Q: What’s the difference between the “Completed” status and “Closed” status for work orders? Some of my technicians are “Completing” work orders and others are “Closing” them — I’m not sure what the difference is, so I don’t know what status to advise them to use.
A: Once the work order is marked "Completed," it can still be manipulated to add vendor costs and employee hours. Once it's "Closed," you can no longer add anything to it. For example, if I know a vendor came in for a repair, I can mark it complete — letting the person who put the work order in know the job is done — then set it aside and wait for the vendor invoice. Once that cost is added, I will close it.
A: The “Complete” status signifies that the work itself has been finished, but there may still be labor hours and purchases that need to be added to the request. The “Closed" status is meant to be the final stamp of approval” — it signifies that not only is the work itself completed, but all transactions and notes have been added to the work order. While a work order is in the “Closed Work Orders” status, additional transactions cannot be added, however you can change the status back to “Complete” (or any other status) to add the new transactions, then change it back to "Closed."
A: I have noticed that if a technician skips the "Completed" step and just closes the work order, it can cause the work order to not have an accurate date/timestamp. The date is correct, but the time is not. This caused problems with monthly reports on open/close statistics, so I advise our technicians to only mark work orders complete, and I batch-close them after reviewing.
A: I use "Complete" and "Closed" to track current fiscal year activity. At the end of the fiscal year, I change all completed work orders to closed. This way, I can easily view the current fiscal year statistics separately from closed work orders in prior years.
A: When the work is done, the technician changes the status to "Complete." Once all labor hours, materials and associated costs are added to the work order, the status is changed to "Closed," and the work order is officially closed out.
