Track Every Joinery Job from Start to Finish

How many live jobs do you have right now? What stage is each one at? Which ones are on track and which are running late? If answering these questions requires opening four different files and making two phone calls, your job tracking isn't working.

The Cost of Lost Visibility

Every joinery workshop loses money to poor tracking. A job that should take four weeks takes six because nobody noticed the glazing was delayed. A client complains because nobody updated them since the deposit was paid. A quote gets forgotten in an email inbox and a £15,000 job goes to a competitor. These aren't rare events — they happen every month in workshops without proper tracking.

What a Job Tracking System Should Do

At its simplest, job tracking means knowing three things about every project: where it is, who's working on it, and when it's due. A proper system goes further — it tracks the financial health of each job (are we on budget?), the material status (has everything been ordered?), and the client communication (when did we last update them?).

Pipeline: Before Production

Tracking starts before a job reaches the workshop. Enquiries, site visits, quotes, and order confirmations all need tracking. A sales pipeline shows every potential job, its value, and its probability of converting. This isn't just good organisation — it's essential for capacity planning. You need to know what's coming to plan your workshop schedule.

Production: During the Build

Once a job enters production, tracking becomes operational. Which phase is it in? Is it on schedule? Are materials ready? Who's assigned? A visual timeline answers all these questions at a glance. Status updates happen naturally as phases are completed — not as an extra admin task.

Archive: After Completion

A completed job shouldn't just disappear. It goes into an archive where you can review its profitability, reference its specifications for similar future work, and access its documentation if a client calls with a snag list. The archive isn't just storage — it's your workshop's institutional memory.