Work Orders turn proposal items into clear instructions and commercial line items for contractors. They are managed inside a Job and keep an issue and revision history for your team.
If Work Orders are enabled for your organisation, staff can use the Work Orders tab on a Job. Admins configure Work Order types, contractor defaults, and product mappings under Admin → Work Orders.
Before you start
- Create the Job for the correct customer. See Jobs.
- Link a proposal in the Job details. A proposal is required before Work Orders can be created.
- Linking a contract is optional. When a proposal has one matching contract, Neptune can select it for you.
- Ask an admin to create Work Order types and product mappings. See Work Order Settings.
- Add active users with the Contractor role if you want to assign contractors. See Users.
Link the sales scope to a Job
- Open the Job.
- Edit the Job details.
- In Proposal, choose the proposal that contains the items for this Job.
- If required, choose a Contract linked to that proposal.
- Save the Job.
The Work Orders tab now uses the selected proposal as its source. After the Job has Work Order history, the proposal and contract cannot be changed.
Generate Work Order drafts
- Open the Job’s Work Orders tab.
- Click Generate Work Orders.
- Review each Work Order type tab. Mapped proposal items are grouped by their configured Work Order type.
- Turn Include this Work Order Type on or off as needed.
- Choose a Contractor, or leave the draft unassigned until it is ready to issue.
- Review the description and line items.
- Open Unassigned items if shown. Choose a Work Order for each item you want to include.
- If an item needs a manual pricing correction, enter a positive quantity and purchase cost, then resolve it.
- Click Create drafts.
Neptune creates a separate draft for each included Work Order type. Proposal items already used in a draft or issued Work Order are not silently duplicated in later generation.
Edit or delete a draft
Open the draft’s actions menu and choose Edit. You can change:
- the contractor;
- the description; and
- line descriptions, quantities, cost, sell, and related numeric values shown in the table.
At least one line must remain. Click Save changes in the draft dialog when finished.
Choose Delete to remove an unissued draft. Its proposal items become available for generation again.
Issue a Work Order
- Check the contractor, description, line items, cost, and sell values.
- Open the draft’s actions menu and choose Issue.
- Review the confirmation and click Issue Work Order.
After issue, the commercial details become read-only. The Work Order receives an order number and remains in the Job’s Work Order list and history.
Issuing records the Work Order in Neptune. The current staff flow does not send a Work Order to Reckon and does not collect contractor acknowledgement.
Revise an issued Work Order
- Open the issued Work Order’s actions menu.
- Choose Create revision.
- Confirm with Create revision.
- Edit the complete draft copy.
- Choose Issue revision when it is ready.
The current issued version stays active while the revision is a draft. Issuing the revision supersedes the previous version. Use View history to review versions and lifecycle events.
Cancel a Work Order
- Open the issued Work Order’s actions menu.
- Choose Cancel [Work Order name].
- Confirm with Cancel Work Order.
The cancelled Work Order remains in history. Cancellation does not request or record contractor acknowledgement.
Common issues and limits
- The Work Orders tab says to link a proposal: Edit the Job and choose a proposal. The contract is optional.
- Proposal or Contract cannot be changed: The Job already has Work Order history. This lock keeps issued work tied to its original sales scope.
- Generate Work Orders is unavailable: There may be no unused proposal items left to generate.
- An item appears under Unassigned items: No active Work Order type mapping applies. Assign it in the generation window, or ask an admin to update the product mapping.
- A contractor is missing: Only active users with the Contractor role appear for new assignments.
- A pricing correction is rejected: Enter a positive quantity and purchase cost.
- A draft cannot be issued: Check that it has at least one line and assign the required contractor before issue.
- An issued Work Order cannot be edited: Choose Create revision, edit the revision draft, then Issue revision.
- A cancelled or superseded Work Order has no edit action: These records are kept for history.
- No Reckon status appears: Neptune does not currently provide a Work Order handoff to Reckon in this flow.
- No contractor acceptance appears: Neptune does not currently collect contractor acknowledgement for Work Orders.