Jobs and tasks

A job is a piece of work you owe a client - a VAT return, a year end, an onboarding - broken into tasks, the steps someone has to work through. Each job has an owner, a due date and a status, and each task can be assigned to a person. Build a job once as a template and reuse it for every client, or set it to recur so it creates itself on schedule.

Jobs live on the Jobs tab of each client’s page. The Work page in the firm console brings together everything across the practice.

Before you start

• To see jobs, your role needs permission to view jobs. To create and edit them, permission to manage jobs - by default the firm owner, firm admins, practice managers and bookkeepers.
• To give work to someone else, your role needs Assign work to other members of the firm - by default the firm owner, firm admins and practice managers. Anyone who can edit a job can still take a task for themselves.

Create a job

1. Open the client and go to Jobs.
2. Click New job.
3. Optionally Start from a template. The title, tasks and due date are filled in from it.
4. Enter or check the Job title, Start date and Due date.
5. Choose an Owner and a Priority (Low, Normal or High).
6. If you did not use a template, list the Tasks, one per line.
7. Click Create job.

When you start from a template, the due date is worked out from the start date and the template’s length, and moves if you change the start date - until you edit the due date yourself. Tasks from a template are assigned to the job’s owner, so the job lands in someone’s My tasks straight away.

Work through a job

Click a job to open it. Inside you can:

• Mark a task done with the tick on its row as you finish it.
• Change who a task is assigned to with the picker on its row.
• Add a task with Add a task, choosing who it is assigned to.
• Write Notes for your firm and Messages to client - see Messages.

On the Jobs tab, you can change a job’s Status and Owner straight from the table.

Job status	Meaning
Not started	Nothing done yet.
In progress	Work is under way.
Waiting on client	You need something from the client.
In review	Ready for review.
Complete	Done.
Cancelled	No longer needed.

Tasks have their own statuses: To do, In progress, Blocked, In review, Done and Cancelled.

The Work page

The Work page in the firm console has two tabs:

• My tasks - every task assigned to you, across every client, with its client, status and due date. Tick a task to mark it done.
• All jobs - every open job across the practice, with its client, status, task progress, due date and owner.

Job templates

A job template holds the steps you follow every time, how long each one takes, and the kind of work it bills as.

1. Go to Templates > Jobs and create a template.
2. Enter a Template name, for example “Quarterly VAT”.
3. Choose the Kind of work - such as VAT returns, Annual accounts, Payroll or Bookkeeping. This sets the hourly rate jobs from this template bill at. Choose Not tied to a rate if it should not.
4. Set How often: One-off, Every month, Every quarter or Every year.
5. Set Days to complete.
6. Add the Tasks, with the hours you expect each one to take.
7. Save.

If you can see rates, the template shows what an hour costs and roughly what the whole job is worth, based on your rate cards.

Every job made from a template keeps its own copy of the tasks. Editing or deleting a template later never changes a job that is already under way.

Recurring jobs

A template that repeats can create jobs for a client automatically.

1. In the template, set How often to monthly, quarterly or yearly.
2. Set Anchored to: The client’s fiscal year end, The end of the month, The end of the quarter, or A fixed day of the month.
3. Set Start this many days before - how far ahead of the anchor date the job should appear.
4. On a client’s Jobs tab, find the template under Recurring jobs and switch it on.

Bokapsys then creates the job for that client on schedule, from the template as it stands at that moment. Recurring jobs are created unassigned, so give them an owner when they appear.

Note

A yearly job anchored to the client’s fiscal year end needs the client’s fiscal year end to be recorded (it shows on their Engagement tab). Without it, that template cannot schedule a job for them.

How assignment works

• You can only assign work to active members of your own firm.
• If a template would hand a task to someone who has left the firm, it goes to the job’s owner instead.
• A person without Assign work to other members of the firm sees owners and assignees but no pickers.

Related

Time and billingLog time against a job and bill it.

MeetingsTurn what was agreed in a meeting into tasks.

MessagesNotes and client messages on a job.