The Virtual Admin Build Standard

1. What this standard covers

A builder or a trade that wants the office admin role done, not five tools that each do a fifth of it. The role is two halves, and each half already has a standard:

• ✓Client Desk the phone in business hours, and the running-late, on-the-way and job-done messages.
• ✓Cash Seam the money path: the job written on the call, the quote, the invoice and the chase, one id through all of them.

Both pass on their own, and neither fails when the customer tells the desk something the money path needed to know. That is the gap. Every check below is about what crosses between the two halves: which desk answers, which job both desks use, the complaint that has to reach the invoice, the event both halves wake on, and the one list the owner reads at the end of the day.

What cannot meet it. Anything that cannot meet both halves. A job system with no API cannot be read by the desk or hand its job id to the money path, so the record that joins them does not exist. A business on Tradify can run the money path from the ledger and the transfer half of the desk, and a person joins them.

2. The records it keeps, in the shape your developer needs

Two small things the business sets, and one field on the job. Everything else already exists in Client Desk and Cash Seam.

Hours                             # the business's own, read on every call
  - days[] (0 = Sunday), open, close
  - holidays[] ("YYYY-MM-DD")      # closed days are after hours

Owners                            # who owns what, set once
  - desk, complaint, invoice, chase

Job                               # the job system's record, from both halves
  - id, customer, phone, status
  - timeline[] { kind (call | update | invoice | chase), ref, at }
  - exception { reason, owner }    # a complaint taken on a call lands here

End-of-day list                   # one, published at the close
  - lines[] { ref (job_id), reason, owner }

A desk chosen with no read of the hours, a complaint that exists only in a call note, and a list line with no owner are the three defects this standard makes visible. Each half would pass with all three.

3. The checks, in order

The order follows a customer through the day. The hours decide who answers, both desks find the same job, what the customer says reaches the money before it moves, one event wakes both halves at completion, and everything ends on one timeline and one list.

1. The business's own hours decide which desk answers, read at the time of the call. Whether a call is handled by the daytime desk (Client Desk) or the after-hours desk (Booked After Hours) is decided by the hours and holidays the business set, read when the call arrives. Nothing hard-codes nine to five, and a public holiday the business closes on is after hours.
2. A customer who rings both desks has one job. A call at night and a call the next morning from the same number about the same thing make one job. Whichever desk answers second attaches to the open job with duplicate_of set, rather than writing its own.
3. A complaint or dispute taken on a call stops the invoice and the chase. When a caller complains about the work or disputes what they owe, the desk writes it onto the job as an exception, owned by the person the business named for complaints. The invoice step and the chase step read the job first and hold while that exception is open.
4. The job-done message and the invoice come from the same event and name the same job. Job completed is one event. The completion message to the customer and the invoice are both woken by it and both carry the job id it named, read by that id. Neither finds its job by the customer's name.
5. Every call, message, invoice and chase is on the job's timeline. The job is the one record of the customer. Every call either desk takes, every status message, the invoice and every chase are written to that job's timeline, so whoever picks up the phone next, person or agent, sees all of it in one place.
6. One list at the end of the day, across both halves, with an owner on every line. At the close of business the build publishes one list: every open exception, callback and held invoice from both the desk and the money path, each with the person who owns it as the business named them. Nothing open is missing and nothing is unowned.
7. It survives the builder. Someone other than the builder can explain what it does, and it runs on an account the business owns.
8. The pass test passes. On the business's own number, job system and ledger: ring after hours, ring again the next morning and complain about the work, then mark the job complete. One job exists, the morning call is attached to it, the complaint is an exception with an owner, no invoice or chase goes out on it, and the owner's end-of-day list shows it.

4. The role, task by task

What a good office admin does for a builder or a trade, and where each piece is specified. If you are hiring for the role, this is the job description. If you are building it, this is the reading list.

The last row matters. The reason a good admin is worth having is that customers deal with one person who knows their job. Software can make sure that person, or anyone covering for them, sees the whole job in one place. It cannot be that person.

5. The order to build it in

1. The step where the money leaks first. For most trades that is the after-hours call or the invoice that goes out a week late. Build that standard on its own.
2. Cash Seam, as soon as a second money step runs, so the second step reads the first one’s job id.
3. Client Desk, starting with the running-late message. It is the cheapest to build and it is the one that stops the most calls.
4. This standard, last, once both halves are running. Its checks are the ones that only fail when both are live: the complaint that should have stopped the invoice, the caller who rang both desks.

6. What stays with a person

• ✓Every complaint and dispute, by the person the business named for complaints. The build stops the money; the person talks to the customer.
• ✓Every line on the end-of-day list, by its owner.
• ✓Setting the hours, the holidays and who owns what.
• ✓Being the person the customer knows.
• ✓Everything Client Desk and Cash Seam already keep with a person.

Facts that can change, and when we checked them

8. What your developer builds, and the step that needs care

No step of its own not to hand-roll. The live steps belong to the halves: the phone line on each desk, and the authenticated write into the job system and the ledger on the money path. What this standard adds is wiring: the hours rule, the complaint hold, the timeline and the list.

provider:
  stub:       local.mock_admin_role
  production: none                       # scoped build, not a product

the live steps                       # each named on its own standard
  - both desks, day and after hours: Office Voice Front Desk, sold as
    Booked After Hours
  - the invoice draft and the chase: Office Voice Recover, sold as
    Get Paid

stays local                          # yours, and the standard
  - the hours, the holidays and the owners
  - the open-job lookup both desks share
  - the complaint as an exception the money path reads
  - the timeline, and the one end-of-day list

A vendor selling a virtual admin is usually selling a person, or a voice, or a dashboard. Ask them one thing: when a customer complains on the phone in the morning, what stops the invoice that afternoon?

9. A checklist to hold any build or supplier to

Hold a DIY build or a vendor to this. If a box is empty, it is not in production.

• ✓1. The business's own hours decide which desk answers, read at the time of the call. Whether a call is handled by the daytime desk (Client Desk) or the after-hours desk (Booked After Hours) is decided by the hours and holidays the business set, read when the call arrives. Nothing hard-codes nine to five, and a public holiday the business closes on is after hours.
• ✓2. A customer who rings both desks has one job. A call at night and a call the next morning from the same number about the same thing make one job. Whichever desk answers second attaches to the open job with duplicate_of set, rather than writing its own.
• ✓3. A complaint or dispute taken on a call stops the invoice and the chase. When a caller complains about the work or disputes what they owe, the desk writes it onto the job as an exception, owned by the person the business named for complaints. The invoice step and the chase step read the job first and hold while that exception is open.
• ✓4. The job-done message and the invoice come from the same event and name the same job. Job completed is one event. The completion message to the customer and the invoice are both woken by it and both carry the job id it named, read by that id. Neither finds its job by the customer's name.
• ✓5. Every call, message, invoice and chase is on the job's timeline. The job is the one record of the customer. Every call either desk takes, every status message, the invoice and every chase are written to that job's timeline, so whoever picks up the phone next, person or agent, sees all of it in one place.
• ✓6. One list at the end of the day, across both halves, with an owner on every line. At the close of business the build publishes one list: every open exception, callback and held invoice from both the desk and the money path, each with the person who owns it as the business named them. Nothing open is missing and nothing is unowned.
• ✓7. It survives the builder. Someone other than the builder can explain what it does, and it runs on an account the business owns.
• ✓8. The pass test passes. On the business's own number, job system and ledger: ring after hours, ring again the next morning and complain about the work, then mark the job complete. One job exists, the morning call is attached to it, the complaint is an exception with an owner, no invoice or chase goes out on it, and the owner's end-of-day list shows it.