How to Run a Work Order in OpslyFlow
From a job on the books to a job on the truck. Schedule, dispatch, run, and bill — all from one screen, with no double entry along the way.
The estimate said yes. Now the job has to actually happen.
An estimate gets you the work. A work order gets the work done. It's where the client, the schedule, the tech, the parts, and the price all live in one record — the record that follows the truck from the driveway to the invoice. If your office runs on yellow stickies and group texts, this is the module that quietly fixes that.
Schedule and assign in one place
Pick the date, time, duration, and tech right on the work order. No second tool, no whiteboard.
Two kinds of notes
Client Notes for what the customer should see, Field Notes for what the tech logs on-site. They never cross over.
Draft, in-progress, completed
Built-in stages tell you what needs scheduling, what's running, and what's ready to invoice.
One-click to invoice
When the job's done, Convert to Invoice carries client, items, and totals over.
Before you start
- You're logged into OpslyFlow as Owner, Admin, or Office Manager (Technicians get a different scoped view).
- The client either exists in your Clients module, or you have their info handy to create one.
- At least one tech is set up in Settings → Team. If the Sales Person dropdown is empty, ignore it for now.
What you'll do
- 1Open Work OrdersActivity tab vs All tab
- 2Start a new work orderIt saves itself the moment you click
- 3Pick the client and name the jobJob title shows up on every list
- 4Schedule the workDate, time, estimated duration
- 5Assign the techOne tap, the job is on their plate
- 6Add line itemsLabor, parts, taxable toggle
- 7Add two kinds of notesClient and Field
- 8Start the job, finish the jobState transitions explained
- 9Convert to invoiceNo retyping, one click
1Step 1 of 9Open Work Orders and learn the two views
Open Work Orders and learn the two views
Click Work Orders in the left sidebar. The top of the page shows your work order count. There are two tabs that look identical but work very differently, and this trips up almost every new user.
- Activity tab.
- The what-needs-doing view. Records get grouped by urgency: NEEDS SCHEDULING at the top (drafts with no tech yet) and READY TO INVOICE below (completed jobs waiting to be billed). This is where dispatch lives every morning.
- All tab.
- The database view. Flat list, full filters, search by WO number, client, or tech. This is where the office goes when somebody asks "did we ever do work for so-and-so."
Work Orders
6 orders · 2 running · 4h estimated
If a work order "disappears" after you assign a tech, it didn't disappear. The Activity tab hides drafts that already have a tech because they're no longer in the "needs scheduling" bucket. Switch to the All tab to see everything.
Start a new work order
Click the blue + New work order button in the top right. OpslyFlow creates a draft on the spot and drops you straight into the edit form. The new record already has a number (WO-007 in this example) and a DRAFT badge.
There is no Save button anywhere. The form auto-saves as you type. Close the tab mid-edit and your draft is still there when you come back.
WO-007
DraftIf you click + New work order and walk away, you'll end up with a half-empty draft in your NEEDS SCHEDULING list. That's fine for an hour, awkward after a week. Open the draft and use the kebab menu's Delete Work Order option to clear it out.
Pick the client and name the job
In the Work Order Info section, click Select Client and start typing. If the client's already in your Clients module they'll appear with their email and phone. If not, create them inline with + Create without leaving the form.
Type a real, useful Job Title. "HVAC inspection & filter replacement – Building A" beats "service call" by a country mile when you're looking at a list of 40 work orders three weeks from now. The job title is what shows on every list, dispatch screen, and tech notification. If the client is commercial, fill in the PO Number now.
The Sales Person dropdown may be empty in your tenant if nobody's set up sales roles yet. Don't worry about it — the work order saves fine without one. To populate it, set up sales persons in Settings → Team.
Schedule the work
The Schedule section has three fields:
- Scheduled Date.
- When the work happens.
- Scheduled Time.
- When the tech should show up.
- Estimated Duration (min).
- How long the job should take. Used to see how full your day is — the All tab's header counter adds these up across all visible records.
Get all three in if you can. Even a rough duration matters: it's what tells you whether next Tuesday is already booked solid or whether you've got room to fit in a same-day call.
Pad your estimated duration by 15 to 30 minutes on top of what you think the work takes. Drive time, parts walks, and the customer who wants to chat at the door always add up. A schedule built on optimistic durations falls apart by Wednesday.
Assign the tech
In the Assigned Team Members section, click Add Team Member and pick from your tech list. The chip appears with a small × on it if you ever need to remove and reassign. You can assign more than one tech if it's a two-person job. Each tech gets the work order on their own dispatch view.
The All techs filter on the Work Orders list only shows techs who have actually been assigned a job before. A brand-new tech won't appear in that filter until their first assignment — but they're still selectable here.
