Creating a Recurring Job Updated July 14, 2023 22:25

Overview

There are two kinds of jobs in Jobber, one-off jobs and recurring jobs. Recurring jobs are used for:

• Jobs that have multiple visits with a repeating schedule. For example, you visit the client every Tuesday
• Jobs where you invoice your client on a schedule. For example, you bill once per month or after each visit.

Creating the job

You can create a job from many places in Jobber, including:

• the Create button from the side navigation
• the More Actions button on schedule
• the More Actions button on a client’s profile
• or from the New Job button on Home (Dashboard for non-admin users).
• the Convert to Job button on an approved quote
• More Actions > Convert to job on a request

Select a client and add job details

When creating a new job, start by selecting the client this job will be for. Click Client Name to add a client. If you are converting a request or a quote to a job, the job will automatically be for the same client as the request or quote. 

Select a client from the list, or Create New Client if they are not yet a client in your Jobber account.

Next, in the Title field, enter a short job title. This will show up as the title of the job in your schedule and on the Jobber mobile app. The job title will not show to the client and is often used as a description of the job that you will be doing.

The Instructions field is where you an add directions for your team for this job. This is also an internal field and the instructions will appear on each visit. Instructions on a particular visit can be edited from the visit on the calendar which will change the instructions for that visit only.

Next to the client name, are the job details. This includes the job number. To change the job number, click Change then enter a new job number. Job numbers count upwards from the highest job number currently in your account. If your current highest job number is #123, the next job you make will default to #124.

If you have any job level custom fields set up, they can be filled out while creating the job.

Set up your repeating schedule

To create a recurring job, make sure to select the Recurring Job tab. 

Next, is setting up the schedule for this job. Since this is a recurring job, it will have a schedule with repeating visits. 

1. To set the schedule for the job, select a Start Date for the job. This is the day the contract begins. To help with your scheduling there is a preview of the current month's schedule. Select Show Calendar or Hide Calendar to view or remove the preview.
2. Select the Duration. This is how long the entire job lasts for. For example, if you visit the client every 2 weeks for a contract of 1 year, then the duration would be 1 year. The maximum duration is 10 years.
   Note: We recommend setting your duration to one year for optimal visit generation. Don't worry! We'll notify you in Insights 30 days before the job ends, or you can filter your jobs list to view recurring jobs ending in 30 days. That way you can contact your client to sell them more services, review your pricing, and extend the contract.
3. Select start and end times for your visits. If no time is selected, the visits for this job will be anytime visits.
   Once the start date and times are filled out, if you are using arrival windows you'll see a section for Arrival windows appear with the duration that was set in your work settings.
   Learn more about arrival windows.
4. Select if the job Repeats. This is how often you'll be going out to visit the client as part of this job. 
   • Visits can repeat weekly, biweekly, monthly, or on a custom schedule. The custom schedule gives you flexibility to schedule weekly, monthly, or annually. You can also select multiple days. For example, you could use the custom schedule to schedule weekly visits on Mondays and Wednesday. Or you could use it to set monthly visits on the 1st and 3rd Fridays of the month.
   • The “As Needed We Won’t Prompt You” option is for if you don’t want to schedule visits on this job right now. If you select this Jobber will make no visits, and the visits can be made later.

Assign team members

Select Assign to add team members who will be assigned to the visits for this job. If no users are selected, the visits will be unassigned and can be assigned later.

Learn How to Remind your Team about their Assignments.

Invoicing 

Next is setting up the invoicing schedule for this job. Since this is a job with a repeating schedule, you will have options to invoice this job multiple times according to a schedule. Recurring jobs can be invoiced:

• per visit where the client will be charged for each visit. For example, this would be used if you charge the client $50 per visit, or
• as a fixed price job where they are invoiced a set price per invoicing period. For example, this would be used if you charge the client $150 per month no matter how many times you visit them.

