How to use CrewBook.

What CrewBook is#

CrewBook is the day-to-day book your office and site teams work from. Each day has a list of jobs; each job has its crew, materials, plant and subcontractors. The same data drives wages, expenses, purchase invoices, the per-contract P&L and a live map of where tomorrow's work is — and the sales side (leads, quotes, contracts, invoicing and credit control) is built in as its own QCI area.

Everything is shared across every signed-in person in your company, live: when a colleague books a job or approves a claim, your screen catches up by itself. What each person can see is controlled by their access tier.

Creating your account and signing in#

Everyone gets their own personal login. Sign up with an email address and password (verified by a 6-digit emailed code), or in one step with Continue with Google, Microsoft, Facebook or Apple.

1. Go to crewbook.me and click Start Free Trial — or, if you're joining your firm's existing CrewBook, use the sign-up link and the exact email address your invite was sent to.
2. Enter your Email, Password and Confirm Password, and click Create account — or use one of the Continue with… buttons.
3. Type the 6-digit code from the Verify your email screen and click Verify. No code? Click Resend and check spam.

Forgotten password? Click Forgot password? on the log-in page, enter your email, and follow the emailed link to set a new one. If you originally signed up with Google, Microsoft, Facebook or Apple, there's no CrewBook password to reset — use the same Continue with… button every time.

If something's not right#

Your company, the setup wizard and subscribing#

Every login belongs to exactly one company. The first person from your firm creates it — everyone else joins by an administrator's invite and should never create a company of their own (that gives them a separate, empty workspace). Creating the company starts the whole team's 14-day free trial, no card needed, and makes you the Owner with Super Admin access.

The setup wizard#

After creating the company, a six-step wizard configures it. Progress saves on every Next, so you can stop and come back — and you can re-run it any time from Admin → Re-run Setup.

1. Company Details — company name (required), logo, contact details and address.
2. Job Types — the pick-lists offered when creating jobs. It starts with Groundworks, Tarmac, Concrete, Drainage, Roofing and Fencing plus categories (Preparation, Main Works, Finishing, Remedial, Survey); add your own with Enter, remove with the ×. Editable later in Settings.
3. SharePoint — optional. Choose Yes, we use SharePoint / Microsoft 365 and enter your SharePoint site name (how CrewBook finds your Contracts list), or No, we don't use SharePoint. You must pick one; you can change it later.
4. Add Workers — your first team members (name and phone). The rest can be added later on the Workers page.
5. Notifications — who gets emailed about what: holiday approvals and reminders, weekly wages, new suppliers, new clients, photo uploads. Leave a field blank to disable that notification.
6. Optional Features — WhatsApp job briefs (needs a one-off setup from Admin → Integrations afterwards, about 20 minutes) and Daily Google Drive backups (nightly export of the whole database — works as soon as it's on).

You can Skip setup at any step and finish later in Settings — the app works either way.

The trial and subscribing#

When the 14-day trial ends (the last day is included), the app shows a subscribe screen to everyone until someone completes it: Subscribe now → secure checkout → "You're subscribed!". It's £99/month per company, unlimited users, cancel anytime — adding staff never raises the price.

If something's not right#

Your team and who sees what#

Staff are invited from Admin → Users & Access: type their email, pick a tier, click Invite. If the address already has a CrewBook login it joins your company immediately; otherwise they're attached automatically the first time they sign up with that email.

Beyond the tier, each user's row has a Permissions expander with page chips — blue = visible, grey = hidden — so an Office Staff member can be granted Wages, or QCI Sales, as an exception. The Expenses button toggle lives there too (lets someone submit expenses from the Dashboard without seeing Petty Cash), while the linked worker dropdown sits on the user's row itself, next to the tier — it ties a login to its record on the Workers page. Every signed-in user always has their Account page — it can't be revoked.

Finding your way around#

The header holds the main pages — Dashboard, Calendar, Day View, Credit, Invoices — plus the Team dropdown (Workers, Holidays, Wages, Petty Cash, Mileage Log, Message Delivery). Sales lives in its own QCI area, entered via the QCI logo button. Admin (Settings, Costings, Backup) sits at the top right, along with your round initial button for Account and Logout. On a phone, less-used pages tuck behind More in the bottom bar.

