Set up your first job

Jobs are the spine of Construction Scope — every estimate, invoice, time entry, material order, change order, photo, and customer note rolls up to a job. Setting one up correctly the first time pays off all the way through close-out, audit, warranty calls, and the next time you bid that customer.

From the dashboard

Click New Job in the top bar. You'll see four fields: customer, job title, scope notes, and pipeline status. Fill the first three; pipeline status defaults to Lead and will progress as you move through estimating, approval, and scheduling.

If the customer doesn't exist yet, type the name in the customer field and pick "Create new customer" — the customer record gets created in the same flow so you don't have to switch screens.

From an existing customer

Open the customer record and click New Job from the customer page. The customer is pre-selected so you skip a step. This is the right path when a returning customer calls about a second project — keeping all their jobs under one customer record makes the warranty + repeat-business workflow cleaner later.

Picking the right job title

The job title is what shows up in your pipeline view, on the schedule, and on the invoice. Pick something a tired foreman can identify at a glance:

• Name by address or project, not by customer ("412 Oak St kitchen" beats "Smith kitchen") — customers move, addresses don't, and you'll have multiple jobs per customer eventually.
• Include the scope in the title ("412 Oak — kitchen remodel" vs just "412 Oak"). Your foreman picks the right job faster when the title says what the work is.
• Keep it under 40 characters so it doesn't truncate on mobile.

Pipeline status — what each one means

Construction Scope uses 8 default statuses that mirror how a job actually moves through your shop. You don't have to use them all — pick what matches your workflow:

• Lead — someone called or emailed; you haven't quoted yet.
• Estimated — estimate sent, waiting on the customer to sign.
• Approved — estimate signed; deposit may or may not have been collected.
• Scheduled — on the calendar with a start date and crew assignment.
• In progress — work has started.
• Awaiting payment — work is done, invoice sent, money not yet in.
• Closed — paid, customer signed off, the job is in the rearview.
• Lost — for jobs that don't move forward. Keep them; the next time the customer calls, you'll see why the last quote didn't close.

Scope notes — what to put there

Scope notes are for the verbal commitments — the stuff you promised on the walkthrough that isn't in the formal estimate yet. "Wants the trash haul-off included." "Cabinet color decision by Friday." "Will pay deposit by check, not card." Notes accumulate as the job moves; nothing gets deleted unless you delete it.

Common mistakes on the first job

• Skipping the job because the work is small. Even a one-day service call benefits from time + material tracking — and when the customer calls back in three months, the history is right there.
• Picking a customer name that doesn't match how you'd say it out loud. "R Construction LLC" makes the pipeline harder to scan than "Riverside Construction."
• Putting the entire estimate scope in the job's scope-notes field. That field is for verbal extras; the estimate is the formal scope.