What Active means, and how to set a job to it
Active means the job is under contract - won and billable. Set it from the status badge in the project header.
Active means you have the job under contract. It does NOT mean crews are on site. Your deposit is the reason: contract signed, money in, nobody on site for three weeks - you still need to record that payment, so the job has to be active.
When work actually starts is the project's start date, which is a separate field. Use that (and the daily logs) to know whether anyone is on site.
- 1Open the project.
- 2Click the status badge at the top, next to the project name.
- 3Choose Active.
- 4Going from Planning to Active shows a short pre-flight - read it, set the start date, and confirm.
The pre-flight is filled in from the job itself: whether the budget has lines, whether the job has a price, whether a deposit has been recorded, whether subs are lined up, whether insurance docs are in, whether permits are filed. Green means done, amber means not yet.
TWO OF THEM ARE SERIOUS: no budget lines, and no price. Both are still allowed - jobs do go under contract before the budget is typed up, and some really are at cost - but you have to tick a box saying you mean it. Everything else is informational and never stops you. Plenty of jobs start before the permit lands.
The price question depends on how the job pays you. Cost-plus asks for the markup, because that IS your fee. Fixed price asks what you are charging. Building to sell asks what it will sell for. A job billed by pay application is priced by its schedule of values, so it is not asked again.
Two things change the moment a job goes Active. The markup on the Budget tab locks, because from then on it is the fee you bill. And the tabs that only matter once work starts - daily logs, time clock, invoices, pay apps, payments, materials, inspections, change orders - all switch on.
What each one means, which the status list now tells you as you pick: PLANNING - not won yet; the tabs for running the job stay hidden, the budget leads with soft costs, and the markup is still yours to change. ACTIVE - under contract, won and billable, whether or not anyone is on site. ON HOLD - paused, and nothing in the app changes; every tab, figure and total stays exactly as it is, so it marks the job for you and your team and filters the Projects list. COMPLETED - finished; again nothing changes and nothing is locked. CANCELLED - not going ahead; nothing is deleted and nothing is locked, the job just stays on file out of the way.
The other statuses are one click, no pre-flight: On Hold, Completed, Cancelled, or back to Planning. Those you can also change from the Projects list (pencil icon). Going Active is only offered here, in the project header, because that is where the pre-flight is - the Projects list edit will point you back to it.
Changing a project's status needs edit permission on Projects. Field roles see the badge but cannot change it.