• You only see the pages your tier or custom permissions grant — a missing menu item usually means a missing page chip, not a fault.
• The search box in the header jumps straight to any contract number, client or site.
• Like CrewQCI, the app installs from the browser: Account → Install App (on iPhone: Safari's Share → Add to Home Screen).
• The ? button in the header opens this guide at the chapter for the page you're on — and inside the QCI area it opens the CrewQCI guide instead, where the sales side is documented in full. The in-app Guide page is a condensed version, always to hand from the navigation.

Dashboard#

The Dashboard is the "what needs my attention right now" page — a grid of cards summarising today and tomorrow, with a click-through on almost everything. The ones worth a habit:

• Today's Jobs / Tomorrow's Jobs — each job with its worker, materials, hire and sub counts. Click a job to open it in Day View.
• Unnotified Tomorrow — workers on tomorrow's jobs who haven't had their WhatsApp brief yet. "All notified ✓" is the end-of-day goal.
• Unbooked Items — every material, hired plant item and subcontractor for this week and next that isn't ticked as booked: a forward-looking ordering checklist.
• Credit Check — upcoming jobs whose credit status still says "Needs Checking" or "No Credit".
• Not Yet Invoiced — jobs dated before the end of this week with no invoice issued (remedial jobs excluded), grouped by client.
• Worker Status (14 days), Provisional Jobs, My Claims (your own expenses) and Recent Site Photos — a month of uploads from site, with a full-screen viewer and Download all.

Every card header has an expand icon for the full list, and the top buttons open the Mileage Log and a quick Expenses claim form (shown to anyone whose Expenses button is enabled).

Calendar#

The Calendar is the central schedule — Month or Week view, one card per job per day. Cards carry the client and site, the contract number, the coordinator's initials, a worker-count badge ("3/4" — green when full, orange when short) and a materials badge (green once everything's booked). Card colours follow the job category — Prep amber, Hand Lay green, Machine blue, SD/Resin purple, Lining pink — and a red R chip marks remedial work. The green +N pill in a weekday's corner is spare capacity: your available workforce minus everyone off or already spoken for.

Adding a job#

1. Click + Add Job and set the Job Date — or click Multi-day? and set start and end dates; the dialog confirms "This will create N working day jobs (weekends & holidays excluded)."
2. If SharePoint is connected, type into Select Contract from SharePoint — picking a contract auto-fills the contract number, client, site, coordinator and contacts. Otherwise fill the fields by hand.
3. Add the Full Address (this is what puts the job on the Live Map and behind the Maps links), What3Words and contact details.
4. Pick a Job Category and Job Co-Ordinator, set Desired Workers, tick Remedial Job if it's a return visit, and click Add Job.

Provisional bookings#

Work that isn't signed off yet is pencilled in with + Prov. — no contract number needed, just a client and/or site and the dates. Provisionals show as white dashed-border cards with a ⬡ badge. When the job is confirmed, click the green → Confirm button, look up (or type) the contract number, and resolve any differences the dialog flags between what was pencilled in and what SharePoint says. Costs booked on a provisional follow it into Costings once it has its number.

Rescheduling, deleting and closed periods#

• Drag to reschedule — drag a card (on touch screens, from its ⣿ grip) onto the new day. Workers, materials, hires, subs and plant all move with it, and the toast has an undo.
• Delete — the small × on the card, with a confirm; the undo in the toast restores the job and everything attached.
• Closed periods — the Closed button manages bank holidays (set up automatically) and your own shutdowns. Closed days grey out, are skipped by multi-day bookings, and refuse dropped jobs. Booking a single job on a closed date warns but doesn't block.

If something's not right#

Day View#

Click any day and you're in Day View: every job on the date, each with its workers, materials, plant, subcontractors and hires shown as chips you can tick, drag and click. This is where the day actually gets run.

Assigning workers#

1. The Unassigned Workers pool at the top holds everyone available today who isn't on a job yet.
2. Drag a name onto a job — or click several names to select them, then click + Add N on the target job. Drag chips between jobs to move people.
3. Click a worker's name on their chip to set their shift (0, ⅓, ½, 1, 1½, 2), their job order for the day, and the Driver tick. Shifts drive wages — and a worker on two jobs in one day is split ½ and ½ automatically.

Chip colours carry live information: blue = WhatsApp brief sent, green = brief read, amber = the worker has a day status (sick, holiday…) and probably shouldn't be on the job.

