Work orders & the workshop

Once a job is agreed it becomes a work order and moves through the workshop on the production board.

Raising the work order

Convert from the calculator or a quote. Record the due date, priority, and the deposit taken; the balance is due on collection. Attach intake photos of the artwork — condition on arrival is worth documenting for anything of value.

Paperwork

Print what the job needs: the customer estimate, the shop work order, art ID tags to keep pieces identified, and cut lists for the frame and the matboard. Every physical piece should carry a tag; unlabelled artwork on a workshop bench is how the expensive mistakes happen.

The production board

Custom Framing → Production Board is a drag-and-drop kanban by stage. Moving a job to cutting deducts the moulding footage, matboard and glazing from stock automatically, so inventory follows production rather than being reconciled afterwards.

Scheduling

The Production Schedule lays jobs out against their due dates and flags rush and overdue work. The Schedule of Incompletes lists everything not yet collected, sorted by due date.

Time tracking

Record who worked on a job and for how long, per stage. Over time this shows real labour cost per job type, which is usually the number missing from framing margins.

Quality control and rework

Run the Quality Control checklist before a job goes out, and log anything sent back through the Rework Log with its reason. Rework reasons cluster, and the cluster tells you what to fix — a material, a measurement habit, or a training gap.

Collection

Moving a job to complete can notify the customer by email or text automatically. Take the balance on collection, and photograph the finished piece for the gallery if the customer is happy for you to.

Note: your business can rename menu items (Settings → POS Configuration → Menu Labels), so the names in your menu may differ from those shown here.