Work orders

A work order is a formal, cost-coded engagement issued to a trade or contractor. Where a defect is "this needs fixing," a work order is "you are engaged to fix this, here's the scope, the line items, and the cost code."

When to use a work order

Use a work order when:

→The work requires a separate purchase order or quote.
→Multiple defects are being grouped into one engagement.
→You need to track cost as well as completion.
→The work needs to flow into your accounts system.

For one-off "fix this, no paperwork" issues, a defect alone is enough.

To group defects, tick them on the defect list and choose Raise work order. One work order is created and linked to every defect in the selection. The defects must all be on the same project.

Line items and cost codes

A work order is built from line items. Each line item has:

→A description (what's being done).
→A quantity and unit price.
→A cost code mapped to your accounts system.

The total updates live as you add items. Approvers see the full breakdown before they sign off.

Lifecycle

01Draft — drafting the scope.
02Submitted — sent for approval.
03Approved — approved and ready to issue.
04In progress — work is underway.
05Completed — the work is done and signed off.

A work order can also be cancelled from any of those five states — useful when scope is dropped or merged into another order. Cancellation is recorded so the audit trail stays clean.

Like defects, transitions are role-gated and timestamped, using the same roles as the rest of the app. A User can raise a work order, submit it, start it and complete it. Approving and cancelling sit with Company Admins, Managers and Building Managers, and the approver's name and date show on the work order.

Changing a work order after it's issued

Scope and prices move after a work order goes out, so the record moves with them. The header and the line items, amounts included, stay editable for the life of the work order. Only two things are fixed: the project, once it has left draft, and a cancelled work order, which can't be edited at all. Every header change keeps its previous value in the work order's history.

Sending it to the trade

Send to trade emails the work order PDF, as a link, to the contractor's default contacts, or to the company's own address if none of them has one. You can add a short message. It's there once the work order has left draft, and not on a cancelled one. Each send is logged with the addresses it went to.

Download PDF and Send to trade are also in the menu on each row of the list.

Finding work orders

The search box on the work order list matches far more than the job number: the work order number, the project, the site address, the trade, the back-charge contractor, the reason, line-item text, and the text and location of any linked defect.

Columns can be shown, hidden, reordered, resized and sorted, and the list remembers your layout in that browser.

Backcharge tracking

The Back-charge flag is one of the most important fields. It marks work that's being charged back rather than absorbed, and names the Responsible Contractor it's charged to. The list shows it as a column and filters to Back-charge only, which is what the accounts team — and any auditor — reads from.

A clean backcharge audit trail is what stops disputes turning into invoices that can't be substantiated.

CSV export to your cost system

Work orders export to CSV with cost codes, quantities, line totals, and backcharge flags intact. From there it's a straight import into any spreadsheet or accounts system that accepts CSV.