Job Order Template
One form that answers two questions before any work is committed: who approved this, and whose budget does it come out of.
- Cost centre and budget code on the request
- Budget check before the approval chain starts
- Authority limits recorded against each approver
- Closure compares actual cost to approved value
Job Order
Authorise work against a budget
| # | Budget check | Checked | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Annual budget for this cost centre | |||
| 2 | Committed to date | |||
| 3 | Available before this order |
The document you will get. Download for the full, editable file.
Who this job order is for
Four people read this document, and each of them wants a different line out of it.
Facilities coordinator
You are the one raising it. The cost centre and the consequence of not doing the work are what get it approved, and both belong on the form before it is routed anywhere.
Budget holder
You are deciding whether to sign. The budget check tells you whether the money exists, and the priced lines let you trim one item rather than reject the request.
Department head
You own the number at the end of the quarter. The requesting department and the cost centre are what tell you whether this was yours to carry.
Finance
You are posting it and reconciling it. The budget code, the Capex or Opex call and the actual cost against approved value are the three that decide how much of that is manual.
Which field matters the most in your sector
The form is the same shape everywhere. What changes is which field gets scrutinised, and that is usually the one your finance business partner asks about first. If you run one of these, the sector page goes further than the template does.
- Commercial real estate
Recoverable or not is the whole question. The cost centre and the Capex or Opex call decide what can be passed to the service charge.
Portfolio maintenance software - Healthcare
Capital committees and long approval routes. The authority limit column is what stops a request stalling at the wrong stage.
Healthcare maintenance software - Retail and malls
Many sites, one budget line. Committed to date is the figure that decides whether store nineteen gets its request this quarter.
Retail maintenance software - Education
Term-time windows and ring-fenced funds. The budget code is what keeps a grant-funded job from being posted against operating spend.
Campus maintenance software - Data centres
Capex is the norm rather than the exception. The justification field carries more weight here than the price does.
Data centre maintenance software - Corporate facilities
The requesting department is rarely the paying one. Separating the two on the form is what stops the argument happening at year end.
Corporate facilities software
What a job order should include
A job order is the internal authorisation for a piece of work, raised against a cost centre and approved before the work is committed. It records who asked, which department and budget it belongs to, what is being requested and why, the priced items, the approval chain, and the actual cost once it closes.
A. Fields specific to a job order
| Field | What goes in it | Why it earns its place |
|---|---|---|
| Job order number | A unique reference, e.g. JO-2026-0517 | The handle finance and the requester share. Number sequentially so a gap is visible. |
| Requesting department | The team asking for the work | Separates who wants it from who pays for it. They are often not the same, and that is usually the argument. |
| Cost centre | The centre the spend lands against | The single most important field on the form. Spend without a cost centre becomes somebody's problem at year end. |
| Budget code or GL account | Where it posts in the ledger | Lets finance reconcile without asking. A job order that cannot be posted is a job order that sits in a queue. |
| Capex or Opex | Which kind of spend this is | Decides the approval route and the accounting treatment. Getting it wrong late is expensive to unwind. |
| Why it is needed | The justification, in plain terms | This is what an approver actually reads. What happens if it is not done is the version that gets things approved. |
| Item lines | Description, qty, unit, rate, amount | Priced lines let an approver challenge one item rather than reject the whole request. |
| Budget check | Annual budget, committed to date, available, this order | Turns approval from an opinion into an arithmetic. A negative remainder is not a formatting problem. |
| Approval chain | Stage, name, role, authority limit, decision, date | The audit trail. The authority limit column is what stops a stage signing for more than it can. |
If you cut the form down, keep the cost centre, the budget check and the authority limits. Those three are what turn a request into an authorisation. Everything else describes the work; only those decide whether it should happen.
B. What it looks like filled in
The same fields above, on a real request. This is what the Excel version totals for you.
| Line | Detail | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Request | JO-2026-0517, replacement door closers | Opex |
| Items | Twelve heavy duty closers at 34.00 each | 408.00 |
| Tax | VAT at 20 per cent | 81.60 |
| Total requested | Subtotal plus VAT | 489.60 |
| Budget check | Available before this order 6,200.00 | 5,710.40 after |
Job order JO-2026-0517, door closers, Opex. Read the last line rather than the total. The request is approvable because the money is visibly there before anyone signs. Had that figure come out negative, the request needed a budget movement rather than a signature, and stage one is a far cheaper place to discover it than stage three.
Word to edit the approval stages, Excel to total the items and the budget check, PDF for the file copy. Free, and yours to rebrand.
How do you fill in a job order?
Fill it in the order an approver reads it, and run the budget check before you route it anywhere. Six steps, and the last is the one that gets skipped.
Name the cost centre before you describe the work
The first question any approver asks is whose budget this is. Having the cost centre and budget code already on the form removes a round trip and makes the request routable.
Write the consequence, not just the request
Replace the pump is a request. Replace the pump or the building loses hot water at the next failure is a justification. The second one gets approved; the first one gets a question.
Run the budget check before routing it
Annual budget, committed to date, available before this order, this order, remaining after. If the last figure is negative, the request needs a budget movement rather than a signature, and finding that out now is far cheaper than finding out at stage three.
Price the items in lines
Description, quantity, unit, rate, amount. Lines let an approver trim one item and approve the rest, which is a far more common outcome than a clean yes or no.
Route it through the chain in order, with limits visible
Each stage records name, role, authority limit, decision and date. A stage that is above its limit escalates rather than signs, which is precisely what the limit column is for.
