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Work Orders - getting started
Work Orders - getting started

A Work Order contains the parameters of the work to be done at a service location

Beau O'Hara avatar
Written by Beau O'Hara
Updated over a week ago

Summary

A Work Order is the central part of your business in Fieldwork. Invoices, commissions, billing frequency, scheduling, appointment reminders and more come from what you enter in the Work Order. 

Key Points

  • Create Work Orders from multiple areas in Fieldwork

  • Load a Work Order Template and add a Purchase Order number (PO#)

  • The Billing tab contains the Billing Frequency, Services and Price

  • The Schedule tab contains the tech doing the work, dates and time for service

  • The Commissions tab contains sales and service commissions

  • The Notes tab contains Service Instructions the tech sees on the first screen

  • The PDF Forms tab contains PDF files such as a WDIR the tech fills out

There are many places where you can create a Work Order. These steps start at the Customer page.

  1. From the Dashboard, click Customers

  2. Find the customer for whom you want to create the Work Order

  3. Click the customer's name

  4. On a Customer’s page, from the Service Locations tab, click the View button

  5. Click the Create a New… button
  6. Click Work Order

In the upper-left corner of the Work Order you'll see the Billing Address and the Service Location.

Note If the customer has multiple locations and you started from the wrong location, click the down arrow to the right of the location and make your location selection there. 

In the upper-right side of the Work Order you'll find the Load template button, Document Template (name), PO#, Start and End times.

  • Load template / Document Template: You can use a Work Order template to give a particular type of service (termite) or property type (commercial) a consistent price, material usage, and optional PDF form. When you load the template into the Work Order all of the settings you have in that template will be loaded. This is discussed later in this Getting Started Guide

  • PO#: This is the Purchase Order number given to you by a commercial customer. It is used by companies that have many layers of bureaucracy to help keep track of and approve your Work Order and Invoice as it goes through the corporate levels. It moves the approval of payment more quickly through their systems. It's a good idea to keep the PO# in the Location Sticky Notes as a reference.

  • Start and End time: When you complete the Work Order in the mobile app, the Start and End times will change to reflect the actual times. If you are completing the Work Order in the browser, enter the Start and End times.

In the middle of the Work Order you'll see the row of tabs that pertain to the Work Order, including: Billing, Schedule, Commissions, Notes and PDF Forms.

The Billing tab

  1. Click Billing Frequency and select how often this customer is to be billed

  • No Invoice: upon completing the Work Order no invoice will be generated

  • For Every Work Order: an invoice will be generated for every work order completed

  • Monthly, Quarterly, Yearly, One-Time: typically you select these when you want to split the billing frequency from the service frequency (such as: work is done twice a month; invoiced once a month)

  • Description (overrides line items) After Billing Frequency, you can enter a description of the service. If you do, the description will be printed instead of the line items (service, materials, and other). You might want to use a description if you don't want your customers to see the line items, if you're concerned about a customer becoming a DIY with the line item information. This carries over to the Invoice

  • Next Invoice Date: select the date you want the invoice to be generated -- this auto updates each month, quarter, or year

To add a Service, Material or to add instructional text (Other):

  1. Click the search box under Description

  2. Scroll down to select the service you will perform for this customer and click it

  3. To add another line item, click the Add Line button

  4. Click the down arrow in Service and click Service, Material, or Other

  5. Scroll down to select the Service or Material you will use for this Work Order and click it; when you select Other you can enter any text you want

  6. To remove a line click the minus symbol - to the left of that line

Services and Materials come from the Settings section of Services and Materials respectively. Each of these is discussed later in this Getting Started Guide.

The pricing section of the Work Order
The bottom-right corner of the Work Order contains the pricing for the services and materials you've included in the Work Order. When you add a service or material the price for it comes from the Settings section of Services and Materials, which is where you add the price for it. You can change the unit price in any Work Order.

A note about 'inline labels': when you open a new Work Order you'll notice the Unit Price is $0.00 for the first service line. This is an inline label meant to guide you along to enter a price. Even if the service does not have a price, you still need to enter $0.00 to save the Work Order; otherwise, you'll see a pink Line items price is not a number error message.

  • Quantity: The number of items for the line item; usually a service is 1, but you can have multiple materials, such as 5 ILTs

  • Unit Price: This amount comes from the price you entered in the Settings section of Services and Materials; you can change it any time

  • Amount: Quantity x Unit Price = Amount

  • Taxable: If your state charges tax (for services or materials) click the Taxable check box accordingly. 

  • Discount: if you offer a discount percentage, enter it here
    Note If you offer a flat-rate discount, add a line with Other as the type, and enter a description and a negative number (-25) in the Unit Price box to represent the flat-rate discount.

  • Tax: when Taxable is selected, the Tax automatically populates with the entries in Settings/Tax Rate

  • Total Due: all the amounts added plus the tax

  • Production Value: this is used to calculate commissions for your employees; if you have multiple techs on a job, split the Work Order total value and enter it in the Production Value; if you split the billing frequency calculate the Production Value by dividing the number of appointments per invoice

  • [ ] Hide pricing information on work order: select this if you don't want your techs to see the pricing on the Work Order, or if the customer doesn't want to see it

  • [ ] Exclude from Autopay: if an account is set for Autopay, click this box to keep
    this particular service from automatically charging the credit card.