Add line items
Click Add Line Item. The modal opens with a Description field that doubles as a Catalog search. Start typing and matching saved services or products show up with their prices. Click one and the modal auto-fills: description, unit price, taxable flag.
Set the Quantity for the job. If you're adding labor that isn't taxable in your state, toggle Taxable off. For a one-off that isn't in your Catalog, type the description and price by hand; tick Save to catalog if you'll bill for it again.
First, when you pick a Catalog item, the Taxable toggle defaults to whatever you saved on the entry — always double-check it matches the line. Second, if you saved Additional Notes on a Catalog item, those notes carry into the line item and onto the customer's invoice. Clear that field unless you want every customer seeing it.
Add notes in two flavors
Scroll to the Notes section. Two boxes, two audiences, and they never cross:
- Client Notes (visible to client).
- Show up on the work order PDF if you ever print one for your records. Use this for what's included, what's not, scope clarifications, payment terms.
- Field Notes (added on-site by technicians).
- The yellow-tinted box. Where techs drop what they actually found or did, on-site, in the moment. Office staff can read them after; the customer never sees them.
Make a habit of dropping a Field Note with the one thing the next person on this account needs to know: a gate code, the dog out back, where to park. Six months from now, when the same client calls, that note saves a phone call and a wrong turn.
Start it, finish it, watch the badge change
A work order moves through five states. The badge in the header tells you which one you're in.
- Draft (gray).
- Editable, no tech committed yet. From the kebab menu you can Start Job, Duplicate, Download PDF, or Delete Work Order.
- In progress.
- The tech hit Start Job. A "Started" timestamp gets stamped on the record.
- Completed (green).
- The job's done and the record locks down. A green "Job Completed" banner appears with a Convert to Invoice button.
- Invoiced.
- The work order's been converted into an invoice. It still lives in the history, but it's closed out.
- Cancelled.
- Terminal state for jobs that fell through.
WO-005
In progressConvert the completed work order to an invoice
On a completed work order, click the green Convert to Invoice button in the Job Completed banner. The same action lives in the kebab menu (the three dots in the Work Order Info card) along with two other options.
- Convert to Invoice.
- Carries client, line items, and totals into a new invoice draft. No retyping. The work order's state flips to Invoiced.
- Duplicate.
- Creates a new draft pre-loaded with the same client, items, and notes. A quick head start when a similar job comes back, without retyping the line items.
- Download PDF.
- Generates an internal PDF of the work order. Handy for your records, a printout for the tech, or a paper trail in the job folder. Work orders aren't designed to be sent to customers; that's what estimates and invoices are for.
WO-006
CompletedThe work order PDF is an internal artifact, not a customer document. If you need something the customer can see, it's an estimate before the job or an invoice after. Both have a proper in-app preview before they go out the door.
The whole thing, on one page
Pin it above the office monitor. Hand it to a new hire on day one.
Common questions
I assigned a tech and now I can't find the work order on the Activity tab. Where did it go?
The Activity tab hides drafts that already have a tech because they're no longer in the "needs scheduling" bucket. Switch to the All tab and it'll be at the top of the list.
What's the difference between Client Notes and Field Notes?
Client Notes are scope and customer-facing context: what's included, what's not, payment terms. Field Notes (the yellow box) are for the tech to fill on-site with what they actually found or did. Neither ever crosses to the other, and the customer doesn't see Field Notes.
I picked a service from the Catalog and weird text appeared in Additional Notes. What's going on?
Catalog items can have Additional Notes saved on them. When you pull a Catalog item into a line, those notes come along and show up on the customer's invoice unless you clear them. Best practice: keep the Catalog item's Additional Notes field empty.
Can I delete a work order?
Only drafts. Once a work order has been started or completed, there's no Delete option in the kebab menu.
What happens when I click Convert to Invoice?
OpslyFlow creates a new invoice draft with the same client, line items, and totals carried over. The work order's state flips to Invoiced. Open the new invoice from the Invoices module to set the due date, add tax, and send.
Now get every job on the board
A pile of work orders isn't a plan until it's scheduled. Head to the Schedule module's Dispatch view, where every job still waiting on a technician lines up in one rail — drag each onto a person and a time and watch the week fill in. When the work's done, the Convert to Invoice button you just met closes the loop.
Keep reading
The calendar and dispatch board that turns a pile of work orders into a planned week — five views, a drag-to-assign board, and every tech's day in one place.
Build a clean, branded estimate in the time it takes a homeowner to pour a coffee — then send it without leaving the app.
Turn finished work into a clean, branded invoice with a one-tap pay link — then track what's outstanding, overdue, and paid from one screen.