Work orders

A work order is a single job: something needs doing at a property or on a project. It carries that job from the moment someone asks for it to the moment it's billed.

The lifecycle

Requested → Approved → Scheduled → Assigned → In progress → Submitted → Completed

Plus two ways out: Not approved and Cancelled.

The names and the order are yours to configure. See Statuses. What's described here is the default shape.

Completed is not the end

Completed means the field work is done, not that the work order is finished with. It still has to be reviewed and billed, so it deliberately stays in the open list rather than disappearing.

Requests and approval

Anyone can raise a request: a foreman noticing a problem, an office admin taking a call. If the work-order type requires approval, it waits in the approval queue; otherwise it moves straight on.

Approval is a gate on the type, not on the person, so "tenant improvements always need sign-off, routine maintenance doesn't" is configuration rather than a rule someone has to remember.

Types

A work-order type decides how a job behaves: which form the crew fills in, whether it needs approval, and whether it's billable by default.

That form binding is what connects this module to Forms. Dispatching a work order of that type puts the right form in the crew's queue, already knowing which property and customer it's for.

Dispatch and the field

Dispatching assigns the work order and makes it visible in the crew's My Work. On a phone, offline, the form still opens and still captures (photos, hours per person, materials, signatures) and syncs when signal returns.

That capture is the same data three modules read later: the description becomes the customer-facing line on the invoice, the hours become both the labour cost and the timesheet entry, and the photos become the documentation attached to the invoice.

Recurring work

Recurring work orders are rules, not jobs: "clear the roof drains quarterly". The rule generates scheduled occurrences ahead of time, and each one becomes a real work order shortly before it's due.

Skipping one occurrence doesn't affect the rule.

Billing

Each work order carries a billing disposition: whether it should be invoiced. Completed, billable, not-yet-invoiced work orders are what the invoice builder collects when you bill a customer.

Marking work no invoice takes it out of that flow permanently, which is how warranty callbacks and internal jobs stay out of the billing run.