Carpentry software for fitted jobs, deposits and site work

You price the job in a room you are standing in

A customer wants fitted wardrobes and a kitchen run. You measure the wall, count it out in sheets and lengths, add hinges and runners, add something for the carpenters, and give a figure. On materials you are usually close.

What the figure almost never contains is the going back. The delivery day, the fitting day, the day you return because the wall was not square and one door will not sit. Each is a vehicle, two people and a day not spent making anything else — all of it after the quote.

PesaScope records the deposit, the boards, the ironmongery, the carpenters and the site days as separate events against the same customer, so the next kitchen is quoted from a job you can read back.

How a fitted job runs through the books

1. Agree the job and take the depositRecord what was agreed and what they actually handed over. The balance runs from that day, not from the day you remember it.
2. Buy boards and ironmongery for the jobMDF, plywood, hardwood, hinges, runners, edging and lacquer, recorded as they are bought, so the cost builds instead of arriving as a shock.
3. Record what the carpenters were paidAdvances during the build and the settlement at the end, so labour sits in the job rather than in your head.
4. Fit, snag, and collect the balanceThe outstanding amount is already there with a date. Until it is paid, it stays on the debtors list where you can see it.

What a joinery workshop sets up

Pick "Woodworking & carpentry" at sign-up and this list is already there, and each line is a job you quote rather than a thing on a shelf.

These are services, not stock. A joinery workshop rarely holds finished pieces — its value is in work half-done and money owed. If you also sell off a showroom floor, the furniture shop page below covers that.

One fitted kitchen

Half up front feels generous. It covered the boards, ironmongery and finish with UGX 290,000 to spare, and nothing else. The UGX 1,520,000 of labour and site days you funded yourself, out of other people's deposits, until the balance came in.

It will not tell you where your fitters are on Thursday

Site work needs a diary: which day you are fitting, which day the tiler needs the units out of the way, which morning you promised to come back and adjust a door. Carpenters ask for this, and it is fair to say plainly that PesaScope has no booking calendar and no job scheduler.

There is no time-tracking either, so hours on site are not logged. What is recorded is what each carpenter or fitter was paid and when, including advances taken mid-build. What you get is the money side kept straight — what was agreed, what was paid, what it cost, and what is still owed after the last door is hung.

Where a joinery workshop leaks money

1. The second and third site visitQuoted as nothing, costs a vehicle and two people. Recorded a few times, it becomes a line you can price.
2. Boards bought for one job, cut into anotherThe job that borrowed looks cheap and the job that lent looks dear. Recording purchases as they happen keeps both honest.
3. The balance after snaggingOnce the units are on the wall the customer is in no hurry. A dated balance and a printed statement move it along.
4. Ironmongery bought in bulkA box of runners covers four kitchens and is charged to none. As an expense in the month, it stops being invisible.

Read further

Questions carpenters ask