Build a job template
Encode a piece of work once — its tasks, their order, their due dates, and who does them.
A template is a piece of work your firm does repeatedly, written down once. Applying it builds every task, in order, with dates and owners already set.
This is the feature that turns a process living in one partner's head into something the firm does the same way every time.
Where to find it
Build it
- Create a template and name it for the work — 1040 with Schedule C, Monthly bookkeeping.
- Set the Pipeline it runs in and its Service line.
- Add the tasks.
- Configure each task.
- Set the dependencies.
Tasks can be dragged to reorder.
Configuring a task
Each task in the template carries:
- Task title
- Pipeline and Starting status
- Assignee — a person, or left open to be decided at apply time
- Due date rule — covered in its own article, and the part worth getting right
- Client sees — the client-facing label for this task
- Depends on (blocks this task until…) — its predecessors
Two toggles:
- Auto-advance when done — the task moves itself along on completion
- Auto-create workpaper / Include workpapers — the task arrives with its workpaper already attached
Dependencies and flow
Depends on is what makes a template a process rather than a list.
A task with nothing set shows No dependencies — starts first. Everything else waits on its predecessors, so review can't begin before prep is done and delivery can't begin before review.
Two preview panels help you check your work:
- Flow — how tasks unlock shows the dependency chain
- Flow — statuses this task moves through shows the path within a single task
Use them. Dependency mistakes are near-invisible in a list of twelve tasks and obvious in a flow diagram.
Building with AI
Build with AI takes a description of your workflow in plain language — Describe the workflow — and proposes a template.
You get a plan to review before anything is created: How it flows, How it runs, the tasks, and any pipelines, tags, or custom fields it needs. Suggestions it isn't sure about are marked Suggested — add if useful rather than being added silently.
Keep editing to adjust, or confirm to build. Nothing is created until you say so.
It's a good way to get eighty percent of a template in two minutes. Read the plan properly before confirming — it will propose new pipelines if your description implies them, and you may not want them.
What to template
Template it when you'll do it more than a handful of times a season and the steps are stable.
Don't template a process you haven't run yet. Run one by hand first, see what's missing, then encode what actually happened rather than what you imagined would.
Notes and limits
- Editing a template doesn't change work already created from it.
- A template belongs to a pipeline. Its tasks can use different statuses within that pipeline.
- Templates are firm-wide.
- Deleting a template doesn't delete work created from it.