When a customer pays the deposit on an install, the same few things always have to happen: order the equipment, get the job on the schedule, pull the permit. An automation can hand those out as tasks the moment the deposit is paid, each to the right person with its own due date, so nothing waits on someone remembering.
This uses two pieces in the automation builder:
- The trigger When a deposit is paid.
- The step Create tasks, which creates a list of tasks in one go.
The trigger works with payment schedules. The deposit has to be billed as a milestone invoice from the estimate's payment schedule; a regular invoice that you call a deposit doesn't fire it.
When the trigger fires
When a deposit is paid fires when an invoice from a payment schedule is paid in full, whether the customer paid online or your team recorded the payment.
- A partial payment doesn't fire it. It fires once the milestone invoice is fully paid.
- It fires for every milestone of the schedule, not only the first. To act on the deposit alone, add a filter on
milestone.position(see below).
Besides the usual customer and invoice details, the trigger gives you the job's job.type, and the milestone's milestone.name, milestone.position (1 is the first milestone, the deposit), milestone.count and milestone.is_first.
Set it up: tasks when an install deposit is paid
- Open Automations and click New automation.
- Click the trigger card and pick When a deposit is paid (under Invoices).
- Click + below the trigger and add a Filter. Add two conditions with All conditions (AND):
job.typeequals your install job type, for exampleinstall.milestone.positionequals1, so only the deposit counts.
- Click + below the filter and pick Create tasks (under Operations).
- Fill in the first task, then click Add a task for each one after it. For every task:
| Field | What to enter |
|---|---|
| Task | What needs doing, for example Order the equipment. |
| Assign to | The person who'll do it. |
| Due after (days) | How many days after the deposit is paid it's due. 0 means due the same day. Up to 365. |
| Note (optional) | Anything they need to know. |
Use the arrows on a task to move it up or down, and the trash icon to remove it. A step holds up to 20 tasks.
- Click Save, then Activate.
A typical list:
| Task | Assign to | Due after (days) |
|---|---|---|
| Order the equipment | Your purchasing person | 0 |
| Schedule the install | Your dispatcher | 1 |
| Pull the permit | Your office manager | 2 |
What happens when it runs
- Every task on the list is created at once, in order, and linked to the job and its customer. They show on the job page, the customer page and each person's task list, marked Automation.
- Due dates count from the day the deposit is paid, in your company's time zone.
- Each person gets one notification for their new tasks, however many there are.
- No duplicates. If the trigger fires again for the same job — a later milestone is paid, or the same payment is reported twice — the step skips the tasks it already created for that job. If someone deleted one of them, the next fire creates it again.
- A task assigned to someone who has since been deactivated isn't created; the other tasks still are. If none can be created, the step fails. See Viewing automation runs and step timelines.
Add the closing tasks when the job is done
The end of an install has its own checklist. Build a second automation the same way:
- Trigger: When a job is completed.
- Filter on
job.typeequals your install job type. - Create tasks, for example Install sign-off for the install lead (due after 0 days) and Close the permit for the office (due after 3 days).
Create tasks works with any trigger that comes with a job or a customer, so you can use it beyond installs too. On a trigger that has neither, the step can't link the tasks and fails.