Creating a Job and Sending to Xero

1. Creating a job

From the Jobs tab, tap the + button to create a new job. You'll be asked to select a customer and can optionally add a title, notes, and assign the job to a team member.

Selecting a customer: If Xero is connected, your Xero contacts appear in the customer picker. You can search by name. If the customer doesn't exist yet, you can create a new one on the spot — just enter their name, email, and phone number. New customers sync back to Xero automatically.

If you want to send a quote instead of an invoice, toggle the job type to Quote before adding details. See the Quoting guide for the full quoting workflow.

2. Job statuses

Every job goes through a lifecycle of statuses:

• Open — a brand new job with no changes yet.
• Draft — the job automatically moves to Draft as soon as you make any change (add a line item, select a customer, edit details). This happens in the background — you don't need to do anything.
• Completed — you've marked the job as done. If Xero is connected, an invoice has been created. The job is now read-only and moves to your Completed tab.

Open and Draft jobs appear in your Open tab. Completed jobs move to the Completed tab.

3. Adding line items

Line items are the individual things you're billing for on a job. Each line item has:

• Name: what you're charging for (e.g., "Design hours", "Labour", "Call-out fee", "Consulting").
• Unit type — how the item is measured: Hours, Quantity, Kilograms, Tonnes, or Fixed Price.
• Quantity — how many units (e.g., 2.5 hours, 3 metres).
• Unit price — the price per unit.
• Description — optional notes about the work or materials.

Picking from your Xero items: If Xero is connected, you can pick items from your Xero item list instead of typing everything manually. The item code, name, description, and price are pre-filled from Xero.

You can add as many line items as you need. Each job's total is calculated automatically from the line items.

4. Sites (sub-customers)

Sites let you track a specific location or property within a customer. For example, a property management company might have one customer (the landlord) with multiple sites (individual properties).

When you complete a job that has a site, the site name is included on the Xero invoice as a reference. Sites need to be enabled in your company settings by an admin.

5. Time tracking

Every line item with a time-based unit type (Hours) has a built-in timer. Tap the play button next to a line item to start tracking time. The timer runs even if you close the app or lock your phone.

• Multiple timers — you can run timers on multiple line items across different jobs at the same time.
• Lock Screen — on iOS, active timers show on your Lock Screen and Dynamic Island via Live Activities. On Android, they appear as a persistent notification.
• Automatic quantity — when you stop a timer, the line item quantity is updated with the elapsed time (in hours).
• Survives app restarts — timers use wall-clock time, so they keep running even if the app is force-closed.

6. Completing a job

When the work is done, tap "Complete" at the bottom of the job detail screen. Here's what happens:

1. The job is marked as completed and becomes read-only.
2. If Xero is connected and the job has a customer, an invoice is created in Xero with all the line items, descriptions, quantities, and prices from the job.
3. The job moves to your Completed tab.
4. The invoice number from Xero is shown on the completed job.

No Xero connection? If you haven't connected Xero, or the job has no customer, the job is simply marked as completed without creating an invoice. You can still use Jotter as a job tracker without invoicing.

7. Invoice status in Xero

By default, invoices are created as Draft in Xero. You can change this in your company settings under Invoice Status:

• Draft — the invoice is saved in Xero but not approved. You can review and edit it in Xero before sending.
• Submitted — the invoice is submitted for approval in Xero.
• Authorised — the invoice is fully approved and ready to send to the customer.

After completion, you can also manage the invoice directly from Jotter — view the PDF, authorise a draft invoice, and email the invoice to your customer, all without leaving the app.

8. Item Tags

Item Tags are custom metadata fields you can add to jobs — things like region, project code, or priority level. Admins define the tags and their options in company settings.

When a job is completed, the tag values are appended to the Xero invoice as history notes. This gives you a searchable record in Xero without cluttering the invoice line items.

There are also built-in tag types for Person (assign a team member to a line item) and Date (record when work was done on a specific line item).

9. Time rounding

If you bill in rounded increments (e.g., 15-minute blocks), you can configure Time Rounding in company settings. Options include rounding up to the nearest 1, 5, 6, 10, 15, or 30-minute interval. When enabled, timer quantities are rounded before being sent to Xero.

Troubleshooting

• Invoice failed to create? Make sure the job has a customer selected and at least one line item. Check that your Xero connection is still active in Settings.
• Items or customers not showing? Pull to refresh on the job list to re-sync from Xero. Your admin may have restricted which items or customers you can see.
• Timer not updating? Timers update the quantity when you stop them, not in real time on the line item.

Still having trouble? Contact us and we'll help sort it out.