Settings

Firm settings is where Admins and Managers configure how Beech works for your firm — drawing sections, project statuses, templates, vendor types, teams, scheduling, and firm events. Contributors see a message directing them to contact an Admin or Manager. Personal settings live on My profile.

Navigating Firm settings

Open Firm settings from the More menu. The sidebar has:

• Firm — Members, Project Status Labels, Drawing Sections, Teams, Drawing Templates, Vendor Types
• General — Firm board, Scheduling
• Plan — Billing, Vault (storage usage and add-ons), BeeBo (credit packs)
• Admin (Admin only) — Data & Privacy, Audit log, Plugins

Your personal settings (profile, password, email, security, notification preferences) are reached from the user menu → My profile (/settings/account), not from the Firm settings sidebar.

Project status labels

Rename, archive, or add custom project workflow statuses. Nine defaults ship with every firm (Intake → Completed). Keys stay fixed after create; display names are what your team sees. You must keep at least one active status.

Drawing sections

Create, rename, reorder, and delete drawing sections. Sections group drawings in the project Work tab (Survey Drawings, Floor Plans, Electrical Drawings, etc.) and supply the short code used in drawing reference numbers. Drag the handle on each section to reorder. A section can only be deleted if it has no drawings assigned to it.

Teams

Use Firm settings → Teams to create named teams, edit members, and retire old teams. Teams are used by team-wide planning mode on Schedule, where each team runs its own sprint lane.

If your firm uses different delivery groups (for example Design, Documentation, Site), define those teams before switching Scheduling to team-wide mode.

Drawing categories and phases

Beech also supports drawing category and phase labels used across drawing filters and reporting. These controls are available in Settings at /settings?section=drawing-categories and /settings?section=drawing-phases, even if they are not listed in every sidebar variant.

Drawing list templates

Create reusable drawing list templates that can be cloned onto new projects. Each template contains a list of drawing items with title, section, and optional task size (Light through Extra heavy, the same 1–5 scale used on tasks). When creating a project, select a template to pre-populate the drawing list.

Add drawing items one at a time, or load the residential standard list and edit from there. Drag the handle on each row to reorder before you save.

Vendor types

Manage the types used to categorise vendors in your firm's vendor directory (e.g. Structural Engineer, MEP Consultant, Landscape Consultant). Types are also created inline when you add a vendor from Add Work or the Vendors directory — this settings page is for reviewing and adding types in bulk.

Firm board

Post firmwide announcements, team lunches, and birthdays from More → Firm board (/announcements) or Firm settings → Firm board. Announcements can include a body, optional pin (max 2), and expiry date. Lunch and birthday items need a calendar date. Posts appear on Home for everyone; expired announcements move to Archive on the board page. Only Admins and Managers can post, edit, or delete. See Home for how the board card appears on the command centre.

BeeBo credits

Firm settings → BeeBo (under Plan) shows BeeBo usage for the current period and optional monthly credit-pack subscriptions (prorated first charge, then renew on your Beech billing day). Admins manage packs and renewals; Managers can open the section to view usage. For how BeeBo works day to day, see BeeBo.

Plugins (Admin only)

Firm settings → Plugins is where Admins connect Slack, Google Calendar, Google Drive, Dropbox, SharePoint, and signed outgoing webhooks. Microsoft Teams and Outlook show as coming soon until they ship. The dedicated Plugins page walks through each connection in order, including which dates Calendar can add and how Slack maps a channel to a project.

Audit log (Admin only)

Firm settings → Audit log shows who accessed Vault files and share links (upload, download, delete, share, revoke, external view/download), Beech support sessions, and other sensitive firm actions. It also lists active external shares so you can revoke a link without hunting through projects. Folder browsing is not logged. Retention is one year. It is separate from the Activity feed, which focuses on day-to-day work events.

My profile

Each user manages their personal settings from the user menu → My profile:

• Profile — update your display name and job title
• Password — change your login password
• Email — change your email address (requires confirming via a verification link sent to the new address)
• Security — set up or turn off two-factor authentication (authenticator app). Backup recovery codes are shown once when you confirm enrollment — save them somewhere safe; Beech does not keep a “view codes again” screen. On login you can trust the device for 30 days.
• Notifications — choose how you get notified of events (email once a day, as it happens, or no email, plus browser push notifications), then Email or Browser per event, including task assigned. Some events only appear if they apply to your role. The in-app bell still shows everything.
• Chat preferences — control messaging presence and chat-related notification behavior, including message preview visibility and unread chat email (a one-time email for private messages and @mentions that sit unopened for 6 hours).

Data export (Admin only)

Export all firm data as a ZIP file containing JSON, Excel reports, and Vault files (project folders and the firm library, including trashed files when present). Binary Vault files are included when storage is configured; large Vaults can take several minutes. No password hashes are included. Go to Firm settings → Data & Privacy → Export firm data.

Firm deletion (Admin only)

Request firm deletion from Firm settings → Data & Privacy → Delete firm. You must type the exact firm name to confirm. Deletion enters a 7-day grace period during which you can cancel. After the grace period, all firm data and files are permanently deleted. This cannot be undone.

Before you start

• Confirm you can open the relevant page and that your role has permission to perform the action.
• Identify the project, drawing, or task context before you start so updates are recorded in the right place.

Workflow checks and quality guardrails

• ✓

  Checklist item 1: Follow the Settings process in order and save frequently after each meaningful update.

• ✓

  Checklist item 2: Write enough context in notes or comments so another teammate can understand the change without asking you.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Skipping ownership or due-date details, which makes reporting and follow-up unreliable.
• Updating status without adding context, which creates confusion during reviews and handovers.

Troubleshooting

1. 1
   Troubleshooting step 1

   If an action is unavailable, verify role permission and whether required upstream fields are completed.

2. 2
   Troubleshooting step 2

   If expected results are not visible, check page filters and refresh to confirm synced state.

What to do next

1. Open /docs/home and continue with the next workflow.
2. Open /docs/reports and continue with the next workflow.
3. Open /docs/troubleshooting and continue with the next workflow.