The flow

How a job gets made

Today that means: add the customer, build a quote, create a job, then remember to attach the quote to the job. It works, and the quoting part of it works well. The trouble is it only describes one kind of work — a conversion — and four of the six things Taylored now sells don’t fit through it.

Today

5 steps, 3 screens

Read out of the current portal rather than from memory.

1
Add the customer
Customers → Add
Name, email, address. Saving creates a login and emails them their details.
Every customer gets an account the moment they exist, so an enquiry you haven't won yet has nowhere to live. Leads end up in three separate website-form tables instead.
2
Build a quote
Quotes → New quote
Pick bundles and products from the catalogue. Price adds up as you go.
Works well. This is the part of V2 worth keeping more or less as it is.
3
Publish it and wait for sign-off
Quotes → Publish
Customer reads it in the portal and signs off.
The customer has to go looking for it. Nothing on their home screen says anything is waiting on them.
4
Create the job, separately
Jobs → Add
A second form: title, description, customer, deposit, job size, van registration, van type, wheelbase, van size, is-it-a-sale-van, is-it-a-day-fit.
The van details are typed by hand as free text — the same registration re-keyed every time it comes back. And nothing connects this job to the quote you just built.
5
Attach the quote to the job
Quotes → Manage → Job
Set the job on the quote. Only then do its bundles become the job sheet and appear in ordering.
A manual link that's easy to forget. Until it's made, the workshop can't order parts.

In V3

One order, start to finish

The same quoting, the same parts ordering, the same workshop board. What changes is that an order holds it all together, and you say what kind of order it is at the start.

1
An enquiry arrives
Pipeline → New, or automatic from the website
From the website, the phone, or a walk-in. It becomes a contact and an enquiry straight away — no account, no commitment.
2
Start an order, and pick the type
Pipeline → New order
Conversion, day fit, stock sale, pre-order, rehoming purchase, or rehoming consignment. This one choice decides the stages, the paperwork and what the customer sees.
3
Attach the van
Order → Vehicle
Type the registration. If we've had it before — and for a rehoming van we always have — its whole history comes with it: the original build, services, previous owners.
4
Price it
Order → Quote
Conversions and day fits use the same quote builder as today. Sales carry a price and a deposit instead — no quote needed for a van that already exists.
5
Customer signs off
Customer portal → Home
It appears in their Action Centre the moment it's published, so nobody has to go hunting. We record who signed and when.
6
Work happens
Workshop → Active jobs
The order already owns its quote, its van and its workshop job, so parts ordering is live from the moment the deposit lands. Nothing to link up.
7
Handover
Order → Documents
Documents issue against the order — the right payment terms for that channel, warranty, certificates. A portal login gets created whenever it's actually useful.

The one new decision

Step 2 is the only genuinely new thing to learn. Everything after it follows from the answer:

Conversion
Day fit
Stock sale
Pre-order
Rehoming sale
Rehoming service

Side by side

	Today	In V3
Enquiries	Three unrelated website-form tables, or a customer account created too early	One pipeline. A contact exists before it has a login
Van sales	Not supported. The only trace is a 'Sale Van? Yes/No' dropdown on a job	Four of the six order types are sales
The van itself	Free text on the job. Re-typed every time it comes back	A vehicle record. Type the registration once, forever
Quote and job	Created separately, linked by hand. Ordering blocked until someone remembers	The order owns both. Nothing to link
Day fits	A checkbox on a job	An order type, with its own shorter set of stages
Rehoming	Nothing. Sellers have no record and no login	A consignment order and a sale order against one vehicle
Sign-off	Buried in the quote page. Customers miss it	Front and centre in the Action Centre
Parts ordering	Works well. Bundles carry an order status	Unchanged — same categories, same statuses

Worth saying plainly

What isn’t changing

The quote builder, the product and bundle catalogue, parts ordering with its categories and statuses, the active jobs board, vehicle checks, the message board and the calendar all carry over. Staff log in with the credentials they already have.

This is not a new way of running the workshop. It’s the same workshop, with somewhere for the other five kinds of order to live.

See it in the portal View the pipeline