WorkJobs
Creating a Job from the Dashboard
A step-by-step guide to creating a job in Work Planner, including what each field does and how it affects planning, worksheets, and accounts.
Creating a job starts in the dashboard and finishes in the job popup. You normally launch it from Jobs List, then work through the tabs in order: Customer, Essential, Pricing, Scheduling, Images, and Notes. In multi-business setups, a Business tab appears first.
Open the Job Form
- Work > Jobs: Open this from the left-hand menu on the dashboard. It takes you to the jobs list for the business you are currently working in.
- New Job: Click this in the top-right corner. Work Planner opens the create-job popup in place, so you do not leave the jobs screen.
- Business: If your account can access more than one business, you may see this field first. Choose the correct business before you start because that choice controls which customers, services, rounds, and payment methods are available in the rest of the form.
Choose the customer early even though the rest of the tabs are visible. The customer drives the address behaviour and most of the useful selector choices elsewhere in the popup.
Customer Tab
- Customer: This is the person or company the job belongs to. You cannot create the job without one. If the customer does not exist yet, use the plus button beside the field to create them without leaving the job popup, then follow the same rules covered in Creating a Customer.
- Use Customer Address: Leave this selected when the work is carried out at the customer's normal address. In this mode, the job keeps its own address fields empty and Work Planner falls back to the customer address when the job is shown on screens, worksheets, and searches.
- Job Address: Switch to this when the work happens somewhere different from the customer's stored address, such as a second property or a commercial site. When you switch back to Use Customer Address, the job-specific address fields are cleared so the customer address becomes the active location again.
- Find Address: Use this when you want Work Planner to help fill the address quickly. The address lookup popup also stores geocoding information, which is useful later for planning and route optimisation.
- Address Line 1, Address Line 2, Town, County, Postcode: These only need filling in when you are saving a job-specific address. If the job is at the customer's normal address, leave them alone and let the customer record do the work.
Essential Tab
- Reference: Use this for your own internal job code or customer-facing reference if you need one. It is optional, but it helps with searching later.
- Status: New jobs usually stay on Active. Only change this during creation if you are deliberately creating a suspended, cancelled, or already-complete record.
- Service: This is the type of work you are promising to do. It is required because it affects how the job is identified across the app, including Jobs List, planner views, worksheets, and later reporting. Services are managed from Services List.
- Round: Use this when the job belongs to a regular collection of work, route, or round. Some accounts rename this term, so you may see your own custom wording here instead of Round. It is optional, but filling it in early makes planning and filtering easier, especially if the round already exists in Rounds List.
- Important: Turn this on for jobs that need extra attention. It helps the job stand out in places where teams are scanning quickly, such as the jobs list, planner, and worksheet flows.
- Reminder Required: Turn this on when the job needs a reminder or should be visually flagged as one that needs follow-up. This status travels with the job into planner and worksheet views.
- Invoice Required: Turn this on when the work should normally lead to an invoice request. This matters later when the job is completed through worksheet and invoicing flows.
Pricing Tab
The Pricing tab now holds both the price setup and the billing defaults for the job. The simple version is still just the main Price field, but the same tab also covers VAT, price types, payment method, and opening balance during creation.
- Price: This is the normal net price for the job. For most jobs, this is the only price field you need to complete.
- VAT Rate and VAT Amount: These appear when the business is VAT registered. Work Planner will help calculate one from the other, and the same main VAT rate is reused for any first-visit or alternate pricing on the job.
- Current Price Type: This decides which price Work Planner treats as the active price for the job. Standard uses the normal price. Alternate uses the alternate amount. Initial is for a different first visit. Hourly Per Person treats the price as a rate and calculates from rate x people x duration.
- Opening Balance: Use this when you are moving an existing live customer onto Work Planner and need the starting balance to come with them. A negative amount creates an opening charge. A positive amount creates an opening payment or credit.
- Opening Balance Date: This is required when you enter a non-zero opening balance because Work Planner creates the opening ledger entry using this date.
- First Price and First VAT Amount: Use these when the first visit should be billed differently from the ongoing service. Work Planner calculates the first VAT amount from the main VAT rate, so you only need to set the top VAT once. On a brand-new job, entering a first price switches the active price type to Initial automatically so the setup matches the intention of the job.
