Managing a work order

What this does

Everything that happens to a job between approval and invoice happens on its detail page under Sales → Work Orders.

Before you start

Assigning and changing status need work_orders.assign and work_orders.status_change: Owner, General Manager, Service Manager, and Service Writer. Office Managers can edit the job's fields and lines but not assign or move status.

Steps

Assign. Set the Technician and Bay from their dropdowns on the detail page. The job appears on that technician's dashboard and in that bay on the Shop Floor board immediately.

Move the status. Change it from the status control as the job progresses. Use Waiting Parts when a parts order is open and Awaiting Authorization when you've added work the customer hasn't approved. Set Ready for Pickup when the work is done; this is what deducts inventory.

Edit the job. Edit Work Order opens the same form used to create it: title, priority, promised date, billing type, mileage, description, and the two note fields.

Lines. Add, edit, and remove lines in Line Items; the canned-jobs picker adds a whole service. Source part on a part line links it to stock or to a parts order.

Costing. Open Job Costing to see revenue, parts cost, and margin. Reconcile costs flags parts that still have no cost recorded. See Job costing.

Hand-over. When the work is done and the customer is collecting, use Create Invoice. One invoice per work order; the button takes you to the existing one if it's already been created. Then set the status to Invoiced yourself.

Change History shows who changed what and when.

Common problems

Create Invoice says one already exists. Open it from the message. A second invoice for the same job is refused because it would bill the same lines twice.

Technician updated but they don't see the job. Check the status. Jobs still in Estimate don't show on technician dashboards; move it to Approved or In Progress.

I need to put the job on hold. Use Waiting Parts or Awaiting Authorization as fits; there is no separate on-hold status. For a vehicle being kept on site, use In Storage.