Booking materials, plant and subs#

Every material, hired plant item, subcontractor and other cost has a circle icon — click it once the order is actually placed and the chip turns yellow with a tick. The Dashboard's Unbooked Items card is driven by exactly these ticks. Booked material chips grow inline boxes for the order reference and delivered quantities, so tonnages can be trued up after the day. An amber ⚠ triangle on a chip means it carries a note — tap to read it.

Each job card also carries its credit status badge (click to change — Needs Checking, OK, No Credit, Percentage Upfront, Special Authority) and its invoice status badge (Not Invoiced red, Draft Raised blue, Invoiced green, Proforma amber) — click it to set the status and which job days it applies to. Both feed the Dashboard's checklists.

If something's not right#

The job editor#

Click Job Edit on any job card to open the full editor — a large window with tabs across the top, each with a count bubble: Summary, Job Setup, Workers, Own Plant, Materials, Hired Plant, Subcontractors, Other Costs and Media.

• Summary — the job at a glance: badges, invoice status bar, the Raise draft document button (see the QCI area), cards for each section with Open tab → shortcuts, and the editable amber Site Notes card — those notes show on the Day Overview and go out in the WhatsApp brief.
• Job Setup — click any row to edit the client, contract number, site, coordinator, address, What3Words and contacts. Changing the contract number offers to apply it to the site's other days and stamp it onto linked costs; editing the site or client on a numbered contract syncs across its other days automatically. Job actions live here too: WhatsApp gang, Move day (everything moves with it), Add another day (same details, fresh costs), and the danger zone — Cancel job… with a reason (stays on the calendar, struck through, reinstatable) or a two-step permanent delete.
• Workers — the gang with shifts, driver ticks, and subsistence/hotel allowances per worker.
• Own Plant — tick the company plant on site (Big Plant, Smaller Plant, Incidentals & Tools). Picking a paver adds its usual rollers and opens the haulage form — movement, quoted cost (auto-filled), from/to, and an invoice check. Changes here only save when you click Save plant.
• Materials — orders with supplier, quantity, unit and price; From Yard for own stock; Split Load for two materials on one wagon (its charge line is added automatically); delivery times with an auto-fill for multi-load tonnage runs; daywork charges; and a per-item invoice check — enter the invoiced figures and the icons tell you green = matches, amber = under, red = over. Contra Charge records a credit note due from the supplier.
• Hired Plant / Subcontractors — rates, ordered prices and invoice checks. Setting a hire's from/to dates puts it on every job day it spans; Invoice logged elsewhere and Apply invoice to another day? stop a multi-day invoice being counted twice. Ticking CIS Deductible on a sub shows the 20%-of-labour deduction live.
• Other Costs — grab lorries, testing, traffic management, drawings, with the same booking and invoice checks.
• Media — photos, videos, sign-off sheets and documents uploaded from site; one batch note, category badges, automatic compression, and one summary email per batch to the office. Uploads surface on the Dashboard for a month.

If something's not right#

WhatsApp job briefs#

The brief sends each worker their day on WhatsApp: site, client, address with Maps and What3Words links, the crew list, plant, materials and notes. Messages go from your company's own WhatsApp number (see integrations), and delivery feeds back into the app — a worker's chip turns blue when the message arrives and green once it's read.

1. Get the job right first — workers, materials, notes — because the message is built from what's currently recorded.
2. Click the green WhatsApp button on the job card (or WhatsApp gang on the Job Setup tab).
3. Check the recipients — every assigned worker plus the coordinator, pre-ticked. Untick anyone, or Add from personnel. The message itself is the approved template and can't be edited per send.
4. Click Send and look for "WhatsApp sent to N recipient(s)".

If something's not right#

Appointments, absences and weekends#

Two panels live on the Day View page itself, under the jobs.

Appointments#

Non-job visits — quotes, measure-ups, meetings — grouped by the person attending. Click Add, fill in the Site / Location (required), pick the time type — Start Off Job (visits on the way to the job, ordered #1/#2/#3), AM, PM, a specific time, or any time — and choose the attendees. Drag the ⣿ handle to reorder someone's list, and click the green WhatsApp circle by their name to send them their whole day's appointments in one message.

Worker day statuses and weekend availability#

The Worker Day Status card records who's off (or in the yard): Holiday, Sick, Compassionate Leave, Training, No Pay or Yard — one status per worker per day. A status takes the worker out of the assignment pool and turns their chip amber if they're accidentally still on a job; all of them except Yard also reduce the calendar's capacity number. On Saturdays and Sundays, the amber Weekend Availability panel appears instead: click each worker who's put themselves forward, and only they join that day's worker pool.

