Smart Contractor allows you to assign job estimate items to different "job sections". Job sections are used to cross reference structurally related portions of a job. Examples of job sections are:

• Living Room
• Dining Room
• Kitchen
• Bath 1

Why Use Job Sections?

Smart Contractor allows you to divide jobs into sections for a couple reasons:

• One reason is so that you can present the costs of the job to the customer broken down by section. If the total job estimate exceeds their budget, they can decide how to make it work by eliminating one section or another.
  
• Another reason to use job sections is so that you can easily identify which section each job item belongs to when there are multiple instances of an item in a job.
  
  For example, in a remodeling job that is adding a bedroom, and expanding the footprint of the kitchen, both rooms will require foundation, framing, wiring, insulation, etc. So the job estimate will contain one item for the bedroom foundation, and another item for the kitchen foundation. If you assign one to the bedroom "job section", and the other to the kitchen "job section", then you will be able to view the estimated job costs by section, and you will be able to tell the section (location) of multiple instances of items when the job is listed in other ways.

Smart Contractor comes with a pre-defined list of job sections. You can use these, or add any others, in the Job Section Entry form.

How To Use Job Sections

To use job sections, follow these steps:

1) In the Edit Job form, select any number of job sections to use in the job in the prompt for Job Sections on the right side of the screen. To select a job section for use in the job, simply click in the check box next to it in the list.

2) Once you have selected job sections to use in the job, then assign job items to job sections using the prompt for Job Section in the Job Estimate entry form.

You can automatically split any job item into separate items - one for each job section - by clicking on the Split button at the top of the Job Estimate entry form.

3) Once you have assigned job items to job sections, the items for each job section can be listed separately in the Job Listing report when you select the option to Print By Job Section.

You can also merge this version of the job listing report into customer documents by using the <<Item List By Job Section>> merge field in the Customer Document entry form.