What is a work order? Types, process and a filled-in example
A work order is the record that approves one job and tracks it to done. See the fields to copy, the 4 types, the 6 steps and a filled-in example.
A work order is the record that approves one job, such as a repair, an inspection or a scheduled service, and tracks it until it’s done. It says what’s wrong and where, who will do the work, how urgent it is and when it’s due. Then it records what was done, the hours and the parts used.
This guide is for owners, office managers and maintenance leads at small property, facilities and service teams. If your jobs still arrive by text, on paper or in a spreadsheet, start here. First comes a work order example, filled in, so you can see what one looks like. Then the fields to copy, the four types, the process from request to close, and how a work order differs from a work request and a purchase order.
What is a work order used for?
A work order does three jobs:
- It approves the work. Someone who can spend the time and money said yes, so the technician isn’t guessing whether to start.
- It tells one person what to do. Where to go, what’s wrong, how to get in and when it’s due, without a phone call.
- It keeps the record. Once it’s closed, it shows what was done, by whom, how long it took and what it cost. Months later, that history tells you which furnace keeps failing and what each building costs to keep up.
Maintenance teams, property managers, facilities staff, landlords and trades businesses all use work orders. A service company uses one between the quote and the invoice for each customer job. Some teams call it a job ticket, a service ticket or a job sheet; it’s the same thing. In manufacturing, “work order” can also mean an order to produce a batch of product. This guide is about maintenance and service work.
Anyone can ask for work, but a work order is usually created by whoever approves and plans it: a maintenance manager, property manager, office manager or the owner. On a small team, that’s often the person who answers the phone. Preventive work orders are created from a schedule instead.
What should be included in a work order?
A good work order has enough for a technician to do the job without calling anyone, and enough for you to understand it a year later. The fields fall into three groups, filled in at different times. WO-1042 above shows each one filled in.
From the request. Whoever reports the problem gives you these:
| Field | What goes here |
|---|---|
| Work order number | A unique number, so the requester and the technician mean the same job |
| Date and time reported | When the problem came in |
| Requested by | Their name, and whether they’re a tenant, staff or a customer |
| How to reach them | A phone number or email |
| Site and exact location | The building, plus the unit, room or floor |
| Equipment | Which machine, if any, by name or number |
| Problem | What’s wrong, in the requester’s words |
Added when it’s approved. The manager fills these in before anyone is sent:
| Field | What goes here |
|---|---|
| Type | Corrective, preventive, emergency or inspection |
| Priority | Urgent, high, normal or low |
| Assigned to | The technician or contractor, and their trade |
| Due date | Set from the priority (the levels are below) |
| How to get in, and safety notes | Keys, tenant notice, alarm codes, shut-offs |
| Instructions or checklist | The steps to follow, for routine jobs |
| Status | Requested, open, in progress, on hold, done or cancelled |
Filled in at close-out. The technician records what happened, and the manager signs off:
| Field | What goes here |
|---|---|
| Started and closed | Dates and times |
| What was done | The cause and the fix, not just “fixed” |
| Labor hours | Time on the job |
| Parts and contractor cost | Each part and its cost, plus any contractor’s bill |
| What it waited on | Only if it went on hold: a part, access, a contractor |
| Checked by | The manager who signed it off, and when |
Add photos or documents if your system can store them. The cause is the part that pays off later: “worn flame sensor, replaced” tells the next technician where to look first.
What are the types of work orders?
The four most common types of work orders are corrective, preventive, emergency and inspection. What separates them is what starts the job and how fast it has to happen.
| Type | What starts it |
|---|---|
| Corrective | A problem someone finds or reports, such as heat that keeps shutting off or a dryer that won’t heat |
| Preventive | A date or a usage count on a schedule, such as new rooftop unit filters every 3 months |
| Emergency | A failure that’s unsafe or stops the business, such as a burst pipe or no heat in freezing weather |
| Inspection | A routine check, such as a monthly fire extinguisher check or a move-out walk-through |
Corrective work orders are the everyday fixes, and most start as requests; they can be any priority from low to high. Preventive work orders come from a maintenance schedule instead: every 3 months, every 5,000 miles, every 500 running hours. Emergencies are phoned in first, then logged as urgent; write each one up even if the fix came first, so the cause and the cost are on record. Anything an inspection finds that can’t be fixed on the spot becomes a new corrective work order.
Some teams add more types. General work orders cover jobs that aren’t repairs, such as painting or a unit turn between tenants. Installation work orders cover new equipment. Predictive work orders start from readings such as vibration or temperature. Keep only the types you’ll actually sort and report by.
