Job Work / Fabrication

For a fabricator, machine shop, powder coater, galvaniser or printing press — a trade billed to other businesses rather than to a walk-in customer. Its defining fact is custody: the material worked on belongs to somebody else and never enters your stock.

Set up before the first material arrives

Do these once, in this order. The owner does all of them.

1. Pick the directions you track Tools > Settings > Jobs: Inward Challans (their material with you) and Outward Challans (your material with a job worker). Set the Return Window under Material Custody: how long a challan may sit before it counts as overdue (180 days unless you change it).
2. List the processes you do under Job Work Processes on the Setup menu: cutting, welding, coating, printing. A challan names the process.
3. Build your price list under Processes & Materials on the Setup menu: the labour charges you bill, and any material you sell.
4. Add the parties in the Directory: Principals whose material you work on, and Job Workers & Suppliers you send work out to.
5. Create a login for each person with the switches their job needs (see Who signs in).
6. Run one test challan: receive material, record a part return, then bill the labour.

How the work flows

Material comes in at the gate, is worked on, and goes back. Each step says who usually does it and what prints. The inward steps need Inward Challans on, the outward ones Outward Challans.

The whole journey on one page:

flowchart TD
    subgraph IN["Inward - somebody else's material on our floor"]
      I1[Receive Material
challan from the principal] --> I2[(Open)]
      I2 --> I3[Work done]
      I3 --> I4[Return · part or whole]
      I3 --> I5[Wastage agreed]
      I4 --> I6[(Closed)]
      I5 --> I6
      I3 --> I7[Labour invoiced
only the work, never the goods]
    end
    subgraph OUT["Outward - our material in somebody else's shop"]
      O1[Send Material Out
challan to the job worker] --> O2[(Open)]
      O2 --> O3[Comes back]
      O3 --> O4[Job worker's bill taken]
    end

Who signs in

Give every person their own login; never share the owner's. A job-work shop has no seat picker: you add a user and tick the switches their job needs. The owner opens on the Dashboard; every other login opens on the Jobs list.

1. Open the user form Tools > Settings > Users > Add User.
2. Set the login: Role Type User for staff, then user name and password (or their email address on a cloud business).
3. Tick the switches on the Material Custody card for their job, plus the shared ones below it, and save. The person gets the change at their next sign-in.

A billing clerk who is not the owner gets Bill Job Work plus the shared Payment Entry. Whoever opens jobs for a principal needs Open & Edit Jobs, which brings New Job on the Jobs list and editing a job’s details. What each switch does is in What each person may do; the shared switches are listed in Users, Roles & Permissions.

Where it is in the app

A job-work shop opens on its own home screen. The owner lands on the Dashboard; everyone else lands on the Jobs list. Each menu shows only what this login is granted and this business has switched on; a menu left empty does not appear.

On a computer: the menu bar

Across the top: your own screen, the Dashboard, then one menu per area. Receive Material sits in a New submenu at the top of the first menu; New Job is beside Jobs and Send Material Out in Material. Processes & Materials, Job Work Processes and the shared masters are on the Setup menu, stock vouchers and payroll on Voucher, and Settings on Tools (owner only).

On a phone or tablet: the side menu and the bottom bar

The side menu starts with My Work — your own screen, then the Dashboard — followed by Jobs, Material, Billing, Complaints and Office (Reports, Directory, Accounting). A screen on the bottom bar is not repeated in the side menu. Every login has the same bar.

What does and does not move

Each challan prints from its Print menu: the Material Receipt (inward) or Delivery Challan (Job Work) (outward), and, once anything has come back, the return copy — Return Delivery Challan inward, Material Return Receipt outward. A4 or roll paper.

Balance, wastage and overdue

What is still out on a line is sent − returned − wastage, floored at zero.

• A part return leaves the challan open. Calling it closed would drop it out of every pending list — and here it would also mean quietly writing off material still in somebody else’s hands.
• Wastage settles a line. Material agreed to have been scrapped is never coming back, so it closes the balance rather than staying out for ever. It is agreed with the party, not inferred from what failed to return — which is why it can be reported, and why writing it off is a permission of its own.
• Overdue is worked out on every read, against the return window in Settings. It is never stored: a stored flag would be wrong the day after it was written. Change the window and every open challan is re-judged at once.

Settings

What each person may do

Five switches on the Material Custody group. View Revenue is the read switch, so it survives a view-only login; the other four are writes.

Manage Challans and Write Off Wastage appear once either direction is switched on.

Reports

Job Work Reports: Challan Register · Material With Us and Material With Others (party-wise custody statements, with the oldest days held and how many lines are overdue) · Inward and Outward Pending Lines (the drill-down a party asks for when the account is reconciled) · Wastage Analysis (as a percentage, so a party we send ten tonnes to does not automatically top the list) · Process Mix with average turnaround · Labour Billing.
Business Reports: Day Book, Expenses, Income, Profit & Loss, GST. See Reports.