How work orders flow through Coastline (and into your project budget)

A work order is how you assign a piece of work to a contractor and track it from "we need someone for this" through "they did it and we paid them." Coastline keeps the schedule, the quote, the invoice, and the impact on your project budget in one place, so you don't have to reconcile spreadsheets at the end of the job.

The work order lifecycle

Every work order moves through five statuses.

Draft. The work order exists but no time has been booked. You can edit the contractor, line items, scope, and notes freely. The contractor hasn't been notified.

Scheduled. You've picked a date and time and sent the work order to the contractor. The contractor sees it on their portal; you see the appointment on the project calendar.

Confirmed. The contractor has acknowledged the appointment and committed to showing up. This status only exists when there's something to confirm, which is why you have to schedule a work order before you can mark it confirmed.

Completed. The work is done. Coastline locks in the invoiced amount on the work order so you can reconcile against the contractor's bill and (optionally) sync the bill to QuickBooks.

Cancelled. The work order was killed off. Cancelled orders stay in the record but no longer count toward your project budget.

What order do things happen in?

The required path is short.

1. Create the work order (Draft).
2. Schedule it.
3. Mark it complete.

"Mark as confirmed" in between is optional. It's there for teams who want a visible signal that the contractor accepted the appointment. If the contractor never confirms, you can still mark the work complete after the fact.

You can also skip Scheduled entirely for ad-hoc or same-day work: leave the work order in Draft until the job is done, then mark it complete from the kebab menu.

Why "Confirmed" requires a scheduled date

"Confirmed" literally means the contractor has confirmed something: the date and time of the appointment. Without a scheduled date there's nothing to confirm. That's why "Mark as confirmed" doesn't appear in the kebab menu on a draft work order; it shows up the moment you schedule.

How a work order affects your project budget

Open a project and switch to the Budget tab. You'll see a row labeled Labor & Subcontractors (Work Orders) as soon as the project has at least one active work order. This row is automatic; you don't add or remove it.

Two columns matter.

Budgeted is what you plan to pay. While a work order is in Draft, Scheduled, or Confirmed status, this number is the sum of its line items (quantity × unit cost) and updates live as you edit the work order. If the contractor sent a quote and you approved it, the approved quote total is used instead of the raw line items.

Actual is what you actually paid. This populates from the invoiced amount on each completed work order: the number the contractor invoiced you for after the work was done, not necessarily what you planned. You can edit it on the work order's Billing panel before syncing the bill.

When a work order is marked complete, its Budgeted contribution freezes at the value it had right before completion, and the invoiced amount lands in Actual. Comparing the two columns gives you variance: did this job come in over or under what we planned? Editing the line items on a completed work order no longer changes the budgeted figure, so historical reporting stays accurate.

Cancelled work orders contribute to neither column.

What about the bill it creates?

When you sync a completed work order to QuickBooks, Coastline creates a bill tied to that work order, equal to the invoiced amount. The Budget tab tracks the work order's invoiced amount directly, so the generated bill is excluded from the Bills bucket. No double-counting.

Quick reference