← Back to Running a business

The Library / Running a business

Practical guide / Free to read

Keep the promise through to delivery.

Plan the work you agreed, make dependencies visible, and keep changes and completion understandable.

Start with what completion means

A job can be a first paid service, a repair, a small production order, a creative project, or work for a repeat customer. Start with what the customer expects to receive, the boundaries of that promise, and a specific delivery date agreed for this job.

Agree what completion means for this particular job. What will be supplied, checked, handed over, or confirmed before you call the job delivered? Record that understanding in the planner so it can be checked during the work.

Importing a quote creates a draft to review. It does not establish agreement. Record the actual agreement date, the person who confirmed it, and an evidence reference only after checking the arrangement. Prices and private quote notes are not imported. The original agreement stays in the delivery book.

Background: SBA: Manage your business

Break the work into steps you can actually move

Use concrete steps such as confirm the finish, prepare the materials, make the order, check the result, and arrange delivery. Choose a person or working role, the day the remaining effort is planned, and an estimate of hours still needed. Hours already spent are not remaining workload.

A person’s name here is a planning label. It does not create an account, notify a colleague, reserve their calendar, or establish a shared workspace. Confirm their availability before relying on the plan.

A Checklist Builder file can add fresh steps. Earlier checkmarks do not carry over; a completed checklist for a previous job is not evidence that this job is done. Review the imported wording, then assign people, dates, effort, and dependencies. Long descriptions are shortened to the planner’s field limits, so check the original file where details matter.

Separate a blocker from the whole job

Add materials, customer approval, files, site access, or other requirements. Record who can resolve each one, when it is expected, and when you will follow up. Link each requirement only to the work steps that actually need it.

A missing approval might block production while preparation can continue. A later delivery step can depend on production being completed. The planner rejects circular dependencies and prevents a dependent step being marked done while its linked requirements or preceding work remain unresolved.

Mark a requirement ready with evidence, or no longer required with an explanation. If you discover that a completed dependency was recorded incorrectly, reopen the affected completed steps before changing their prerequisite. The earlier records remain in the history.

Check the time you can genuinely offer

Choose a workload window of up to 31 calendar days. For each person, enter total work hours available during those exact dates, then the hours reserved for administration, another job, personal responsibilities, or other commitments not represented by work steps in this book. Avoid subtracting the same job twice.

Available hours minus other commitments minus scheduled remaining work gives unallocated capacity. Twelve available hours, four reserved, and nine hours of remaining customer work produces a one-hour shortfall. Leave unknown hours blank; a blank input is not zero.

Unfinished steps planned before the window carry into it. Steps after the window are listed separately. Missing people, dates, or effort are flagged rather than treated as free time. Blocked and paused jobs still reserve their entered effort because a delay does not make their promise disappear.

Changing the window makes the old availability unconfirmed until you review each person again. Draft jobs can be included in a separate comparison. Approved changes without work steps are flagged as missing work. This is a capacity comparison, not an automatic calendar: it does not check day-by-day working hours, holidays, travel, equipment capacity, or the order of work within a day.

Discuss an extra before it becomes a promise

Record a requested addition or change separately from the original scope. Describe it, estimate the additional effort, check the increase or reduction in price, and consider whether the delivery date needs to change. A request remains outside agreed work until its decision is recorded.

Record who confirmed the decision, when, and where the evidence is kept. Approval needs reviewed effort and price treatment; zero hours and no price change are valid when they reflect the arrangement. An approved change stays recorded. Use a further change if the customer later agrees something different.

After approval, create the linked work step, then assign its person and date. One change can create one linked summary step; divide its remaining hours among additional steps deliberately if the work needs more detail, avoiding double counting. To reduce or remove previously planned work, update those steps with an explanation. The tool does not subtract hours automatically or rewrite an external quote or invoice.

Keep the customer informed in useful terms

Give the customer an update they can act on: what has moved, what needs a decision, and what they can expect next. Keep internal workload notes separate from the message you intend to share.

The customer progress PDF includes the job scope, step names and status, approved changes, and the dedicated customer-update field. It leaves out private capacity, internal next actions, original evidence references, and change history. Review the preview carefully because scope descriptions and work-step names can still contain details you do not want to share.

The tool prepares a draft reading copy. It does not send messages. Keep any customer communication, response, and revised arrangement in the appropriate records and update the planner deliberately.

Background: SBA: Manage your business

Deliver, confirm, and close as separate steps

Before recording delivery, complete or explicitly set aside every work step, resolve requirements, and decide pending scope requests. Each approved change needs its linked work step completed or explained as no longer required. A list of ticked steps alone is not a delivery record.

Keep the actual delivery date and what was handed over, then record delivery. Afterward, capture customer confirmation, unresolved issues, and the invoicing next step. Delivery does not mean the customer has accepted the result, an invoice has been issued, or money has arrived.

To close the job, resolve issues and record either customer confirmation or why acknowledgment is not required. Review whether billing is ready, already recorded elsewhere, or not due under the arrangement. Use the invoice tracker for invoice and payment records. Preserve a practical lesson for the next job.

Reopening retains the previous state and delivery details in history and starts a fresh completion review. Pausing or canceling requires an explanation. These actions describe the working record; they do not notify the customer or cancel a contract.

Keep a book you can return to

Download editable book (.json) preserves jobs, people, dependencies, recorded decisions, histories, and unfinished close-out edits. Reopen it here to continue. Download after changes and before closing: account saving is not connected in this working draft. Opening another delivery book replaces the open book after confirmation; it does not merge them.

PDF and text downloads are reading copies. The PDF preview has a clearly labeled Download PDF action. Private job reports include history and internal notes; the customer progress copy contains a smaller, reviewed set of fields. Files are not password protected.

A book holds up to 30 jobs and 20 people or roles. Each job supports 50 work steps, 30 requirements, 20 requested changes, and 160 history entries. Hours support up to two decimal places. Workload results use current corrected records, not a reconstruction of what you knew on a past date.

Try it in your own situation

Plan one real job through to the handover

  1. Record the customer, scope, exclusions, completion criteria, and the actual agreement evidence.
  2. List the materials, information, access, and approvals the work needs.
  3. Create the work steps, linking only their real dependencies.
  4. Assign remaining effort and work dates; compare those hours with availability for the same window.
  5. Record requested extras separately and turn approved changes into planned work.
  6. Record delivery, review customer confirmation and billing, and keep the next action clear.
  7. Download the editable book so you can return to the work tomorrow.

Keep exploring.

Make business spending easier to act on. Explore Running a business
Sources and further reading

Original Brass Charter examples and exercises, with background reading from the sources below.

Keep your open draft?

Continuing will discard your unsaved changes. You can return to the draft and save or download it first.