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Quotes, bookings and jobs

Every piece of work moves through up to three stages.

 quote ──┬── booking ──┬── job        the offer, the customer's yes,
         │             └── job        and the work itself
         └── booking ───── job
  • Quote. A request for work and the offer made for it.
  • Booking. The customer said yes. A booking sits under one quote, and a quote can have several.
  • Job. One piece of work being carried out: a site visit, a shipment, a maintenance appointment. A job can sit under one booking, or stand on its own.

A quote with its bookings and their jobs is one chain. A job with no booking is a chain of one.

Why all three stages​

Many businesses track only the job: the shipment, the install. But the quote stage shows which offers are waiting on the customer, and the booking stage holds what must be agreed before work starts: the signature, the deposit, the date. Skip them and the work you are still winning, or have won but not arranged, is invisible. We recommend all three.

Outside reference numbers​

Other systems' numbers for the same work, such as an order number or an invoice number, are recorded as outside references. A later email that quotes one can then be traced to its work. Matching ignores case and punctuation, so REF-10422 and ref 10422 match.