Live job map#

The Live Map plots every upcoming job with an address (next 90 days) on a UK map, one pin colour per coordinator. The legend buttons double as filters — click a name to hide or show their pins — and clicking a pin shows the job summary with an Open Day View → button. It's an admin-tier page by default; the address lookup runs one job per second, so a busy diary shows "Geocoding…" for a short while when the page opens.

Workers#

The Workers page (Team → Workers) is your crew roster. Each worker's card holds their contact details, start date, daily rates, and the role flags the rest of the app runs on.

1. Click Add Worker and fill in the Full name — the only required field — plus phone, email and Start Date.
2. Tick the flags that apply — each one changes how the app treats the person (table below).
3. Click Save Worker. To set pay, open the pencil icon on their card and enter Basic Rate (£/day) and Charge Rate (£/day) — these drive the Wages page and export. Anyone who can open the Workers page can see them here; it's the Wages page's rate columns and the money values in the wage download that are admin-only.

Holidays#

The Holiday Tracker (Team → Holidays) records every worker's holiday, sickness and other absence days against their annual entitlement, with a per-worker List view and a colour-coded month Calendar — each worker their own bar, pending days faded with a dashed outline, closed days shaded.

Recording and approving days#

1. In List view, click the worker's row to expand it.
2. Pick a date — or tick Date range for a from/to run; weekend days are skipped automatically, so a Monday-to-Friday week books exactly 5 days.
3. Choose the status — Holiday, Sick, Compassionate Leave, Training or No Pay — and tick Pending Approval for a holiday that still needs sign-off.
4. Click Add. Pending days show an amber clock badge; whoever approves clicks the green Approve button and a confirmation email goes to the configured approver address.

Each row's chips keep score: "12 / 25 hol" against the entitlement (edited inline in the expanded row), "N left" in amber when fewer than 3 days remain, "N over" in red, plus sick and pending counts. A daily "Holiday Approvals Needed" email lists everything still waiting — sent only when something actually is.

Closed days#

The Closed Days button manages company-wide closures. The standard England-and-Wales bank holidays are created for you the first time; add your own shutdowns (name, start, end) under Add Custom Closure. Closed weekdays shade the calendars, are skipped by multi-day bookings (a single job on a closed date gets a warning rather than a block), and are paid automatically for every active worker with nothing else booked. Download exports the year's records as a CSV.

If something's not right#

Wages#

The Wage Summary (Team → Wages, admin-tier by default) builds each Monday-to-Sunday week automatically from job labour, absences, appointments and closed days — there's no double entry. Each day cell shows a badge per shift (contract numbers for job work, status labels otherwise), the Shifts count, and Total × — the sum of multipliers payroll actually pays.

• Normal shifts, holidays, compassionate leave, training, yard days, appointments, bank holidays and closures pay ×1; sick pays ×0.8; No Pay shows on the grid but adds nothing.
• A worker on two jobs in one day shows both badges with the day total underneath — the split (½ + ½) was set automatically when they were assigned.
• Closed weekdays are paid for every active worker automatically — as Bank Hol when the date matches the official gov.uk England-and-Wales list, otherwise as Holiday. Workers who started after the closure date are skipped.
• Download saves the payroll spreadsheet (wages_date.xlsx) in the batch-timesheet format, with absences coded so payroll can post them. Rate figures fill in only for admins. The same file is emailed automatically each week to the configured Weekly wages recipients — the link in that email lasts 7 days.

If something's not right#

Petty cash and expenses#

Anyone with the Expenses button submits a claim from the Dashboard — description, amount, receipt photos, an optional contract number — and it lands as Pending under their name. Admins manage the full register on the Petty Cash & Expenses page: approve or reject, record the payment, and export the monthly summary. Claims flow through four statuses: Pending (amber) → Approved (green) → Paid (blue), or Rejected (red); claimants can watch their own progress on the Dashboard's My Claims card.

1. Submit — from the Dashboard's Expenses button (any user) or New Claim on the Petty Cash page (admins). Add a receipt per item — camera photo or file — each with its own category, so one claim can carry a whole handful of receipts.
2. Amounts — type the Exc VAT or Inc VAT figure and the rest fills in at 20% (adjusting the VAT box just updates the total); all three stay editable for zero-rated items.
3. Approve — the approver gets an email per new claim; on the row, the green tick approves, the red cross rejects (and an undo arrow moves an accidental approval back).
4. Pay — the blue Pay button records who was paid, how (bank transfer, cash, cheque) and when.
5. Month end — the Monthly Summary tab totals the month's approved and paid claims by category, with a styled Export Excel download.