What are the steps in the work order process?
The work order process has six steps, from the first report to a closed record. On a small team, one person may do steps 2 to 4 in a minute, but they still happen.
- Someone reports the problem. A tenant, a staff member or a technician on a walk-through sends a request: what’s wrong, where, and how to reach them. Preventive work orders skip this step, because the schedule creates them.
- A manager reviews it. Is it real, is it already reported, and is it yours to fix? Accept it as a work order, or decline it with a reason (“Same as WO-1012”) so the requester isn’t left wondering.
- Set the type, priority and due date. Use the priority levels below. If you can already tell a part is needed, order it now.
- Assign it. Pick the technician or contractor with the right trade, and add how to get in: keys, tenant notice, alarm codes.
- Do the work. The technician starts the job and adds notes as they go. If it stalls on a part, a vendor visit or access to a unit, they put it on hold and say what it’s waiting on, so nobody chases it.
- Close it out. The technician records what was done, the hours and the parts. A manager checks the work, closes the work order and lets the requester know it’s fixed. Closed work orders add up to each machine’s history, which becomes your equipment maintenance log without extra typing.
How should you prioritize work orders?
Agree on four priority levels, each with a due date, so “urgent” means the same thing to everyone. Adjust the due dates to fit your team and any repair deadlines in your leases, contracts or local rules.
| Priority | Due | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| Urgent | Same day | Unsafe, or stops people living or working there: an active leak, no heat in freezing weather, a door that won’t lock |
| High | Next day | Broken, and bothering someone every day: weak heat, a dead dryer, a slow leak under a sink |
| Normal | Within 7 days | A repair that can be scheduled: a slow drain, a flickering hallway light |
| Low | Within 14 days | Cosmetic, or when there’s time: paint touch-ups, a squeaky door |
True emergencies, such as an active leak, a gas smell or no heat in freezing weather, can’t wait in a queue. Have people phone you first, then log the work order as urgent. Within the same priority, do the overdue or soonest-due job first, then the one reported earliest.
What’s the difference between a work request, a work order and a purchase order?
A work request asks for a job, a work order approves and tracks the job, and a purchase order buys what the job needs. One furnace repair can involve all three.
| Document | What it does | Who writes it, for whom | Finished when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Work request | Reports a problem or asks for a job | Anyone (a tenant, staff, a customer), for the maintenance team | It’s accepted or declined |
| Work order | Approves one job and tracks it to done | The manager or the office, for a technician or contractor | The work is done and checked |
| Purchase order | Buys parts or services from a supplier | Whoever buys, often the same manager, for a supplier or contractor | The goods arrive and the bill is paid |
For the furnace in 3B, the request was the tenant’s “Heat keeps shutting off.” The work order was WO-1042, assigned to Dev and due Oct 15. A purchase order for 2 flame sensors restocked the van.
Not every request becomes a work order. Duplicates, jobs that aren’t yours and “someday” ideas get declined or parked, which keeps them off the list your technicians work from.
If you do jobs for customers, two more documents sit around the work order. The quote comes first and says what the job will cost. The invoice comes last and bills the customer for the hours and parts the work order recorded. The work order is mainly for your crew: it’s how they know what to do. Some service companies also have the customer sign it when the job is done.
What is work order tracking?
Work order tracking means knowing, at any moment, what’s open, who has it and what’s late. Whatever you use, you need three things:
- One record per job, with a number and a status.
- A list of open work, sorted by priority and due date.
- A weekly look at what’s overdue, what’s on hold and which equipment keeps coming back. Three work orders on one furnace in a winter is a sign to price a replacement.
Keep the statuses short and fixed: requested, open, in progress, on hold, done and cancelled. Where you track them depends on how many jobs and people you have:
| How you track | Works for | Gets hard when |
|---|---|---|
| Paper and a whiteboard | A handful of jobs a week in one building | Jobs spread across sites, or you need last year’s history |
| A spreadsheet | A small team: one row per work order, dropdowns for status and priority | Several people edit at once, technicians work from their phones, or requesters keep calling for updates |
| A work order app | Several technicians or buildings, and requests from tenants or customers | You pay for features your team won’t use |
Our guide to free work order software sets up the spreadsheet in Google Sheets step by step and compares the free apps.
Collect requests with a form
A request form stops jobs arriving by text, hallway chat and sticky note. Every request lands in one place, with the problem, the location, how urgent it is and how to reach the person. Our guide to the maintenance request form covers the fields, a sample form and ways to share it with tenants and staff.