  • [ ] No charge (Callback): Select this if you have to make a return visit and you can't charge the customer

Click the Schedule tab

When you create a new Work Order, if you have more than one technician, you'll see a rainbow bar with green on the left and blue on the right with your technician names in the bar. 

The tech on the left in the green shows you who will be closest to this location on any given day within the next five days. This visual routing gives you an opportunity for you to let the customer know that you'll have someone in the neighborhood two days from now at 3 pm, for example. It can make your scheduling more efficient.

Note A technician must have a job scheduled within the next five days for that tech to appear in the rainbow bar.

  1. Or, click the Technician drop-down list and click the technician who is doing the work

Creating a Series

   2. Click Frequency and select the frequency for this appointment
       * One Time: a one-time appointment, such as wildlife removal
       * Daily: usually limited to a set number of days
       * Weekly: usually for commercial accounts that need traps examined weekly
       * Monthly: usually for both residential and commercial accounts
       * Bi-Monthly: every other month
       * Quarterly: usually for residential accounts, and depends on the pest
       *Tri-annual: usually for residential accounts, and depends on the pest
       * Semi-annual: twice a year, and depends on the pest
       * Seasonal: pick any of the 12 months of the year, usually for snowbirds
       * Yearly: once a year service
​       
       Note Anything other than a one-time appointment becomes a Series. To make a
       change to the Series, you'll click the Edit Series button in the Work Order. For
       example, if the customer wants to change all the appointments from Wednesday
       to Thursday, you would click Edit Series, and go to the Schedule tab to change
       the day of the week. If the customer wants only next week's appointment to
       change from Wednesday to Thursday, you would change only that Work Order.
       This is explained in greater detail later.

  • When you click Weekly, you'll have the option to pick which day of the week

  • When you click Monthly, Bi-Monthly (every other month), Quarterly, Tri-Annual, and Semi-Annual, you'll have the option to pick which week of the period and which day of the week

  • When you click Seasonal, you have the option to pick which months, week of the month and which day of the week

   3. Select Date(s): this gives you the option of selecting the specific date of the
       month to schedule the appointment -- note that this date will continue through the
       months even if the date falls on the weekend

   4. Every...: select this option when you have an appointment schedule that doesn't
       match the choices in the Frequency drop-down list; for example, every 21 days

   5. Ends After: hopefully Never, which is good for your business!
       * Fixed number: ends after 2 visits, 10 visits?
       * Date: ends on a specific date

   6. First Service date: it is important to match the next service date with your choices
       made in Frequency, Select Days, or Select Dates; otherwise, you might schedule
       two appointments in the first month when it's a once-a-month appointment. If the
       appointment was scheduled for the third week, Wednesday; match the First
       Service Date to be the third week on Wednesday.
   7. Enter the estimated duration of the visit in hours and minutes
   8. Add to work pool: if this is going to be an ongoing call-to-schedule an
       appointment, or an 'anytime' for exterior only appointments, select Add to Work
       Pool (think of it as a to-do list). You can drag it onto the calendar later

   9. Start Time: click the time from the drop-down list box
  10. Arrival Window: using an arrival window is good to use for some customers who
       might be mad when the tech arrives at 3:35 instead of 3:30
  11. Confirmed: when talking to the customer and you confirm the date and time of the
       service, click the check box next to Confirmed and type the initials of the person
       who confirmed the appointment in the text box; or, when the customer receives
       an appointment reminder he/she can confirm the appointment and it will appear
       here

Click the Commissions tab

You can pick the person to receive a commission, assign sales and service role, select the commission type either as percentage or flat rate, the amount and give the commission an expiration date.

The service and sales commissions are based on the total Production Value for the Work Order.

  • For a technician, click Choose User, select the tech and and select Service as the User Role

  • For a sales rep, click Choose User, select the sales rep and and select Sales as the User Role

Click the Notes tab

The notes you type here appear in the Service Instructions in the mobile app (1st page). These instructions should outline the work to be done at the location. 

These instructions also appear in the mobile app once the tech is inside the Work Order in the Service Instructions section.

These instructions appear in the Work Order it is created in only.

Click the PDF Forms tab

There are two methods and purposes for attaching PDF Forms:

  1. Attach PDF forms to Work Orders to add additional reporting features, such as contracts, WDIRs, Notice of Pesticide Use, Waivers, Logs, and so forth. When a PDF form is attached to a Work Order, it becomes available in the mobile app. These forms can be edited from the mobile app, your customers and techs can sign them, and when the Work Order is completed and the tech emails the Work Order to the customer, the PDF file(s) will be included in the email. 

To attach a PDF Form to the Work Order:

  1. Click the PDF Forms tab

  2. Click -- none --

  3. Click the form you want to attach

  4. To delete a form, click the Minus button to the left of  -- none --

Also watch this video:

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