What is a Job Ticket?

More commonly known as a work order, a job ticket is a document that is used to detail the specifics of a request for goods or services that is received from a customer. In some industries, the job ticket is created using information that is obtained on a sales order prepared by the salesperson working with the client. There are also situations in which the sales order and the job ticket are the same document, with the terms used to identify the current status of the fulfillment of the customer request.

The exact structure of the job ticket will vary, depending on the type of goods or services required. For example, the landlord may open a job ticket in response to the request of a tenant to have a room in his or her apartment repainted. The landlord will prepare the ticket in a manner that documents the task to be completed, the materials necessary to accomplish the job, the amount of time needed to manage the repainting, and the expense involved in successfully executing the task. In this application, the job ticket essentially functions as not only a record of the customer request, but also as the escalation list of the steps necessary to complete the job, and a record of how much it will cost the landlord to comply with the request.

The job ticket in a manufacturing plant is often prepared from data obtained from a sales order written by the sales department. Here, the order will include details about the product ordered, including size, number of units, color, and any other applicable information. The ticket will often include details about the delivery date agreed upon between the sales department and the customer. If the client has voiced a preference in regard to the shipping method for the items ordered, that information may also be included on the job ticket.

In any setting, the purpose of the job ticket is to ensure that all parties involved in the fulfillment process know exactly what the customer has ordered, what it will take to fill that order, and when the order is to be ready for delivery to the customer. From this perspective, the ticket can be seen as a necessary document that increases the potential for the products to be prepared to the specifications of the client, and delivered to the customer in a timely manner. For this reason, both small and large businesses are highly likely to make use of this type of document in some form.