- Alternate Price and Alternate VAT Amount: Use these when the job alternates between two prices, for example where every other visit costs a different amount. The alternate VAT amount also follows the main VAT rate at the top of the tab.
- Payment Method: This is the usual way the customer pays for this job. It is optional, but setting it here makes later payment and worksheet flows quicker because Work Planner can carry that method forward.
Scheduling Tab
Scheduling is what tells Work Planner when the job should happen and whether it should repeat. The Scheduling tab now combines the due date, time, workload details, team-member link, and the recurrence controls. The deeper schedule behaviour is covered in Scheduling a Job.
- Due Date: This is the first date the job is due. It is what places the job into the planner and what recurring scheduling uses to calculate the next due date.
- Due Time: Use this when the job has a fixed start time, not just a day. That time is used on the planner so the job lands with a scheduled time rather than being treated as untimed work.
- Duration (Hours) and Duration (Minutes): Use these to record the expected time for the job. They become especially important when the active price type is Hourly Per Person, and they also help with planning workload.
- People: Use this when more than one person is expected on the job. If the active price type is Hourly Per Person, this becomes part of the price calculation and is required.
- Team Member Source: This appears when the business has multiple users. Use it to record who sourced or owns the job. If the business only has one user, Work Planner silently assigns that user on save so you do not need to do it yourself.
- No Schedule / Has Schedule: Choose No Schedule for ad hoc work you will move manually. Choose Has Schedule for recurring work. When scheduling is enabled, Work Planner expects to calculate a next due date from the due date and rule set.
- One Off: Turn this on when the job should be marked complete once it is done instead of cycling forward as recurring work.
- Schedule Frequency: Choose whether the repeat pattern is daily, weekly, or monthly.
- Schedule Interval: This is the repeat gap. For example, weekly with an interval of 2 means every 2 weeks.
- Schedule Days of Week: This appears for weekly schedules and lets you choose the working days the job can fall on.
- Schedule Day of Week (Optional) and Schedule Week of Month: These appear for monthly schedules and let you describe patterns such as the first Monday or the last Friday of the month.
- Schedule Summary and Update next due: Work Planner shows you the summary it has built from your choices and calculates the next due date from the due date. That next due is adjusted by your organisation's non-working-day policy, so the date shown may shift away from weekends or other non-working days.
Another useful rule to know: if you clear the due date after working on a schedule, Work Planner turns scheduling off. That prevents a recurring rule from being saved without the date it needs to work from.
Images Tab
- Images: Upload photos when the team needs visual context before they arrive, such as access notes, site condition, or proof of equipment location. The saved image behaviour is covered in Images and Image Preview Popup.
- Limits: You can upload up to 5 images and each file can be up to 10MB. Work Planner optimises them automatically after upload.
Notes Tab
- Worksheet Note: Use this for instructions that should travel with the job when it is added to a worksheet, such as access details, gate codes, or an on-site reminder for the team.
You will notice there is no notes timeline on the create screen. That is normal. The Notes tab only contains the worksheet note on creation. Free-form job notes become available after the first save, once the job has its own record.
Create the Job
- Create: Click this in the popup footer. Work Planner validates the form before saving.
- Missing required information: The save stops if required details are missing. In normal use, the two main blockers are a missing customer and a missing service.
- Validation combinations: Some combinations add their own checks. For example, a non-zero opening balance needs an opening balance date, and hourly-per-person pricing only makes sense once duration and people are filled in.
What Happens After Save
- Jobs list: The new job appears in Work > Jobs, where you can search for it straight away by customer, service, address, or reference.
- Planner: If you entered a due date, the job can now appear in Planner. If you also enabled scheduling, Work Planner uses that rule to work out the next due date for future planning.
- Worksheets: If you later add the job to a worksheet, the worksheet uses the address, service, images, and worksheet note you entered here.
- Accounts: If you entered pricing, VAT, a payment method, or an opening balance, those choices feed into accounts and invoicing workflows later.
- Next steps: Once the job exists, you can reopen it in Editing a Job to add ongoing notes, review history, manage images, and make more detailed operational changes.
Related articles
- Jobs List: the page this flow starts from in day-to-day use.
- Scheduling a Job: the full guide to recurring and one-off schedule rules.
- Advanced Pricing and Opening Balance: a closer look at price types, opening balances, and VAT setup.
- Editing a Job: what changes once the job already exists.