How To: From work order to invoice


Tracking elements such as your billable hours and used materials isn’t always that easy when you’re working on the road. More often than not important things are forgotten or hours worked are only rough estimates. Enter the work order: a document that keeps everything neatly in one place. But paper is impermanent and can easily get lost. The solution? A digital work order. The perfect solution? A digital work order combined with Teamleader Focus.


Working digitally has the big advantage that there are no more papers that can get lost, plus all of your information is being centralised: everything you fill in will be sent to Teamleader Focus automatically when you’re connected to the internet.


Access to work orders is managed in the user settings of an admin account in Teamleader Focus. If you want a user to be able to create work orders, go to Settings > Users and grant access by switching on the work orders slider.


Different ways of creating a work order


There are some different ways to create a work order in Teamleader Focus, but there’s one thing you need to know: you can’t finish a work order from the web version of Teamleader Focus. Finalising a work order is only possible from within the mobile app for Android or iOS.


What you can do via the web version, is preparing the work order for later use.

  1. Create a work order from scratch via the app
  2. Prepare your work order from a meeting in Teamleader Focus  
    • From scratch
    • Based on the content of a quotation


1. Creating a work order from scratch

Creating a work order using the Teamleader Focus app is child’s play. Our app will present you with the necessary steps and will let you sign off with the customer’s signature.

Step 1: define a customer

Thanks to the link between the mobile app and the Teamleader Focus database you can easily look up existing customers and complement their data in the work order. The address will be automatically filled in, or, if you want, you can enter a construction site address. You can also add a project. 


Start by going to the home screen in the app and click on + > Work order. Fill out the details on the screen.



If you have custom fields on work order level, you can also find them listed here, ready for you to fill out.


Click on Save.


Step 2: add work hours

In the next screen, you'll find a draft version of the work order with some general information.

You can click the address, and open it with either:

  • Apple Maps
  • Google Maps
  • Waze


If needed, in this step, you can still edit the general information and customer information.


In order to review the work order, you will need to add Working hours (which are required). Click on the + to add them.



Enter your start and end time to define how long you’ve been working. Taking a lunch break? No problem, just add a couple of hours after you started working again. Do you have anything to report concerning those hours, add a description if you want.


Working solo can be tedious. That’s why, if you’re hitting the road with co-workers, you can add them to the same work order. All combined hours will be added to the total amount of the invoice.



When you're ready, click on Add work hour in the top right-hand corner.


Step 3: save consumed products

Similar to adding work hours you can add products that are already available in the Teamleader Focus database to your work order. Add as many products as you like together with the amount you used! Click on the + in the bottom right-hand corner and choose Products. Add your products. 


It's also possible to add new products here:


Step 4: add a description, distance and pictures

You can also add some additional items to the work order, such as a description, distance and pictures to complete the work order. This way, you and your co-workers will know if there is anything special that’s best not to be forgotten.


Step 5: review the work order

Completely finished? Tap on Review work order to collect all the data in a PDF file. You can change the document layout here too. Let the customer sign on the spot by choosing 'Finalise with signing'.



Tip: You can also send an email, including the pdf document of the work order, to your customer when finalising your work order via the mobile app. 

  1. In the Teamleader Focus web app, first make the email template you want to send to your customer. Go to Settings > Work Orders > Templates for work orders and click on the “+”-sign. It’s possible to add several different templates which you can choose from. You can also choose the language which could be handy if you also have jobs abroad. 

  1. Once you made the template you can send it when finalising your work order in the mobile app.

  1. In the web version it will look like this:



When a work order has the status ‘Final’, it means it’s finalised. When it has the status ‘Sent’ though, it means it is both sent and finalised.

2. Prepare a work order from a meeting

This happens a lot in companies that have a field service and an office staff. For example, the office staff can arrange a meeting for the technicians of the field service.

As the office staff, you can create a meeting in Teamleader Focus so your technician knows where to go. 


Web version

On the web version you can prepare your work order by clicking on Add work order in the top right-hand corner. You’ll get two options: either you partially fill out the work order based on an existing quotation, or you can choose to manually add some data. You can add a description of the tasks to be performed or the required materials. That way, your technician will know what to expect!  

You'll be able to edit this draft work order later as well by returning to the meeting and clicking on Edit work order. You'll also find this draft version of the work order (not in pdf though) in your work order overview (cf. 'Work order overview' later on in this article). 


Mobile app

Via the mobile app, you navigate to your meeting and then click the + > Work order button. Now you can start adding items and/or finalising the work order.


Work order overview

Both on the web version and on the mobile app you'll find an overview of your past and present work orders.


Web version

In the web version of Teamleader Focus, you can see an overview of your work orders by navigating to Work orders in the menu on the left.


You can for example see which employees worked on which work order and for which customer, what the date of the work order is, what the status (draft, final, sent) is and if there's a project linked to it. It's possible to sort the overview according a certain column (ascending or descending) by clicking on the title of that column. You can also choose which columns you'd like to visualize in the overview by clicking on the cogwheel in the bottom right-hand corner.


Moreover, you can use the search bar in the top left-hand corner if you are looking for a certain work order.


Clicking on a work order opens the detail page of that work order.


You'll find:


  • The status of the work order in the header, next to the title: draft, final or sent
  • The location of the work order and the distance that was added
  • When the work order was created 
  • The linked meeting and/or the linked project
  • Which custom fields were filled out
  • The description of the work order if you added one
  • How many work hours were registered by which colleagues and the total time registered
  • An overview of the products added to the work order
    • You can find the ID and name of the products
    • You can find the individual price of the products and the total price of all products
  • The photos you added to the work order
  • For work orders that are finalized, you can access the pdf file of the work order by clicking on View pdf in the top right-hand corner of the work order overview
    • Note that you can also find the finalized work order in the 'Files' on the company/contact page of the linked customer


Mobile app

When you navigate to Work orders on the mobile app, you can find an overview of your upcoming and past work orders. If you click on the filter symbol in the top right-hand corner, you can sort your work orders on the statuses draft, final and sent. The search bar allows you to search within your work orders.


Converting a work order into an invoice

(Note that if you have our Work order Booster, you'll also need to be on the GROW or FLOW package in order to be able to invoice your work orders, as invoicing isn't available in SMART.)


If you now want to invoice your work order, follow these steps:

  1. In the web version of Teamleader Focus, navigate to the customer linked to your work order
  2. You'll find the work order you created in the 'Files' of that customer
  3. Navigate to 'Unbilled time trackings'. You’ll find a couple of actions you can undertake there:
    • Create an invoice
    • Mark as unbillable
    • Move


If you’re choosing to create an invoice, the content of the invoice will appear on a new screen. Make some edits if you like and save the invoice. That’s all you have to do to convert a work order to a full invoice!



Invoice a work order out of a project

It’s also possible to invoice a work order out of a project. Read more about that in this article.


Ready to try it yourself? Download the app for free via Apple App Store or the Google Play Store and create a free trial at https://go.teamleader.eu/trial/try-now!

Was this article helpful?