Jobs explained

A job is one instance of work your firm does for a client — a 1040 return, a January payroll, an onboarding engagement. Jobs sit inside pipelines , move through stages from start to finish, and carry every related item — tasks, organizers, invoices, documents, time entries — in one place so the team always knows the state of the work.

Jobs at a glance

A job is created for a specific client account inside a pipeline that fits the service. As the work progresses, the job moves from stage to stage either manually or via automove . Every item the job needs — tasks, organizers, client requests, proposals, invoices, payments, documents, time entries, chats, notes, wiki pages — can be linked to the job , so the full picture lives on a single card.

Here is what you can do with jobs:

• Track the state of the work — set a job status to mark a job as Active, Completed, Archived, or a custom status.
• Move jobs through the pipeline — drag-and-drop a job to the next stage, or let automove progress it once all action items are complete.
• Customize the job card — toggle on the fields you want to see at a glance.
• Track time and capacity — set a time budget , track time spent on the job, and compare planned vs actual hours.
• Keep clients informed — assign a client-facing status so clients can see where their work stands without reaching out.

How jobs work

From the team member’s side, a job is the unit you actually work on. The lifecycle in practice:

1. A job lands on your board. You see it on a stage of the relevant pipeline, with a card showing the client, current stage, assignee, deadline, and what’s still outstanding.

2. You open the job and find everything in one place. All the tasks, organizers, documents, invoices, client requests, messages, notes, and time entries tied to the engagement live on the job — you don’t have to hunt across pages.

3. You work through the action items. As tasks complete, organizers come back, invoices get paid, and documents are approved, those items clear off the job. Log time against the job as you go.

4. You signal blockers when they come up. If you’re waiting on the client or someone else, switch the job to a custom status like Missing docs or Needs review. The job stays in the stage but the status tells the team what’s holding it up. When the blocker clears, the job returns to Active.

5. The job advances and closes. Once every action item in the current stage is done, the job moves to the next stage — manually if you drag it, automatically if automove is set up. When the work is delivered, mark the job Completed, then archive it when it no longer needs to be on the active board.

Jobs vs tasks

Jobs and tasks are often confused because both can be assigned and tracked, but they sit at different levels of the work.

• Job — the full piece of work a client pays for, such as a 1040 return or January payroll. A job lives inside a pipeline, moves through stages, and carries all the items needed to complete the engagement.
• Task — a discrete to-do inside a job, assigned to a team member. A job can hold many tasks (for example, “prepare 1040”, “call the client about missing docs”, and “make final review”), each delegated to a different person and worked on in parallel. A task can be linked to only one job at a time.

For the bigger picture of how pipelines, stages, jobs, and tasks fit together, see the dedicated article .

Access and permissions

The firm owner and admins can see, add, edit, move, and delete jobs in any pipeline by default.

Other team members can work with jobs only for the accounts they are assigned to and only in pipelines made available to them . To work across all accounts, a team member needs the View all accounts access right .

Note

Linking certain elements to a job (proposals, invoices, organizers, documents, payments, time entries) requires the corresponding Manage access right. See the full list in Link elements to jobs .

Automate processes with jobs

Most of what happens to a job between creation and completion can be automated through pipeline automations .

What can be automated:

• Creating the job — schedule recurring work with job recurrences , or auto-add jobs from the client sign-up form .
• Running the work in a stage — send organizers, invoices, proposals, emails, and tasks; apply folder templates; update assignees and account access. See the full list of automation types .
• Resolving blockers — pair a custom job status with a client request automation so the status returns to Active when the client submits.
• Refreshing the client-facing status — use the Update client-facing job status automation to update what clients see as the job moves through stages.

Client view

Clients don’t see jobs themselves. What they can see is the client-facing job status , if your firm has it enabled. The status appears in the client portal and shows where the work stands.

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