Work Orders

What it is

A work order is the internal job sheet for a job you have already priced. The estimate is what the customer agreed to; the work order is who is doing it, when they are doing it, and what you are paying them. You open the list from the left menu: Work›Work Orders.

The important idea is the section. One job can be split into as many sections as you like — Demolition, Electrical, Tile — and each section gets its own field worker, its own pay, its own start and finish time, and its own status. That is how a three-trade job stops being three phone calls and a text message.

If your company calls field workers something else — Technicians, Crews, Installers — that is the word you will see on these screens. This guide uses "field worker" throughout.

When to use it

• The customer said yes and you now need to tell somebody to go and do the work.
• Two or more people are on the same job and each needs a different scope and time.
• You pay per job rather than per hour, and you want the pay figure agreed up front.
• You want to know your profit on the job — what the customer pays minus what the field costs you — before anyone picks up a tool.
• You want the field's questions ("which door is it?", "running late") attached to the job instead of scattered across text messages.

Use Estimates instead when you are still pricing and the customer has not agreed yet. Use Leads for the day-to-day job list and simple "send this job to one person" dispatch. Use Commission Reports when it is time to actually pay people.

Before you start

• Your role needs Leads & CRM access. An owner or admin turns this on under Settings›Team Roles. Without it the Work Orders menu item is hidden and the pages will not open.
• Work Orders has to be switched on for your company. It is on by default for every account. If the menu item is missing even for an owner, contact Joby support to have it turned back on.
• Add your field workers first. Go to Settings›Team Members, open the Field Workers tab and click Add Team Member. A section with nobody assigned to it cannot be sent anywhere.
• Give each field worker an email address, a phone number, or both. On the same screen, Lead Notification Method decides how they are contacted — Email, SMS, and In-app (in-app only appears for people who have a login). Text messages also require your phone registration to be finished under Settings›Phone Registration.
• Put costs in your Price Book if you want pay to fill itself in. Go to Settings›Quotes & Docs›Estimate Settings and open the Price Book tab: each item has a Cost next to its price. That cost travels onto the estimate line and then onto the work order, and it is what the automatic payout adds up. No cost means an automatic payout of $0.
• Ideally, build the estimate with sections. In the estimate's items editor, Add Section creates a heading and every line under it belongs to that heading. Those headings become your work order sections automatically.

None of this is compulsory except the first two — you can create an empty work order and type everything by hand — but doing it in this order saves the most work.

Step-by-step

Create the work order from an estimate

1. Open Work›Estimates and click the estimate you want.
2. On the Edit Estimate screen, find Create Work Order in the row of buttons at the top, next to Convert to Invoice.
3. Click it. You get a Work order created message and land straight on the new work order.

Everything priced on the estimate comes across: the line items with their quantities, prices, costs and photos, and any section headings you used, which become real sections with the right items already inside them. The customer's name becomes the job title, the status starts at Draft, and a work order number is issued automatically.

If the estimate offered the customer several options, only one set of items comes over — the option the customer chose, or the recommended one, or the first one if neither applies. Make sure the right option is selected on the estimate before you click the button.

Or create it from the job

1. Open the job from Work›Leads and click its Work Orders tab.
2. Read the line at the top. It either says the new work order will copy items from a named estimate, or that there is no estimate yet and it will start blank.
3. Click New Work Order.

The same tab lists every work order already on that job, so it is also the fastest way back to one.

Split the job into sections

1. On the work order, look at the left-hand column headed Sections. If the estimate had headings, they are already here. If not you will see No sections yet.
2. Click Add section (top right of that column) for each part of the job. A new one is named Section 1, Section 2 and so on — click the name and type over it.
3. Move the work into the right section. Inside a section's items box, click Add items and pick from the Unassigned items list. To move a line that is already placed, use the ... button at the end of the item row and choose another section under Move to section, or Remove from section to put it back in the pool.
4. Anything not yet in a section sits in the dashed Unassigned items card at the bottom of the column, with a count of how many are still loose.

A section with no items is fine — it reads this section is scope-only — and is useful for work you describe in words rather than price line by line.