Schedule preventive work orders
Recurring jobs, such as filter changes, boiler checks and fire alarm tests, belong on a schedule. It creates their work orders before each due date, so nobody has to remember them. Our preventive maintenance checklist has checklists for HVAC, vehicles, plumbing and electrical equipment, and a schedule layout.
Know when you need a CMMS
A CMMS, or computerized maintenance management system, is software built around work orders. It adds equipment records, preventive maintenance schedules, parts inventory and reports, usually with a phone app for technicians. It earns its keep once you look after a lot of equipment, or need the history for audits and warranty claims. Our guide explains what a CMMS is and who needs one.
Track work orders with the GoodTaco work order template
GoodTaco is an AI app builder for business teams, and the work order template is a working app, not a spreadsheet file. Sign up and you land in your own copy, with sample records from a small property maintenance team to try it on. Replace them with your sites, equipment and team, and every request, assignment, hold and close-out runs through one app. It uses the statuses and four priority levels from this guide, and suggests a due date from the priority.
What you get:
- A board with requests to review, open work, what’s overdue and what needs attention now. Accept a request to make it a work order, with a technician and a due date, or decline it.
- A request page anyone can use without signing in. Publish the app with its public link, then share the request link, or a separate link for each building with the building already filled in. Each requester gets a work order number to quote. Only people signed in to your GoodTaco workspace can open the board and the work orders. Anyone else who has the link gets the request page and nothing more.
- My work: one technician’s jobs at a time, most pressing first, with how to get in, directions, and start, hold and finish buttons.
- Repeating jobs for preventive maintenance, every so many days, weeks or months. Each work order is created a set number of days before it’s due (7 by default), when someone on your team who can edit opens the app. It lands in the work order list and in that technician’s My work.
- Sites and equipment, with make and model, serial number and install date, so every machine has its own work order history.
- Close-out with costs: what was done, labor hours, parts and contractor cost, with totals by month and a CSV file to download.
Want a work order type or a manager sign-off from the process above? Ask GoodTaco in plain words, the same way you’d add a column or rename a status. Every version is saved, with one-click rollback, and the app works in any browser, including a phone’s. GoodTaco is free to start. Paid plans start at $9 a month, and Pro at $49 a month includes 10 users; bigger teams talk to us about Enterprise.
Already keep work orders in Excel or a CSV file? Turn the spreadsheet into an app instead. Upload it, with no account needed to try, and GoodTaco imports your records into a built-in database and builds the app in minutes. If your log is a Google Sheet, GoodTaco can build the app on the sheet itself, which it reads and writes live.
Run every work order from request to done in one place. Start free, no credit card needed.
Frequently asked questions
What is a work order in simple terms?
A work order is the approved instructions for one job, such as a repair, an inspection or a scheduled service. It says what's wrong, where, who's doing it and when it's due. When the job is done, it records what was done, the time it took and the parts used. Some teams call it a job ticket, a service ticket or a job sheet.
What should a work order include?
A number, the date reported, who asked and how to reach them, the site and exact location, the equipment and the problem. The manager adds the type, priority, person assigned, due date and how to get in. At close-out, the technician records what was done, the labor hours, parts and costs, and the manager signs off.
What are the four types of work orders?
Corrective work orders fix a problem someone found or reported. Preventive work orders come from a maintenance schedule. Emergency work orders handle failures that are unsafe or stop the business; they're phoned in first and logged as urgent. Inspection work orders are routine checks, and problems an inspection finds that can't be fixed on the spot become corrective work orders.
What are the steps in the work order process?
Someone reports the problem, and a manager reviews it and accepts or declines it. The manager sets the type, priority and due date and assigns a technician. The technician does the work, putting it on hold if it waits on a part, then records what was done, the hours and the parts. A manager checks the work and closes the work order.
What is the difference between a work request and a work order?
A work request is someone reporting a problem or asking for a job. A work order is the job after a manager approves it, with a priority, a person assigned, a due date and a status. Not every request becomes a work order: duplicates and jobs that aren't yours get declined.
Is a work order the same as a purchase order or an invoice?
No. A work order approves a job and tracks it to done. A purchase order buys parts or services from a supplier, so one work order can lead to a purchase order for the part a repair needs. If you do jobs for customers, the invoice is separate too: it bills the customer once the work order is done.
Who creates a work order?
Usually the person who approves and plans the work: a maintenance manager, property manager, office manager or owner. Anyone can send a work request, and preventive work orders are created from a maintenance schedule.
Start from the work order template
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