| When a contractor builds a house, they will ask you for a firm quote for the lighting. You'll perform a takeoff from their plans and create a quotation. This quote will include a list of all the lights in each room and a total dollar amount that the builder will be charges. You may create a template to copy over and over to every similar house, or you may just build a work order for a single house.
At this point, you may only know the lot number as the address may not yet be assigned by the post office. You can enter either the lot number or the job address and then be able to search for this work order by the address, builder name, work order number, shipping date, or other method.
During construction, the house may sell and the new buyers will have the opportunity to change the lights being installed. You can remove the fixtures that are not wanted and add new fixtures as required. The work order will show the total work order dollar value, the builder's allowance and how much the new owners are required to pay.
Normally, the new owners will pay the change fee right away, but you can take a deposit and choose to place the rest on accounts receivable to be paid later. The system will keep track of the owner payments separate from the builder's allowance and payments.
* Note that the work orders are not posted to the ledger as income until the fixtures are delivered and the job is completed. This saves you from paying tax at the time of order and instead shifts the tax payable based on the date shipped. If there are several customer invoices created for payments or accounts receivable, these can also be left as work orders until completion. At that point, all related work orders will be posted at the same time.
As construction completion dates are unreliable, the system will allow you to enter a shipping date, but prevent you from actually shipping the goods until the shipping date has been confirmed by the customer. This simple trap helps prevent a lot of unnecessary deliveries.
As well, if some items are delivered to the job site and others are special ordered, the system will keep track of what has been delivered and what still needs to be delivered, helping to prevent double shipping of items already shipped.
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