Once you've selected how you want to invoice, select how frequently you want to invoice from the When do you want to invoice dropdown:

• Monthly on the last day of the month: On the last day of the month, an invoice reminder will be created for the job, and this job will go into "requires invoicing" status.
• After each visit is completed: After a visit is marked complete, an invoice reminder will be created for the job, and Jobber will prompt you to invoice.
• As needed-no reminders: Jobber won't prompt you to invoice for this job and it won't go into "requires invoicing" status. This is used if you are not invoicing for this job, or if you are invoicing for it in another system.
• One the job is closed: When the entire job is closed, an invoice reminder will be created for the job, and Jobber will prompt you to invoice. For recurring jobs, this will typically be after you've already had many visits since that will be the point at which you're closing the job. 
• Custom schedule: You can select a custom schedule for when the invoice reminders will be generated. For examplem, I want to be reminded to invoice for this job on the 14th and the 28th of each month.

Automatic Payments

On select plans, recurring jobs will allow you to set up automatic payments using Jobber Payments since recurring jobs typically will have recurring payments. To enable automatic payments, toggle the automatic payment switch to ON, however the client will need to have a stored card on file to use automatic payments. Invoices will be created automatically based on the invoicing schedule and the client's credit card will automatically be run.

Job forms

Job forms are customizable checklists and forms that can be attached to jobs to have your team fill out on their visits. Job forms are a good way of collecting information while on a visit and standardizing the way information is entered when different employees are filling out the forms. 

If you have job forms that are only used on certain jobs, check the box to add that particular job form to this job. Job forms are built in Settings > Job Forms and can be set up to automatically attach to all new jobs. If your is set to auto-attach, the checkbox will already be selected, however you can deselect it at the job level.

Line items

Next add your line items to the job. These are the products or services you are offering on this job. Line items can be selected from your products and services list, or added as a custom line item for this job.

For each line item, enter a:

• Name: The name of the product or service. 
• Description: A description of the product or service. 
• Quantity: How many of this item you're offering.
• Unit cost ($): The expenses you incur to provide a product or service. This option is available on select plans as part of our markup functionality. Learn more about our current pricing. 
• Unit price ($): The amount you charge customers for a  product or service.
• Total: This is calculated automatically based on the quantity and unit price for this item.

Since visits are automatically created with the same line items as on the job, there may be times when you want to charge for something different on one or more of the visits for the job. Maybe it's a one-time service you're performing or maybe you needed some additional products. To do this you would use custom visit line items. This allows you to add a different line item to a specific visit for a job.

To add a custom line item to a visit, navigate to the visit. This can be done once the job is created from:

• the schedule: From the side navigation menu, click Schedule. From your favorite view of the schedule, click the visit. From the visit details pop-up, click Edit.
• the job: Navigate to the job and scroll down to the Visits section. Click the visit date you'd like to customize. From the pop-up click More Actions > Edit.

From the edit screen of the visit, there is a section showing the line items and their quantities. To update the quantity, you can type the new number in the QTY field. To remove a line item, click the red trash can icon. If on this visit, you'll be adding an extra service or charging for an additional product, click +Add line item to add it to this visit only.

After you save, since the visit is now different than the job (which you can think of like the overall work contract), on the job you will see a list of the visits that vary from what appears on the job located under the line item name.  To see the details of the changed quantities, navigate to the visits section and open the visit for the listed date(s). 

When an invoice is made, the custom visit line items will only transfer for the visit dates they have been put on.

Note: If a custom visit line item is used on a fixed-rate billing job, then it will not transfer to the invoice. This is because fixed-rate billing jobs are not invoiced based on the visits.

Notes

You can also add notes, photos, or attachments for your team to see in the Internal notes & attachments section. Clients cannot see these notes.

Learn more about internal notes and attachments. 

Save and....

Lastly, make sure you save the job! When creating a new job, there are two save buttons:

• Save job will save this job and then take you of of the edit screen, back to the top of the job so you can look over the changes you have made.
• Save and... has a menu with options to save the job as well as another action, all in one click. 
  • Create another will save the job and immediately take you to a new job creation screen with the the details remembered from the way you set this job up. These are the items that are copied: 
    • job title
    • if the job is one-off or recurring
    • scheduling information minus times
    • team assignments
    • billing information
    • line items
    • attached job forms
      Note: The job instructions are not copied. 
  • Email booking confirmation sends a booking confirmation to the client via email.
  • Text booking confirmation sends a booking confirmation to the client via text message.