Mileage log#

Workers log business journeys and turn them into expense claims. Journeys are valued at the HMRC 45p/mile personal-car rate, or at the quarterly HMRC Advisory Fuel Rate matching the worker's company vehicle and engine size (set on their worker record). Everyone logs their own; admins see and log for anyone.

1. Click Log Journey. Capture the route with Locate at each end (GPS, with road-distance lookup), type both addresses and use Calculate Road Distance from Addresses, or just type the miles.
2. Tick Return journey for there-and-back (miles are doubled) and fill in the Purpose. The form auto-saves as a draft while you type, so closing it mid-trip loses nothing.
3. Check the Claim Rate. An Extra p/mile can be added where agreed — the amber panel then requires photo evidence.
4. Click Log Journey, then later Claim on the row — or tick several and Claim Selected for one batch claim. Either way a Pending expense claim is created in the Private Vehicle Use category, and the journeys move to "claimed". Deleting that claim later puts the journeys back, so no miles are ever lost.

Invoice checking#

The Invoice Checking page has four tabs that together make sure nothing goes unbilled and no supplier overcharge slips through.

Jobs to Invoice#

Every contract with days of work not yet billed to the client, one amber card each. Click Mark as Invoiced, tick the date chips the invoice covers, set the date and save — those days flip to Invoice Issued and drop off. Or send the paperwork to the office instead: Raise draft document sends a draft invoice, credit note, proforma or application to the front desk, who add the detail, check the VAT and issue it with the next document number (see the QCI area).

Purchase Invoices#

Line-by-line reconciliation of supplier invoices against what was ordered — materials, hired plant, dayworks, subs and haulage. The Diff column tells the story: a green tick is matched, an amber clock means no invoice received yet, a red figure is an overcharge, purple means a query is open. Filter with Differences only, No invoice received and Queries Pending; clicking a row jumps to that day's record.

1. Work the Differences only list: for each red figure, either tick Invoice OK to accept it, or click + Raise Query.
2. A query records the date, who raised it, the reason (price, quantity, quality, delivery, wrong job…) and the details — and can be emailed straight to the supplier's Queries To contact, copy to you.
3. If the query isn't resolved within 7 days, whoever raised it is emailed a reminder — repeating weekly until it's marked Resolved. When the credit note lands, click Credit Received.

Suppliers#

The supplier list behind all of this: account code, legal and display names, the Queries To email, and the CIS toggle (CIS suppliers export with reverse-charge VAT code T21). Click any cell to edit in place. Suppliers created in a hurry carry the code PENDING, highlighted amber, until the real code from your accounting system is entered.

Export#

Downloads invoiced purchase costs as a CSV in your accounts import layout, then stamps each record so it's never sent twice. Set the date range, check the preview ("Ready" rows go in the file), and click Download CSV. Only costs with an invoice reference and a contract number matching a live job export — anything blocked is listed in red with "needs a contract number", stays unstamped, and gets picked up automatically once fixed.

If something's not right#

Credit checks#

The Credit page lists every upcoming, non-provisional job whose credit status is still Needs Checking or No Credit — soonest first, each card showing the contract's estimated value against the client's live Available Credit (their limit minus outstanding invoices; red means already over). A similar tally appears on the Dashboard's Credit Check card.

1. Wait for the Available Credit figure to load (it shows a spinner rather than a possibly-wrong number).
2. Pick the outcome under Update credit status: OK, No Credit, Percentage Upfront (with the %), or Special Authority (with who authorised it).
3. Click Save Status — the status copies to every other day of the same contract automatically.
4. Need more headroom instead? Request Credit raises a credit limit request to whoever decides — its progress then shows on the card.

Costings — the monthly P&L#

Costings (admin only) is the per-contract profit and loss: every job's subcontractors, materials, hired plant, own plant, small tools and labour against its sales — live from the QCI invoicing, updating automatically. Pick Monthly, FY YTD (from 1 April) or CY YTD (from 1 January); click any row to drill into the contract's full cost breakdown, down to the individual items and the days they sit on.

