What we're doing

Every job has a list of the work. Open a job and look for the fold called What we're doing.

It is a plain list. Patio 40 m2. Steps. Garden lighting. Nothing else.

Why it is not on the quote

Two different people decide two different things, in two different places.

• What work are we doing is known at the job. By whoever went to look. Sometimes with the customer stood there.
• What is it worth is decided at the desk. By you. Later.

The list used to live inside the quote, so the person who knew the work had nowhere to put it. You found out about the side path at nine at night.

Now the job holds the work and the quote holds the money.

Three lists, and they are not the same

The first one never changes. It is what the customer said, kept as they said it, like a recording. The second is allowed to differ from it — that difference is the story of the visit.

No prices here

You will not see money on this list. That is on purpose.

A number here would look like a price you had given the customer, and it is not one. How hard the site is, which grade you picked, your minimum charge and any discount all happen in the quote.

So the list answers one easy question: is this the job?

Then the quote answers the other: what is it worth?

Setting the work down

If the list is empty, tap Draft the work with AI.

It reads the whole job — Sarah's brief, the crew's notes, the photos and the before-you-price answers — and writes a list. Then you check it.

It knows how you sell things. A patio you price per square metre comes back as Patio 46 m2, not "one patio" with the size buried in the words — so the quote can price it off your catalogue instead of guessing.

It will only do this on an empty job. If there is already work on the list it refuses, so it can never wipe something you sorted out yourself. Clear the items first if you really want it to start again.

To add a line yourself, tap Add work. Pick a service from your catalogue, or choose "Something else…" and type it — "make good the fence". Work that is not in your price list is fine here; you put a number on it in the quote.

To change a size, hover the row and tap Size. You get a box with a minus and a plus either side:

Patio   −   47   +   m2

Tap the buttons, or type the number, or use the up and down arrow keys. It saves itself — there is no tick to press. Escape cancels.

To take work off, tap the × on the row.

To group the list under headings, hover a row and tap Under, then type a heading — "Groundwork", "Surface", "Extras". The heading appears above that row and covers every row after it until the next heading. One heading on one row is enough; you do not need to label the rest.

It used to be on the job form

If you are used to typing services into the job form — either the pencil icon or New job — it is not there any more. There is one list, on the job.

Two places editing the same rows is how a save from Job details used to wipe the crew's done-ticks without telling anybody.

Creating a job now takes you straight to it. Fill in who, where and when, save, and the job opens on What we're doing with the AI draft button waiting. The button along the bottom says Set the work down until there is something on the list.

The ticks

The crew's done-ticks are on the same rows. They used to be a separate list, which meant the same work appeared twice on one screen.

Ticking records progress. It never changes what the customer is charged.

Then price it

The button at the bottom of the job says Set the work down while the list is empty. Once there is work on it, it says Quote it, and the quote opens already filled in from your list.

You are only setting prices now. The work is already settled.

When the customer says yes

The quote goes out. The customer ticks the extras they want and accepts.

Their accepted quote becomes the job's list. Straight away, on its own.

• Work they ticked lands on the list.
• Work they left unticked comes off it.
• A size you changed in the quote is the size on the list.

So there is still only one list. Before they answer, the job's list is what you think the job is. After they answer, it is what they are paying for.

The list tells you so underneath. You can still change it — jobs grow — but now every change is a change to what the customer agreed, so the quote gets an Out of date chip and asks you to sort the money out.

If you change the work later

Say you have already sent the quote and then the customer adds the side path.

Change the list, and the quote gets an Out of date chip. It tells you what moved:

• Patio: 40 m2 is now 55 m2
• taken off: Steps 1 step

Nothing re-prices itself. The quote you sent stays exactly as the customer sees it until you decide. See Keeping a quote up to date.

Work with no price on it

Some work is priced by grade — the patio that could be sandstone or porcelain. That kind gets its number when you pick the grade in the quote, so on the job it sits at nothing.

If you build an invoice straight from a job like that, the app tells you:

One line has no price on it. Patio. Work priced by grade gets its number in the quote, so it comes off the job at zero.

Put a figure in, or take the line off. It is a warning and not a block — £0 is a real line sometimes, for goodwill or something you threw in.

The crew get the same warning in the van app, because that screen is one tap away from sending a pay link.

Who can do what

Changing the work is an office job — owner and admin only.

Crew do not keep the list tidy. They say it: a note on the job, or a word to Sarah from the van. That reaches the AI draft and reaches you. Asking somebody with wet hands to curate a list is how it stops getting done.

Crew can still read the list and tick work off.