Assign people, pay and times

1. In each section, use the Field Worker drop-down to pick who is doing it. It lists your active field workers only, and starts on Unassigned.
2. Set Payout. Auto (item costs) is the default and adds up the cost of the items in that section — click the small dotted link underneath to see the per-item sum. Choose Fixed $ to type an exact amount, or Percent to pay a share of what the customer pays for that section. Either of those shows an Override tag, and Reset to auto puts it back.
3. Fill in Starts and Ends for the section if different trades come on different days. If the whole job happens at once, leave these empty and set Starts / Ends in the Job details card on the right instead.
4. Use Notes for the field worker for the practical stuff — gate code, where to park, what to bring. This text is shown to that person and nobody else.
5. Set the section's status when things move: Pending, Scheduled, In Progress, Completed, Canceled.

In a hurry and one person is doing all of it? Use the Assign everything to... drop-down at the top of the Sections column. If the work order has no sections yet it creates a single section called All work, puts every item in it and assigns it.

Decide what the field worker may see

1. Look at the Job details card on the right. The Show customer pricing switch is off by default: field workers see the scope and their own pay, never what the customer is paying.
2. Turn it on only for people you genuinely want to see the customer's prices.
3. Use Description for a scope summary your team can read, and Internal notes for anything that must never leave the office — that box is never shown to field workers or customers.

Send it to the field

1. Click Send in the bar at the top of the work order. It stays greyed out until at least one section has a field worker on it, and it carries a small number showing how many sections have not reached their current person yet.
2. The Send to the field window opens with the sections grouped under each person, with small icons showing which ways they will be contacted. A yellow line such as no phone — that channel will be skipped warns you when contact details are missing.
3. Tick the sections to send. Anything not yet delivered to its current assignee is ticked for you; re-sending something is a deliberate choice, so it is not ticked by default. Each row tells you whether it was Never sent, Sent 2 days ago, or Reassigned since the last send.
4. Check the summary line at the bottom — it reads something like 3 sections -> 2 people — then click Send.

Everyone gets a private link to their own page showing only their sections. Nobody sees anybody else's scope, and nobody who was not ticked is contacted at all.

Keep the conversation on the job

1. To ask about one specific line, click the speech-bubble button on that item row. The thread opens under it and the person doing the work can answer from their own page.
2. To talk to whoever has a whole section, expand Discussion at the bottom of that section card.
3. For office-only chatter, use the Job discussion card on the right. As the note on that card says, job-level notes stay in the CRM — to reach a field worker you have to comment on their section or on an item.
4. Type and press Enter to post (Shift + Enter for a new line), or click Post. Tick Internal only to keep a note away from the field; that option is deliberately missing on item notes, because an item note exists to be answered.

How to check it worked

• Work order created: a Work order created message appears, the screen changes to the new work order with its number in the top bar, and the row shows up at the top of Work›Work Orders and on the job's Work Orders tab.
• Items came across: the Customer total box in the strip near the top matches the estimate, and its small line underneath gives the item count.
• People are assigned: Field payout shows the total you will pay out and reads something like 2 of 3 sections assigned underneath.
• Pay is right: Margin shows what is left after the field is paid. If it turns red you are paying out more than the customer is paying you.
• It was sent: the amber Not sent pill on the section header turns into a green Sent 5 minutes ago, the number on the Send button drops, and Progress stops warning that sections have not been sent. A message also lists each person and how they were reached, for example Mike: sent via email + sms.
• The field answered: their replies appear in the thread with a blue From the field tag, and the Job discussion card shows a 2 from the field badge.
• Work is progressing: Progress counts completed sections, for example 2/3 done.

Edits save as you go. Boxes you type into — the job title, description, notes, a fixed payout amount — save when you click away from them; drop-downs and dates save the moment you change them. If something cannot be saved you get a red message on screen.

Common mistakes

• Looking for a "new work order" button on the list page. There is not one. Work orders are always born from an estimate or from a job's Work Orders tab, which is exactly what the empty list tells you.
• Sending before the customer agreed. Creating the work order does not send anything, but it does copy today's prices. If the estimate is still being negotiated, wait.
• Deleting a section to "clear it". Deleting removes the section and pushes its items back to Unassigned. If you just want it off the schedule, set its status to Canceled instead.
• Deleting the work order to start again. That removes its sections, items and the whole discussion, and cannot be undone. The estimate is untouched, so you can create a new work order from it — but the conversation is gone.