• Overheads — enter Plant Depreciation (£/month) (divided across the period's paver days for the Own Plant rate) and Small Tools & Plant Repairs (£/month) (spread across every job day). Both save as you type, per period.
• Reading the Sales column — green is invoiced; purple includes proforma/application revenue or an adjustment (marked *); a "← Prev mth" / "Next mth →" badge means the invoice was issued in a different month; a red REMEDIAL badge means no sales are expected.
• Moving revenue between months — the Income Deferrals & Accruals panel records a deferral (push revenue later) or an accrual (pull it earlier) per contract, and both months' figures adjust with the * marker.
• Exports — CSV or a styled Excel workbook including the overhead inputs and the adjusted revenue summary; Report opens the matching profitability report for the same period.

Month-end accruals and the Accrual Log#

Amber figures are accrued costs — recorded on jobs but with no supplier invoice yet. At month end, enter the date the management accounts were prepared and click Freeze accruals at this date: a snapshot of everything accrued is frozen, with the total, line count and who took it. The Accrual Log page then compares that frozen list against reality, month by month: green Invoiced lines arrived in time, blue Came in late lines landed after the cut-off (normal — they hit a later month in your accounts), and red Still open · Nd lines have had no invoice at all — your chasing list, exportable as a CSV for the accountant.

If something's not right#

The QCI sales area#

Sales lives in its own area — QCI — with its own dark teal-and-gold look: leads, quotes, contracts, invoicing, proformas and applications, retentions, credit control, prospecting, insights and reports. It's the same sales pipeline as the standalone CrewQCI product, woven into your schedule — so this chapter covers how the two sides join, and the CrewQCI user guide covers every sales page in full detail. The ? Help button in the QCI header takes you straight there, at the chapter for the page you're on.

Getting in and out#

Click the QCI logo button (the dark pill with a gold border) in the top navigation — or the bottom bar on a phone. You land on the QCI Overview with its own pill bar: Overview, Leads, Quotes, Contracts, Invoicing, Proformas/Applications, Retentions, Credit Control, Prospecting and Insights. Three areas sit off that bar, and all three are tiles on the QCI Overview: Settings is also the ⚙ cog in the QCI header, next to the ? button; Reports also opens from Insights via Reports & exports at the top right; and the client register is the Clients tile. ← CrewBook at the top left brings you back. The button only appears for users with the QCI Sales page permission (Admin and Super Admin tiers have it by default). The QCI search box reads "Search QCI and planned works…" — results include a "The Book job days" section, so one search spans sales and the schedule.

Drafts: from the job to the front desk#

The flagship join. A coordinator on a job can send the billing to the office without ever entering QCI:

1. On the job's Summary tab, click Raise draft document (under the invoice status bar) — no QCI access needed.
2. Pick the type — Invoice, Credit Note, Proforma or Application for Payment — and check the Job days covered: un-invoiced days start ticked, remedial days unticked, already-billed days show an Invoiced badge.
3. Optionally add a net amount (the front desk can fill it in), check the printed customer address, write Notes for the front desk, and Send to front desk.
4. The ticked days flip to Draft Invoice Raised (blue), the job gains a Draft with front desk chip, and the office is emailed — to the Draft notifications email set in QCI Settings.
5. At the front desk, the draft waits in the Draft documents panel at the top of the QCI register. Opening it shows the coordinator's note; the office adds line items, checks the VAT, and clicks the green Issue — which is the moment the next document number is allocated. A prompt then offers to mark the job days Invoice Issued in the schedule, closing the loop.

Contract numbers: the thread between the two sides#

• On a job, the small QCI button next to the red #contract chip jumps straight to that contract in QCI (shown when the job is genuinely linked and you have QCI access).
• In QCI, a contract's Jobs in The Book panel lists every scheduled day on that number — click one to open it in Day View.
• On an invoice, the Job days invoiced section ticks the real scheduled days the invoice bills — and warns "⚠ N ticked days are already invoiced on #…" if you're about to double-bill.
• A day's billing status can always be set by hand from the job's Summary tab — Not Invoiced (red), Draft Raised (blue), Invoice Issued (green), Proforma/Application (amber) — for one day, specific days, or the whole contract.

One client register for both sides#

The names booked on jobs and the accounts invoices are raised against are the same register. A green building icon next to a client name on a job means it's linked to an account; an amber warning triangle means no account matches — tap it and the Clients page opens with the setup form pre-filled. The Clients page also collects new-client requests raised from the field for approval, and its red panel lists any booked names with no account. Renaming an account carries the new name across jobs, contracts, quotes and invoices automatically.

