Work Authorizations
Work Authorizations helps you get formal customer approval before work starts, then keep change orders tied to the approved scope when the job changes.
When to use this
Use Work Authorizations when your team needs a written trail for customer approval before starting work, especially for larger jobs, discretionary upgrades, or scope that may expand after the first authorization.
It is useful when you want to:
- Record the customer, job or service, approved scope, authorization amount, and approval method in one place.
- Track each authorization by its WA number instead of relying on notes or message threads.
- Move authorizations through draft, pending, authorized, declined, and expired states.
- Add change orders after the original authorization is approved.
Before you start
- Confirm Jobs is available, because Work Authorizations depends on job records.
- Open Settings → Features and enable Work Authorizations if the page shows the disabled state.
- Decide who on your team can create, send, approve, decline, edit, or delete authorization records.
- Prepare a short internal policy for when verbal approval is acceptable versus written or digital approval.
Create an authorization
- Open Work Authorizations from the main navigation.
- Select New Authorization.
- Enter the customer name and, when relevant, the job or service title.
- Describe the Scope of Work clearly enough that office staff and field technicians can recognize what is covered.
- Enter the authorized amount.
- Choose the authorization method: Written, Verbal, Digital, or In Person.
- Add an expiration date or notes if your company requires them.
- Select Create Authorization.
The page includes status tabs for All, Draft, Pending, Authorized, Declined, and Expired, plus search by customer, WA number, job title, or description.
Send and approve work
A new record starts as a draft. From the row actions you can:
- Select Send to move a draft authorization into the pending state.
- Select Authorize to record customer approval. You can optionally enter who authorized the work, such as the customer's name or a note that approval was verbal.
- Select Decline when the customer does not approve the scope.
- Edit or delete a record when your team needs to correct or remove it.
The dashboard tiles summarize total authorizations, pending authorizations, authorized month-to-date, declined month-to-date, pending change orders, and total authorized value.
Track change orders
After an authorization is marked Authorized, the page shows a + CO action for adding change orders.
- Select + CO on the authorized work authorization.
- Describe the added or changed scope.
- Enter the change amount. Use a positive amount for added work or a negative amount for a credit.
- Add notes if needed, then save.
- Expand the authorization row to review its change orders.
- Approve or decline pending change orders from the expanded row.
Change orders stay attached to the original authorization so the office can see the original approved amount and later scope changes together.
Tips
- Use the status tabs (All, Draft, Pending, Authorized, Declined, Expired) to focus on authorizations at a specific stage. The Draft tab is a good place to review work that has not yet been sent to the customer.
- When marking an authorization as Authorized, fill in the Authorized by field with the customer's name or a note like "verbal approval" so your team has a record of who approved the work.
- Search works across customer name, WA number, job title, and scope description, so partial matches still surface results.
- Use Decline instead of deleting an authorization when the customer rejects the scope. Declined records stay in your history and appear in the Declined tab and dashboard tiles, while deletion removes the record and all attached change orders permanently.
- Change orders accept both positive amounts for added work and negative amounts for credits. Expand an authorized row to review all change orders and their approval status in one place.
- The dashboard tiles at the top of the page show pending authorizations, authorized and declined counts for the current month, pending change orders, and total authorized value — use them for a quick pulse check without opening individual records.
Troubleshooting
The New Authorization button is missing
The button appears when the plugin is enabled and the page has finished loading. If the disabled card remains visible, enable the plugin from Settings → Features first.
No records appear
Use the All tab and clear the search box. If records still do not appear, create the first authorization or confirm that another user did not filter the list by status.
I need to add a change order
Change orders are available after the original authorization is marked Authorized. Draft or pending authorizations can be sent, authorized, declined, edited, or deleted, but they do not show the + CO action yet.