Projects & Job Cards

One module, three names. A project for a contractor, a job for a repair shop or tailor, a job card for a vehicle workshop - each is a row in the same table with a customer, an estimate, dates and a status, and every voucher raised for it (advance, expense, purchase, bill) carries its id. The project page adds those vouchers up live rather than storing totals.

Where it is in the app

POS page: Projects / Jobs menu - Dashboard, List, New, Receive Payment, Site Expense; workshops add Service Dashboard, Job Cards, Service Due, Document Expiry. Construction and vehicle service have their own shells built on this module; see the vertical pages. The label follows the trade.

Flow

flowchart TD
    A[New project / job
customer · description · estimate · start · planned end] --> P[(The project)]
    P --> Q[Quoted] --> R[Running]
    R -->|hold with reason| H[On hold] --> R
    R --> D[Completed]
    P --> V1[Receive Payment: advance / progress] --> T[(Receipt booked to the project)]
    P --> V2[Site / job expense] --> T2[(Expense booked to the project)]
    P --> V3[Purchase for the job] --> T3[(Purchase booked to the project)]
    P --> V4[Final bill / RA bill] --> T4[(Invoice booked to the project)]
    T & T2 & T3 & T4 --> M[Project page: estimate · billed · received · cost · balance]

Status and money are separate: status is on the row, money is the sum of tagged vouchers.

Screens

Dashboard - running jobs, due this week, overdue, money received this month.
List - filter by status, customer, date; open a project for its detail page.
Detail - money strip, receipts, and the tabs the trade has: work items (BOQ), phases, site diary, measurement book, RA bills, materials, wages and subcontracts for construction; the job card ladder and readings for a workshop.
Receive Payment - a (part) payment from the customer against the project, receipt printed on the spot.
Site Expense - a cost booked to the project; overhead goes through the ordinary Expense voucher.

Keeping a job profitable

flowchart TD
    A[Estimate quoted] --> B[Job starts]
    B --> C[Costs booked as they happen
material · labour · outside work]
    C --> D[Compare: spent so far vs work done so far]
    D --> E{Spending ahead of progress?}
    E -->|no| F[Carry on]
    F --> C
    E -->|yes| G[Find out why
underquoted · scope grew · waste]
    G --> H{Can it be recovered?}
    H -->|scope grew| I[Raise a variation with the customer]
    H -->|no| J[Accept the hit, requote the next one better]
    I --> K[Revised estimate]
    B --> L[Job finished] --> M[Final bill · job profit known]

The check that matters is not "what did we spend" but "did we spend it faster than we earned it".

Settings & permissions

Settings > Site Work holds the contractor's seven: Work Orders & Subcontracts, Material Indents, Site Labour & Wages, Progress (RA) Billing, Project Phases, BOQ Cost Variance and Measurement Book. A workshop's switches - Job Cards, Service Reminders, Alignment Readings - and a boutique's - Measurements, Trial / Fitting, Delivery Promise - sit on their own trade's card, and a job-work shop gets Inward and Outward Challans.

Permissions are named for your trade and differ by it. A contractor gets eleven - Create & Edit Projects, Bill Projects, Work Orders, Site Wages, Material Indents, Approve Indents, Record Measurements, Certify Measurements, Release Retention, Manage Project Masters and the read-only See Project Money. A vehicle workshop is offered nine of its own instead, because nothing under a garage's shell reads "Bill Projects" or "Site Wages". See Construction and Vehicle Workshop.

Reports

A contractor gets nineteen, each one filtered by the setting behind it, the person's own switches and - for the eleven that quote money - See Project Money. A workshop gets ten of its own; a boutique seven and a job-work shop eight, off their own catalogues. Per project you can print the estimate, the measurement book abstract, an RA bill, a subcontractor's bill, the receipt history and the work orders; across projects, Day Book, Expenses and the Sales Register filtered by project.