Overview/Reference/Glossary
Glossary
Every term Slate uses, defined in plain language and placed in the workflow. If a word in the interface is unclear, it should be here.
Objects — the things in the system
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Agency | Your business. The top-level container: all users, clients, and work belong to exactly one agency. |
| Lead | A potential client, captured with its source before any qualification. Marketing's raw material. |
| Opportunity | A qualified lead that has been handed to sales. Has an owner and a pipeline stage. |
| Proposal | The commercial offer: scope, deliverables, pricing, terms, and expiry. Requires Sales Chief approval before it is sent. |
| Client | A won deal that has become an active customer. Scoped inside your agency, never a separate tenant. |
| Activation case | The checklist that makes a new client safe to work for: contract, documents, invoice, payment, brand assets, credentials, and profile setup. |
| Monthly content cycle | One month of work for one client. Contains the plan and four videos. Generated from a template rather than built by hand. |
| Content plan | The month's strategy: pillars, tone, and the specific videos to be made. Requires client approval before any shoot. |
| Content item | A single video within a cycle. Moves through nine stages from planned to posted. |
| Production event | A shoot. Has a call sheet, location, crew, equipment, shot list, and a preflight checklist. |
| Footage package | The set of clips belonging to one content item, organised by the videographer after a shoot. |
| Version | One cut of a video — V1, V2, V3. Version identity is owned by the system, so no one invents file naming conventions. |
| Review window | The 48-hour period in which a client must decide on a plan or a version. Can be paused or extended with a reason. |
| Post work item | The task created when a version is approved and locked, carrying the asset, thumbnail, caption, hashtags, and platforms. |
| Exception | A recorded, bounded deviation from a rule — with reason, impact, decision-maker, and expiry. |
| Handover | An explicit transfer of work between people or pillars. Must be accepted or returned with a reason. |
| Push notification | A notification delivered to a phone with Slate installed, so a handover or approval reaches you without opening the app. |
| Credential | A stored client login or access secret. Lives in the encrypted vault, never in chat or files. |
Statuses and states
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Blocked | A genuine prerequisite is missing. Slate names what is missing and who owns it. |
| Waiting on me | Someone else cannot proceed until you act. The highest-signal item in your queue. |
| Waiting on client | The ball is in the client's court — usually inside a review window. |
| Ready next | Everything required is done and this is the logical next piece of work. |
| Internal QC | Quality control performed before anything reaches the client. |
| Good to post | Client approved and the version is locked. The post work item may proceed. |
| Locked | The version is approved and cannot be silently overwritten. The posting asset. |
| Auto-approved | The 48-hour window expired without a client decision. Recorded distinctly from a client's own approval. |
| Part-paid | Some but not all of an invoice has been settled. Common with the 50% deposit model. |
| Filed | A VAT period that has been submitted and locked. Its numbers are frozen. |
Revisions and quality
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Revision | A round of changes. Two are included per video. |
| Production error | Our mistake — the video does not match the approved brief, or is technically faulty. Does not use a client revision. |
| Preference change | A genuine change of mind. Uses one of the two included revisions. |
| New request | Work that was never in scope. Routed as a scope or upsell conversation. |
| Classification | Deciding which of the three above a request is. Content Operations decides; the Creative Director resolves disputes. |
| QC standards | The baseline quality checks every edit must pass before leaving internal review. |
| 2-day SLA | The service level for an edit: two days from assignment to submission. |
| Attestation | A recorded confirmation that a QC standard was checked, with evidence such as a timecode. |
Money
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Deposit | The 50% upfront payment that unlocks all client work. |
| Payment proof | Evidence of an inbound transfer — typically a bank screenshot — attached to the invoice. |
| Receipt | The document issued automatically when an invoice is marked paid. Numbered in an unbroken sequence. |
| Allocation | Applying a payment to a specific invoice. Partial and multi-invoice allocations are supported. |
| Credit note | A formal credit issued against a client's balance, with VAT handled correctly. |
| Outstanding | The amount invoiced but not yet collected. |
| Receivables ageing | How long invoices have been unpaid, grouped by age. Shows which are drifting. |
| TRN | Tax Registration Number, printed on tax invoices. Wrong values propagate everywhere. |
| VAT position | Output tax minus input tax for a period — what you owe or can reclaim. |
Access and governance
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Role | The single label that determines a person's screens, actions, and approvals. |
| Persona | The screen composition a role produces. Several roles can share one persona. |
| Sales Chief | The role that approves proposals and invoices. Today held by Sultaan. |
| Creative Director | The role that approves plans and final quality, resolves contested classifications, and holds the urgent-shoot override. Today held by Ayman. |
| Accountant | The role permitted to mark an invoice paid. This action fires the work-unlock gate. |
| Override code | A server-validated code required for an urgent-shoot override. Never written into any record. |
| Audit trail | The permanent record of who did what, under which role, and when. |
| Tenant scoping | The guarantee that all data is filtered by agency, so no one can reach another agency's records. |
| Readiness banner | The single status line on a client record: blocked, items missing, ready, or handover accepted. |
| Portal link | The special link a client signs in with. Specific to one client, revocable, and the only way into their portal — clients have no password. |
| Named approver | The person currently holding Sales Chief or Creative Director. Approvals bind to the role; the person is shown alongside it. |
Things people say versus what they mean
| What is often said | What it actually refers to |
|---|---|
| “The project” | Usually a content item, sometimes a cycle. Worth clarifying, because the two behave differently. |
| “Final cut” | A locked version. In Slate, locking is a system state, not a filename. |
| “Client approved” | A recorded decision in Slate. A verbal or WhatsApp yes is not yet an approval. |
| “Payment is in” | Money was seen. Not the same as the accountant's confirmation against attached evidence, which is what opens the gate. |
| “The client's account” | They do not have one in the usual sense. There is no username or password — there is a portal link. |
| “It's urgent” | Either a genuine urgent shoot, which has a governed override, or ordinary priority, which does not. |