Inside a job: work items, materials & the record
The job detail page — stage stepper, work-items checklist, real material costs, photos, notes and the activity trail — and how jobs get created.
Shop operations11 in this section
A job's page is the whole story of one vehicle in one place. Across the top: the stage stepper — advance the job through production right from here — plus quick Call and Text buttons when the customer has a phone number. Below it, the work column on the left and the facts rail on the right.
What's on the page
Where jobs come from
- 1
An accepted quote (the usual way)
Accepting a quote runs the pipeline: an invoice and an unscheduled job are created automatically (a per-shop setting, on by default). The job waits in the calendar's Unscheduled tray until you drag it onto a day.
- 2
Straight onto the calendar
New booking on the Calendar opens the booking panel over the grid — customer, services, bay, installer, deposit and a repeat schedule, all in one place, with the running total as you go.
- 3
From the board
The New job button on the Workflow board — and New booking on a customer's record, Schedule job on an accepted quote, Book again on a finished one — all open that same panel, prefilled with what they know. One booking form, many doors.
Print work order gives the bay the notes; Print customer copy doesn't
Print work order (top of the job page) is the *shop copy*: the ticket plus your Internal notes, marked as such on the page so nobody mistakes it. Need the same sheet for the customer, a fleet manager or an insurer? Use Print customer copy in the Internal notes panel — identical paper, notes stripped out.
Material costs come from Inventory, not from here
The Materials panel is read-only by design: open the roll in Inventory and log the draw-down against this job — the footage and its real cost land on the job instantly, and your margin numbers stay honest.
Troubleshooting
The Materials panel says "Nothing logged yet" after a full install.
Why: Film only appears here when a draw-down is logged against the job from a roll in Inventory.
Fix: Open the roll's page in Inventory, log the feet used with this job selected, and the line (with COGS) appears on the job.
A customer accepted a quote but no job showed up.
Why: The auto-convert setting is off for your shop, or you're looking at the calendar grid — new jobs arrive unscheduled.
Fix: Check the calendar's Unscheduled tray first; if it's truly missing, review your quote settings and re-check the quote's status.
The job shows no estimated margin.
Why: Margin flows from the quote's numbers; a job created directly without costed services has nothing to estimate from.
Fix: Add costs to the services in the catalog — future quotes and jobs pick them up automatically.
Common questions
What's the difference between work items and services?
Same thing, different hat: services from the catalog become the job's work items — a tick-off checklist for the bench.
Can we get our internal notes onto the printed work order?
Yes — that's what Print work order on the job page gives you. Whatever is in the Internal notes panel prints on the sheet under "Internal notes — shop copy, not for the customer", so the guys in the back get the booking note and your watch-outs with the ticket. Print customer copy in that panel prints the same work order without them.
Do customers ever see internal notes?
No. Notes stay on the job record and on the shop copy of the work order. The customer portal — quote, invoice, job tracker, receipt — never renders them, and neither does the customer copy of the sheet.
Can techs open job pages?
Yes — jobs, the board and My Work are all part of the tech view. Money screens (quotes, invoices) stay manager-only.