Customise Job and Quote Statuses
Trade2Base comes with a set of default statuses — New, Quoted, Booked, In Progress, Completed, and Invoiced — but every trade business works differently. You can add your own statuses, assign colours, reorder the pipeline, and control which statuses trigger automated actions.
Adding a custom status
Go to Settings → Job Statuses and click Add Status. Give it a name that makes sense to your team — for example “Awaiting Parts”, “Pending Planning Permission”, or “Customer Chasing”. Status names are visible to your team only; customers see a simplified version on the portal.
Job is on hold until materials or parts arrive. Useful for heating engineers, appliance repair, or any job where parts must be ordered.
Work cannot start until a planning or building control decision is received. Keeps the job visible in your pipeline without cluttering active work.
You've sent a quote and are following up. Flags jobs that need a nudge so nothing slips through the cracks.
Setting status colours
Each status can have its own colour, which appears as a badge on the job card and in the pipeline view. Click the colour swatch next to any status to choose from a palette of twelve colours. Use colour to communicate urgency at a glance — for example, red for “Customer Chasing” and amber for “Awaiting Parts”.
- Green shades for statuses that mean the job is progressing normally
- Amber for on-hold or waiting states
- Red for anything that needs urgent attention or has stalled
- Grey or blue for administrative statuses like “Cancelled” or “Won't Do”
Reordering the pipeline view
The pipeline view in Jobs → Pipeline shows each status as a column. To reorder columns, drag and drop them in Settings → Job Statuses. The order you set there is reflected in the pipeline view for everyone on your team.
Keep your most-used statuses towards the left so you can see the most active jobs without scrolling. Custom statuses you add will appear after the defaults unless you drag them into position.
Toggle the Show in pipeline switch off for any status you want to keep active but hide from the kanban view. Archived or cancelled statuses are a good candidate for this — you still need them for reporting but they clutter the active pipeline.
Which statuses trigger automations
Automations in Trade2Base are triggered by status changes. When you create or edit an automation in Settings → Automations, the trigger dropdown shows all your statuses — including any custom ones you've added.
For example, you could create an automation that sends the customer a WhatsApp message when a job moves to “Awaiting Parts”, explaining the delay and giving an estimated timeline. Or send a review request automatically when a job reaches “Completed”.
Some platform behaviour is tied to specific default statuses — for example, the invoice button only becomes active when a job reaches “Completed”. Custom statuses do not carry this behaviour unless explicitly mapped in Settings. Check the Status type dropdown when creating a custom status to assign it to the correct phase (e.g. “In Progress” type).
Managing statuses over time
You can rename, recolour, or archive statuses at any time. Archiving a status removes it from the creation dropdown but keeps it on any existing jobs that already have it assigned. This means your historical data stays accurate even as your workflow evolves.
If you need to merge two statuses (for example, you created “Chasing” and “Customer Chasing” separately), use the bulk edit tool in the jobs list to move all jobs from one status to the other, then archive the duplicate.
Most trade businesses find 6–8 statuses is the sweet spot. More than ten and the pipeline becomes hard to read at a glance. Add statuses as you discover genuine gaps in your workflow, rather than building an elaborate system upfront.
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