Close it against actual cost
Date completed, approved value, actual cost, variance and the reason. This is the step that gets skipped once the work is done, and it is the only one that tells you whether your estimates are any good.
Job order or work order, which do you need?
Both authorise something. One authorises money and the other authorises work, and confusing them is why the cost centre goes missing.
| Aspect | Job order | Maintenance work order |
|---|---|---|
| What it authorises | Spend against a cost centre | Work against a specific asset |
| Who reads it first | A budget holder deciding whether to approve | A technician deciding what to do |
| The controlling field | Cost centre and budget code | Asset ID |
| What has to happen before work starts | An approval chain completes | The job is assigned |
| How it closes | Actual cost compared to approved value | Work performed, hours, parts and sign-off |
| What it feeds | Committed spend and budget reporting | Asset history and maintenance backlog |
Many organisations use both, in sequence. The job order approves the spend and the work order that follows records what was physically carried out. Where the two are collapsed into one form, the cost centre is the field that gets dropped, and the spend stops being attributable to anyone.
When the template starts to feel limiting
A form handles one request well. It handles an approval process badly, and the failure modes are consistent.
Approvals sit in inboxes
A form routed by email has no queue and no ageing. Nobody can see that stage two has had it for nine days, and the requester finds out by asking.
The budget figure is a snapshot
Available before this order was true when it was typed. Two other job orders approved the same afternoon make it fiction, and nothing on the sheet updates.
Authority limits are honour-system
The column records the limit; it does not enforce it. A stage can sign above its limit and the form will look perfectly complete.
Nothing closes the loop
Actual cost against approved value is the number that improves future estimates. Because it is filled in weeks later, on a document already filed, in practice it is filled in rarely.
What running job orders in Facilio looks like
The template is the paper version of an authorisation. Facilio keeps the same authorisation, and applies it across every cost centre rather than one request at a time.
Ops Performance Intelligence
See committed spend as it happens, not at month end
The budget check on this form is a figure typed once. In Facilio the same numbers are live: budget, committed, available, by cost centre. Ops Performance Intelligence surfaces where spend is running ahead of plan while there is still a quarter left to do something about it.
Audit Report Intelligence
Reconcile the invoice to the approved value automatically
Closure on this form asks whether the invoice matches the actual cost, and relies on someone checking. Audit Report Intelligence compares what was approved, what was delivered and what was billed, and raises the differences rather than waiting to be asked.
Work Completion Validator
Close the loop while the numbers are still true
Actual cost against approved value is the field most often left blank, because by the time anyone returns to it the document is filed. Work Completion Validator checks the closure against what was authorised, so the variance is recorded while the people who caused it can still explain it.
Your data, your tenant. Atom AI runs against your own Facilio tenant rather than a shared pool, and nothing leaves it to answer a question.
Frequently asked questions
What is a job order?
A job order is an internal authorisation for a piece of work, raised against a cost centre and approved before the work is committed. It records who requested it, which department and budget it belongs to, what is being asked for and why, the priced items, the approval chain and the actual cost once it closes.
Its purpose is accountability for spend, rather than instruction of the work itself.
What is the difference between a job order and a work order?
A job order authorises money. A work order instructs work. The job order names a cost centre, runs a budget check and collects approvals; the work order names an asset and tells a technician what to do.
Many organisations use both in sequence. Where the two are collapsed into a single form, the cost centre is usually what gets lost.
Who should approve a job order?
Whoever holds the budget it is being raised against, plus any stage above them required by your delegation of authority. The useful discipline is recording an authority limit next to each name, so it is visible whether a signature was within it.
A stage above its limit should escalate rather than approve. That is the entire purpose of the limit column.
What is a cost centre and why does it matter here?
A cost centre is the part of the organisation the spend is charged to. It matters because it turns a request into something attributable: at the end of the quarter, somebody owns this number and can be asked about it.
A job order without a cost centre still authorises work, but the cost lands somewhere generic and the connection between the decision and the money is lost.
Should the budget check happen before or after approval?
Before. The point of the check is to tell approvers whether the money exists, and an approval given without that information is a commitment made in hope.
If the remaining figure after this order is negative, the request needs a budget movement rather than a signature.
What is the difference between capex and opex on a job order?
Capital expenditure is spend on an asset that will deliver value over years, such as a replacement chiller or a new roof. Operating expenditure is the cost of running the business this period, such as a repair or a service visit.
The distinction usually changes both the approval route and the accounting treatment, which is why it belongs on the form rather than being decided afterwards by finance.
Do I need to record the actual cost after the work is done?
Yes, and it is the field most often left blank. Approved value against actual cost, with a reason for the variance, is the only feedback loop the process has.
Without it, next year's estimates are made with exactly the same information as this year's.
Can I edit and rebrand this template?
Yes. It is free to use, edit, rename and put your own logo on, internally or for clients. No attribution required.
The Word version is the one to edit if you want to change the approval stages or your own delegation of authority; the Excel version is the one to use if you want the item lines, VAT and the budget check to total themselves.
In one paragraph
A job order authorises a piece of work against a budget before it is committed. Put the cost centre and budget code on it first, write the consequence of not doing the work rather than only the request, and run the budget check before routing it for approval. Price the items in lines so an approver can trim rather than reject, and record an authority limit beside every name in the chain. Then close it against actual cost with a reason for the variance, because that comparison is the only thing that makes next year's estimates better than this year's.
The template is the floor, not the ceiling
Take the template; it will carry one request from raised to closed. When one form per request stops being enough, a connected CMMS runs the process: live committed spend by cost centre, approvals that queue and age visibly, and authority limits the system enforces rather than records.
