E-01 One-Time Work Orders

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In this video, we're going to look at one-time work orders. This is more of an intro to entering work orders. So we'll cover things on a pretty generic basis, but you'll be able to use this information and expand on it as you go.

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So the first thing we're going to do is we start with our HomeWatch IT dashboard here in Method, and we'll click on the HomeWatch Admin tab. This will bring up for you your work order list screen. I'm not going to go through the details of this screen in this video.

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That'll be another video coming up, but there's a lot of power and flexibility here. But what we'll look at is up in the upper right-hand corner, you have the ability to enter a new work order or a series. For this video, we're going to concentrate on a new work order.

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So let's say that we are going to meet a plumber out at the Brower residence in a couple of days, and we want to add that information into the system with regard to the schedule and how we're going to bill the client. So I'm going to click here where it says New Work Order. This will open up for me my work order screen.

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So let's say the plumber visit is for the Brower, so we'll pick Brower, and we'll click that. You can type in any portion of the customer's name and it'll bring them up in the list, or you can just hit the list and select. Job name is going to identify what you're going to do, and you want to make this descriptive because this is what's going to appear on your calendar and all of your lists.

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So we'll say Meet Plumber to Fix Leaking Faucet in Master Bedroom. Then we can identify the date and time that we're going to do that. So let's say it's going to be on Thursday the 12th, and the plumber said they'll be there about 9, and we know that that could vary, but that's okay.

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But let's say 9, and let's block out a couple hours of time for this work order. So I can enter in the same thing here and put in January 17th, 11 a.m., or I can just use these quick links. And that's what I'll do is I'll hit that to say, make it an hour.

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You'll notice now it has created an ending time, one hour from the start time. And if I hit the plus one hour, that will then increase that another hour. So you can use these buttons to quickly put in the duration without having to pick and select from the calendar.

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Over here on this side, we have some information about the work order that we can use. So it's going to automatically be defined to whoever is entering the work order or whoever might be assigned to the property if you're using the assignment code on the actual property screen. In this case, it'll default to Gary.

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It'll also default a work order status to not started. Let's hit the dropdown and talk about what a work order status is for a moment. So typically, the status will be not started or completed.

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These are going to be the most two common ones. So not started just means it's out there, you haven't done anything yet with it. Completed will be once it's finished.

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Now, you've got a couple other statuses that you can use, which I'm not going to go through in this particular video, but concentrate on not started and completed for this time. Invoice status, you will almost always leave that as to be invoiced, and what that means is that it's going to include the charges for this work order on your customer's invoice when we generate the invoice. So leave it as to be invoiced.

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If there's another reason to change that, that's probably something that we'll discuss separately. We won't use the service date at this point. Work order instructions, this is a field where you can put special instructions down for this particular work order.

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So for example here, when they're going to fix the leaking faucet, maybe you can say there is a new faucet in the garage. And this note, whatever you put in here, appears in red when you're out at the home, so that it's a reminder that you have something important to consider for that particular work order. The other tabs here are when you'd add a report, when you assign a vendor, and if you need to attach anything.

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So let's look at those quickly. The report tab will be mostly filled in after you finish your report with the external reporting software. If you want to identify a special template for this work order, you can.

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And in this case, it's a good idea because this is a concierge item. So maybe we want to pick a concierge template so that that'll be what is opened up in our inspection program when we get there. I actually don't have one in my sample here, but that's what you would do is pick your services template, and then it'll automatically create the proper report for you.

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Vendor, if you want to actually assign who the vendor is, you can do that. So for example, if I want to assign this to Pure Plumbing, that way I know who the vendor was that is going to meet me at the property. And I can also enter in their bill when I get it or tell my admin that we can expect a bill later on.

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Those details will be covered more in the vendor video. Attachments allows you to put any kind of document here. Maybe there's a picture that you want to attach to it, or the vendor's bill you could attach to it, et cetera.

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Tags is just another identifier. We won't touch that in this video. That's for a more advanced.

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So you can see that you have a lot of information you can fill out here in the top section. The next section is what's going to actually show up on the route text screen as far as what actions to perform and what is going to be billable. So I'm going to come in down here and I'm going to pick my concierge code.

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These are my codes that come straight out of QuickBooks and have rates and everything associated with them. So I'm going to pick my concierge services A. Now, because I purposely don't have a description for concierge services A, it will automatically bring down the job name and fill that in, which is great because what is in the job item description here, this item description is what will appear on the customer's invoice. I can put in how many hours I estimate this to be.

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I can leave my rate alone. And then you have your invoice quantity. This is where you would put the hours that you want to bill the customer.

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So it defaults to one hour. We can put two hours. So we know that we're going to bill the customer $100.

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So let's say we want to add any other notes to this particular work order for our technician to follow. So I'm going to just pick the same code, but this time for this item description, I'm going to say make sure house is locked. Spell that right.

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Locked and secure. And this is just going to be more of a note field. This isn't something that should be invoiced.

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So I'm going to uncheck the include on invoice box. So what will essentially happen is when the route technician gets to the home, they will see both of these. Meet the plumber to fix it and make sure house is locked and secure.

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When you invoice the work order, only the top line will appear because that box is checked. The other is informational and will not appear. You might want to actually come down here and get rid of the rate just so that it doesn't affect the total of the work order in any way.

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Not that it would update the invoice with that amount, but on forecasts it might. So we'll get rid of that. So now our work order is entered and complete and ready to go.

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So we can do a save and close. Now, if we happen to change our date here to show the 12th and we'll scroll down, you can see right here, meet the plumber to fix the leaking faucet on the 9th. I'm sorry, at 9 a.m. on the 12th.

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So here you see that item. So entering a work order is as easy as that. Now it's on the schedule and it will automatically be billed for that $100 that we put in.

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That's it. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to us. Thank you and have a great day.