Carpenters: the workshop hours are the job. Bill them.
Half the work happens in a workshop where nobody is watching a clock, and the other half happens on site where everything takes longer than planned. Between the two, the hours that go onto the invoice are almost always fewer than the hours that were worked.
Orbit is in development. Join the waitlist and we WhatsApp you when it opens.
2 days workshop on the melville built-ins. 4 sheets supawood 1840
Both logged against Melville built-ins ✅
ILLUSTRATIVE EXAMPLE
Where it goes
What costs a carpenter money after the job.
Workshop time is invisible
Cutting, assembling and finishing happen days before the install. Because there is no client standing there, no note gets made, and the price ends up based on the install day alone.
Timber and board are bought per job and priced per sheet
One sheet of supawood is a cost; six sheets across two jobs is a costing exercise nobody does. The offcuts go to the next job and the accounting never catches up.
Deposits fund the material and then get forgotten
The deposit bought the timber. By the final invoice, nobody is certain whether it was deducted or not, and the conversation happens with a customer who is already spending money elsewhere.
What Orbit does about it
One message, at the end of the job.
Orbit is being built so that a workshop day counts. Send a line when you spend a morning cutting — the job it was for and the hours — and the record exists before you have swept up. That is the material difference between a carpenter who prices from experience and one who prices from a total that never included the workshop.
Material goes in the same way. Tell Orbit what you bought and which job it was for, and it stays there. Over a few jobs you get the number that actually matters: what a fitted unit costs you to make, as opposed to what you assumed when you quoted it.
Invoices and deposits are drafted from the same record, so the deposit you took in March is on the document you send in May. You read it before it goes, always — Orbit drafts, you send.
What it keeps for you
- Workshop hours recorded on the day they are worked
- Timber, board and hardware against the job that used them
- Deposits held against the job so the final invoice is right
- Draft invoices you check and send yourself
Orbit drafts. You send.
Questions
Carpenters ask us this.
Can I record work done in the workshop, not on site?
Yes, and it is the reason a carpenter would use Orbit at all. Say the job and the time — "2 days workshop on the Melville built-ins" — and it attaches to that job like any other line.
How are deposits handled?
Tell Orbit what was paid and when, and it holds it against the job so the final invoice shows the balance rather than the full amount. Deposit invoicing is planned for the first release; anything that slips will be marked as roadmap here.
Can I attach a photo of the finished unit?
Sending photos into the thread is on the roadmap. At launch Orbit is being built around text, because text is what people actually send at the end of a working day.
Does Orbit do cutting lists or drawings?
No. It handles the job, the cost and the invoice. Design and cutting stay in your workshop where they belong.
Orbit for other trades
Orbit for carpenters.
Orbit is being built now. The list is free, it commits you to nothing, and founding pricing is locked for the people on it.