assign it multiple Deliverables by checking those Deliverables on the Deliverables screen, then choose “Create Job from Deliverables” from the master drop-down menu. Note that in order to create the Job, the Deliverables must all be marked “assignable” or “draft.” See here for complete details.
When you create a JobOpp, you present one or more contractors with any number of Deliverables that you’d like them to work on. When one of those contractors agrees to do the work, you can create a Job for them from within the JobOpp itself, and assign them any of those Deliverables. To so, click on “job” button next to the contractor on the JobOpp screen, and follow the instructions found here.
On the JobOpps screen, check the box next to the JobOpp you want to delete, then choose “Delete” from the action menu above. Note that you can only delete JobOpps that are marked as “draft,” and are assigned to you, rather than another staff member.
Double-check the Deliverable to make sure that its status is marked as “assignable” and that it is assigned to you, rather than another staff member in your organization.
To send a a Job or JobOpp inquiry to a contractor, that contractor needs to be connected to your organization. Adding a new contractor is quick and easy. Simply choose “Add Contractor” from the main drop-down menu, then fill in the contractor’s name and e-mail address. (Don’t worry if you don’t have the contractor’s name exactly right; they can change it as soon as they sign into AWEbase themselves.) Learn more about adding a contractor here.
When both you and the contractor have digitally signed a contract, AWEbase sends a PDF of the signed contract to both the contractor and your organization. You can set the e-mail to which the contract should be sent by clicking on “Settings,” then “Organization,” as detailed here.
When you make a payment request, the request is sent, as a PDF, to the e-mail address of your organization’s designated accounting staff. You can set the e-mail by clicking on “Settings,” then “Organization,” as detailed here.
Check the contract template and make sure that it is marked “active.” In addition, make sure that the template is associated with the category of the Deliverables in the Job. Deliverables with different categories may require different contract templates, and therefore need to be separate Jobs.
Double-check the Deliverable and make sure that its status is marked as “assignable.” In addition, make sure that all the Deliverables you want to add are part of the same category (artwork, writing, etc.). Deliverables with different categories may require different contract templates, and therefore need to be separate Jobs.
You can access your data use in the AWEbase® Billing or Storage Management interfaces (updated daily).
If you hit one of the ceiling limits to your account for records or storage, you (and your contractors) will be prevented from adding additional data. You can solve this problem by clearing older records.
If you run out of bandwidth for your billing cycle, you’ll be unable to upload or download files from AWEBase® until the next billing cycle. Alternatively, you can upgrade your account tier or purchase an AWEbase® bandwidth-boosting Module.
Most of your file data can be downloaded at any time from the AWEbase storage management interface. For comprehensive data retrieval, please contact your sales representative who will be happy to assist you.
After a short security holding period, AWEbase® will destroy all data from accounts that are no longer active.
In addition to the core AWEbase® functions, you can add unique capabilities to the software by subscribing to one or more of its modules. These range from advanced features (such as API access) to additional bandwidth and storage.
AWEbase® pro-rates the monthly price of the new user up to the end of your subscription period, charged when the user is added. Upon renewal, the user is then charged at the full monthly fee.
We do not refund subscriptions. However, until the end of your subscription period, you now have an inactive user account that may be assigned to her replacement or to another person at your company at no additional cost to you.
Yes. Any remaining days on your monthly subscription will be credited towards the purchase of an annual subscription. When doing so your subscription period will change the 12 month period from the date of upgrade.
Yes. When upgrading your account tier, the changes will take effect immediately. Additional charges for the upgrade will be prorated up until the end of subscription cycle.
AWEbase® is a specialized and opinionated software built for the unique need of contractor procurement and management. Its powerful features are built to solve a sequence of unique but important needs for larger teams, by solving many of the communication, process, and compliance problems for more complex organizations.
We discount the subscription cost of software to smaller teams for three reasons: a) because smaller clients are less taxing on our infrastructure, b) because the value of AWEbase® grows in proportion to team size, and c) because we want to entice smaller organizations to use the AWEbase® so that we may later serve them later as they grow.
