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Who uses this: Admins — custom status workflows are built in Company Settings, which only the Admin role can view. Availability: All regions.
A custom status workflow defines and labels the statuses an estimate or invoice moves through, from initial review to approval to job handoff, so the stages in FieldPulse match the stages your business actually works in. You build workflows once in Company Settings, and every estimate and invoice your team creates follows one.

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Overview

A status workflow is an ordered set of statuses that an estimate or invoice can sit in. You can create more than one workflow — a separate flow for different job types or sales cycles — so each kind of work follows the process that fits it, and your team stays on the same track. Every status you create is assigned to a status bucket. The bucket is what FieldPulse and QuickBooks understand about the status, so a status named “Waiting on landlord” still maps to a corresponding category in QuickBooks and keeps your accounting accurate. Once workflows are in place, the By Status subpage under Estimates and Invoices shows your records as a pipeline of status boards, with the total value of each status at the top of its column. The Estimates By Status board with tabs for each custom workflow, status columns for Draft, Sent, Customer Follow-Up, Accepted, and Rejected showing a dollar total and record count under each, estimate tiles below them, and a tile action menu open on the right

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Before you begin

  • Decide which statuses match your real sales pipeline first. Every status you create is assigned to a status bucket, and the bucket controls how that status maps to QuickBooks, so know which stage each status represents before you build the workflow.
  • Look at the workflow your account already has. A default workflow was added to your FieldPulse account when you signed up, and you can build alongside it rather than replacing it.
Important QuickBooks note: Any estimate that syncs in from QuickBooks is assigned to the Default Estimate Workflow. You can edit the estimate afterward to reassign the workflow.

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Step-by-step setup

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1. Open the custom status settings

  1. Select Company Settings in the left-side menu.
  2. Select Estimates & Invoices in the header.
  3. Select the Estimate Custom Status tab or the Invoice Custom Status tab, depending on which record type you are building for.
Company Settings opened to Estimates & Invoices with the Estimate Custom Status and Invoice Custom Status tabs highlighted, the Create Custom Status Workflow button marked with an arrow, and the existing workflows listed below with their status chips and a Set as default link on each

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2. Create the workflow

  1. Select Create Custom Status Workflow.
  2. Name the workflow.
  3. Add and label each status this workflow uses, assigning every status to a status bucket. The Settings reference below lists the buckets and what each one allows.

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3. Set a default workflow

  1. Select Set as default next to the workflow you want new records to use.
New estimates or invoices then pick up that workflow on their own. Even with a default set, you can change the workflow on an individual estimate or invoice at the time you create the record.

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4. Choose the invoice workflow a converted estimate follows

  1. On the Estimate Custom Status tab, select the edit icon next to the estimate workflow. The Update Status Workflow panel opens.
  2. Set Related Invoice Status Workflow to the invoice workflow you want converted estimates to follow.
  3. Select Update Status Workflow.
After an estimate record is converted to an invoice record, the new invoice follows the workflow named here. The Fast-turn Workflow row with its edit pencil icon circled and marked with an arrow, and the Update Status Workflow panel open below it showing the Workflow Name field, the Related Invoice Status Workflow dropdown set to Default Workflow, and the Cancel, Deactivate, and Update Status Workflow buttons

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Settings reference

The custom status settings live on two tabs under Company Settings > Estimates & Invoices.

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Estimate status buckets

Estimate workflows have 12 status buckets. Each bucket sets whether a workflow has to include a status of that type, and how many statuses of that type the workflow can hold. Reference chart of the 12 estimate status buckets — Draft, Travel Time, Pending, Accepted, Completed, Lost, Estimate, In Progress, Sent, Rejected, Canceled, and Any — each card stating whether the bucket is required and whether one or more than one status of that type is allowed

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Invoice status buckets

Invoice workflows have 7 status buckets.
You cannot remove or edit the names of the default invoice statuses in each bucket, but you can change the color and symbol for each status.
Reference chart of the 7 invoice status buckets — Draft, Sent, Invoiced, Partially Paid, Paid, Void, and Any — each card stating whether the bucket is required, how many statuses of that type are allowed, and the note that Any bucket statuses do not push updates to QuickBooks

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Track your records on the By Status board

The By Status subpage shows every estimate or invoice as a tile on a board, arranged in columns by status, so you can see at a glance what is progressing and what is stalled.
  1. Select the Estimates or Invoices tab in the left-side menu.
  2. Select the By Status subpage at the top of the screen.
Tabs across the top of the board switch the view between All and each custom workflow. Under each status title, FieldPulse displays the total sum of the records in that column, so you can see how cash moves through the pipeline. The Estimates By Status board with the By Status subpage circled, the workflow tabs marked "View by each custom Workflow", and the row of dollar totals under the Draft, Sent, Customer Follow-Up, Accepted, Rejected, and Lost status headers circled Each tile carries its own controls:
  • Drag and drop. Rearrange tiles as needed.
  • The action menu. Select the three-dot icon on a tile to open it. The menu shows the workflow’s statuses as chips and groups the record’s actions under Related, PDFs, Update, and Basic — creating related records, viewing and generating PDFs, and making updates without leaving the board.
An estimate tile in the Accepted column with its three-dot icon circled and marked with an arrow, and the open action menu showing the workflow status chips above four groups of actions labeled Related, PDFs, Update, and Basic

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Send automatic messages when a status changes

You can send automatic email and text messages to a customer whenever an estimate or invoice moves into a particular status. Two automatic triggers cover custom status workflows:
  • When Estimate Status is changed to (Status)
  • When Invoice Status is changed to (Status)
Associate a communication template with one of these triggers and the message sends on its own. Common uses are following up on open estimates, chasing unpaid invoices, requesting a review once an invoice is finalized, and revisiting an estimate that did not convert the first time. The Add Communication Trigger panel with Choose Trigger set to "When estimate status is changed to Lost" and circled, alongside the Create Email Template panel holding the Reconnecting After Lost Estimate template and its email body Example of an automatic trigger and template that can be sent to the customer when a team member changes the estimate status to “Lost.”
To learn more about customer communications and automatic triggers, see Setting Up Automatic Communication Triggers.

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Report on custom statuses

Custom statuses and workflows are available as report columns, so you can filter and group records by the stages you defined.
To learn more about reporting in FieldPulse, see How to Use Raw Data Reporting.

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FAQs

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Can an invoice show “Invoiced” after it has been sent to a customer?

Once an invoice is sent, its status updates to Sent, and Sent is what displays going forward until the invoice is paid or adjusted by hand. Invoiced marks the day the invoice was finalized, which is also used to calculate the due date from your Company Settings default terms, and that invoiced date stays on the record for reference.

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Still need help?

Reach the FieldPulse support team at support@fieldpulse.com or through the chat feature in the bottom-right corner of your screen. Your workflows are set up correctly when a new estimate or invoice picks up your default workflow, moves across the statuses you named on the By Status board, and each status maps to its category in QuickBooks.