Job Stages
How a job moves from Lead to Approved, what each transition means, and why Approved is the gate for invoicing, QuickBooks, and inventory.
A job carries one stage at a time, and the Jobs page is organized around it — the tabs across the top (Leads, Proposals, Active, Completed, Approved, Rejected) each show a count and filter the list to that stage.
The pipeline
- Lead — an inquiry. A name, a client, maybe a note. No pricing required yet.
- Proposal — priced work awaiting the customer's decision. From a lead, use Promote to proposal; you can then add line items, pricing, and discounts.
- Active — the customer said yes. A proposal moves to Active when the client accepts it online (see proposal acceptance) or when you use Mark accepted after getting approval outside the platform. Visits are scheduled and worked at this stage.
- Completed — the work is done in the field. Completing is the crew-side sign-off; you can still make billable corrections afterward.
- Approved — the office has reviewed the billables. Once approved, the job is your invoice-ready record.
Each transition has a confirm dialog, and every one is recorded on the job's Activity tab with who did it and when. Reopen restores a job to its prior stage based on history.
What Approved unlocks
Approved is more than a label — it is the gate several systems key off:
- Invoicing and QuickBooks. Approval marks the job's billables as reviewed. With a QuickBooks connection, the default push mode sends a job's invoices to QuickBooks when the job reaches Approved — see what syncs.
- Inventory depletion. Items flagged as inventoried deplete stock for the job's operation when the job is approved, using the actual quantities recorded — see inventory.
- Confirmed financials. Cost and actual-quantity reporting treats Completed and Approved jobs as real results rather than estimates — see job costing.
Because Completed and Approved are separate checks (field says "done," office says "reviewed"), keep them separate unless your workflow really is one step — the Complete-and-Approve setting under Settings turns the Complete action into a one-step Complete & Approve for users who hold both permissions.
Rejecting a job
Leads and proposals that don't move forward get Reject… from the job's action menu. Pick a Reason — the options include Lost to competitor, Pricing, Scope changed, Schedule misalignment, Customer unresponsive, Customer changed mind, Customer unsatisfied, Internal decision, and Other — and add optional detail for the audit log. Rejected jobs land on the Rejected tab with their reasons, which feeds sales-lost reporting. You can reject many at once from the list with the bulk Reject action, and reopen a rejection later if the deal comes back.
Holds and archiving
Two states sit alongside the stage:
- On hold — Put on hold… with a brief reason. Held jobs stay visible to everyone but skip operational scheduling, and they show an On hold chip in the list. Take off hold resumes the normal flow.
- Archived — Archive… removes a job from active queues entirely. Archiving an in-flight job requires a reason for the audit log; Unarchive brings it back. The list filter Show archived reveals archived jobs.
Note: Held and archived jobs are skipped by bulk stage actions — the confirm dialog tells you how many selected jobs will be skipped and why.