If you've used standalone CrewQCI#

Everything central works the same — registers, document numbering, credit control, retentions, prospecting, reports, Sage exports, settings. The differences: you enter with the QCI button rather than a separate login; access is CrewBook's QCI Sales permission; search also covers the schedule; invoices tick real job days instead of a typed date list; the draft-from-job flow exists; and there is no workbook Import page.

If something's not right#

Settings#

The Admin button (top right) opens the settings page — "System settings, backups and admin tools". Changes save automatically as you leave each field; there's no Save button. The cards, top to bottom:

• Quick links — Costings, Backup & Restore, the in-app User Guide, Re-run Setup (walk the setup wizard again), Data Explorer (Super Admins only) and Your account.
• Integrations — WhatsApp, email, SharePoint and the backup destination: covered in the next chapter.
• Users & Access — invites, tiers, page chips and linked workers: covered under your team.
• Recipients — who gets emailed about credit limit requests, new client requests and approvals, plus the Expense approver email and Expense payer email. An empty list means "saved but not emailed", so fill these in early.
• Lists & Options — the dropdown lists used across the app: sectors, lead sources, payment terms, quote statuses, credit authorisers, job titles, plant/equipment types, the Dashboard tonnage suppliers and paver plant types, and the Day View heavy plant list. Type and press Enter to add; × to remove.
• Suppliers → Sage — exports supplier records in the Sage template, stamping what's been sent.
• Backup & Restore and HMRC Fuel Rates — below.

Integrations: WhatsApp, email, SharePoint#

WhatsApp job briefs (Twilio) — the one-off setup#

Briefs go out from your company's own WhatsApp number via your own Twilio account, so replies come to you. The setup takes about 20 minutes plus WhatsApp's approval time:

1. Create a free account at twilio.com and add WhatsApp to a number (Twilio Console → Messaging → Senders → WhatsApp senders). WhatsApp's approval of your business can take a day or two.
2. Copy your Account SID (starts AC) and Auth Token from the Twilio Console home page into the WhatsApp card on Admin → Integrations, plus your WhatsApp number (e.g. +447123456789).
3. Open How to set this up on the card and create the two message templates in Twilio — one for job briefs, one for appointments. The exact bodies are provided word-for-word with Copy buttons, so approval is usually straightforward (minutes to a few hours).
4. Paste each approved template's Content SID (starts HX) into Job brief template SID and Appointment template SID.
5. For delivery ticks on the Message Delivery page, set the status callback URL from step 5 of the walkthrough on your Twilio WhatsApp sender.
6. Turn on Enable WhatsApp sending, then use Send test with your own number — "Test message sent — check your WhatsApp."

Email#

No setup needed — notifications, wage summaries and sales documents are emailed automatically under your company name. If you'd rather sends came from your own mailbox, set the Preferred connected mailbox (Outlook or Gmail) and the Sender name on emails.

SharePoint#

Optional. Enter your SharePoint site name — part of the site's name is enough; this is the field that makes the connection work — and turn on Use SharePoint. CrewBook can then pre-fill jobs from your Contracts list as you type a contract number.

If something's not right#

Backups and restore#

Backups write a complete snapshot of every data table to your own Google Drive — under "CrewBook Backups / your company / date /", one file per table plus a manifest listing exactly what was taken. CrewBook can only see the backup files it creates, not the rest of your Drive, and your Twilio auth token is deliberately never written to a backup file (re-enter that one field after a restore).

1. One-off: under Admin → Integrations → Backups, set Where backups are written to My Google Drive and click Connect Google Drive.
2. On the Backup page, click Back Up Now and wait for "Backup complete — N records across N tables saved to your Google Drive".
3. To restore, expand a snapshot and run the safe two-step flow: Check what would be restored first (a dry run reporting "N missing" or "✓ All present" per table, changing nothing), then Restore N records. Restores only ever add back missing records — existing records are never overwritten.

Message delivery#

The Message Delivery page (Team → Message Delivery) is the audit trail for every WhatsApp brief: grouped by job, with per-job counts of delivered, read and failed. Each message shows the worker (matched from their phone number), the status — Queued, Sent, Delivered (green tick), Read (blue eye), Failed / Undelivered (warning) — and, for failures, Twilio's exact error text in red. Filter by status to list only the failures; anyone not on delivered or read is worth a phone call.

Data explorer#

For Super Admins only: a read-only browser over every data table in the app, grouped by area — the raw records behind every page. Pick a table, search the loaded rows, click a row to see every stored field. It answers "what exactly is stored?" — all changes still happen on the normal pages, and company settings (which hold your Twilio credentials) are deliberately not browsable. The search only covers rows already loaded, so click Load more first when hunting something old.

Troubleshooting index#

Every fix in this guide, gathered in one place. Each entry links to the full answer in its chapter — or type what you're seeing into the search box in the contents panel.

Creating your account and signing in

• "Invalid email or password" when logging in
• "Invalid verification code" when signing up
• "Invalid reset link" when resetting a password
• "Access Restricted — you are not registered to use this application"

Your company, the setup wizard and subscribing

• You were invited, but you see "Create your company"
• The setup wizard keeps reopening at every login
• "Run the setup wizard first to create your company settings…"
• Everyone suddenly sees the subscribe screen

Calendar

• The contract search shows "No contracts found" or sits on "Loading contracts…"
• A job can't be dropped on a particular day
• "Failed to create job / move job / delete job — please try again."
• No green "+N" capacity number on a day

Day View

• A worker isn't in the Unassigned Workers pool
• A plant chip has gone red with "⚠ 3/2"
• "Failed to save — please try again."

The job editor

• Plant changes disappeared
• "Updated this day, but N other day(s) on contract #X didn't sync."
• Rows in Job details won't open for editing
• The editor closed by itself
• Files uploaded from site but no email reached the office

WhatsApp job briefs

• "Failed to send to: …" for some workers
• "No phone numbers found"
• No WhatsApp buttons anywhere
• The preview shows an error with a Retry link

Live job map

• A job is missing from the map

Holidays

• Approvals work but nobody receives the emails
• A pending holiday doesn't show on the Day View
• The Add button is greyed out

Wages

• A worker is missing from the wage grid
• A bank holiday shows as "Holiday" — or isn't paid at all
• Rate columns are missing, or blank in the download
• The link in an old wages email doesn't work

Petty cash and expenses

• "Admin Only" screen instead of the Petty Cash page
• No approval emails are going out
• "No petty cash claims to export for this month"

Mileage log

• "Location access denied. Please allow in browser settings."
• No standard rate fills in for a company vehicle
• "Could not find one of the addresses"

Invoice checking

• "No query contact set for this supplier"
• "N invoiced costs were left out of the CSV — needs a contract number"
• "CSV downloaded, but N records were NOT marked as exported…"
• "Draft saved. No notify email is set in QCI → Settings…"

Costings — the monthly P&L

• Sales and profit columns show "Loading sales…" or dashes
• The Own Plant column is all dashes
• "Freeze accruals at this date" is greyed out
• An Accrual Log line shows "Record deleted"

The QCI sales area

• There's no QCI logo button in my navigation
• "Draft saved. No notify email is set in QCI → Settings…"
• The green Issue button is greyed out on a draft
• "⚠ N ticked days are already invoiced on #…"
• A client's balance looks split across two accounts

Integrations: WhatsApp, email, SharePoint

• "No Twilio credentials are configured…" on a test send
• "WhatsApp is connected but the message template SID is missing."
• A test send fails with a raw Twilio error
• Delivery status never updates on Message Delivery

Backups and restore

• "Backups aren't set up yet"
• "Backup stopped before writing anything: some of your data could not be read."
• "No backups found yet" even after backing up

Message delivery

• A message shows "Unknown" instead of the worker's name
• Messages stay on "Sent" and never show Delivered or Read

Questions people ask

• Do my workers need their own logins?
• A page my colleague has is missing from my menu
• A job's been rained off — cancel, move or delete?
• Whose number do WhatsApp briefs come from?
• I've heard about Fleet, Training and Personnel pages — where are they?
• Can I get my data out?
• Where's the detail on leads, quotes, invoicing and credit control?

Questions people ask#

Getting help#

The ? button in the app's header brings you back to this guide from any page — straight to that page's chapter. Inside the QCI area it opens the CrewQCI guide, where the sales pages are documented in full.

Stuck on something this guide doesn't cover, or found a snag? Email peter@edwardsapps.co.uk — you'll be talking to the person who builds CrewBook, and the answer usually ends up in this guide for the next person. The exact wording of any error message, and the page you were on, make a fix much quicker.

There's also a condensed Guide page inside the app itself, and the legal pages (Privacy Policy, Terms of Service) live on the Account page behind your round initial button.