Once you're set up, your team works in FieldEdge exactly as they always have. The difference is that the items they pull are managed in Ply, and the warehouse they pull from is a Ply location.
The standard work order flow
Open the customer in the FieldEdge customer dashboard.
Create a work order. Add the task (what the tech is going out to do) and a work order description with any specific notes.
Dispatch it. Drag and drop the work order onto the dispatch board and assign it. A work order can span multiple days and hold multiple assignments.
The tech works the job. Techs move through statuses — traveling, working, and so on. Editing is only possible in the "working" status: that's when the tech can add notes, build the invoice or quote, complete forms, and take payment from the mobile app.
Complete the work order.
Finalize the invoice to sync it to QuickBooks. Completing is not the same as finalizing, the invoice only reaches QuickBooks once it's finalized.
How material usage flows back to Ply
Materials must be added to a workorder in FieldEdge, not in Ply. Workorders updates sync one way:
FieldEdge → Ply.
Ply reads work orders; it can't write to them. If you add materials to a job inside Ply, they will not appear on the FieldEdge work order. FieldEdge is the source of truth for workorder materials.
This is the core of the integration, and it's worth understanding before your team starts working jobs.
When you add inventory items to an invoice inside a FieldEdge work order, those materials travel back to Ply along with the work order, and Ply deducts them from the right stock location automatically. Nobody has to record usage twice.
The full loop:
Your materials are created and managed in Ply, and sync out to your FieldEdge item list.
Your team builds an invoice inside a FieldEdge work order and adds inventory line items, either from the office or from the tech's mobile app.
On each inventory line item, they select the Warehouse the material is being pulled from.
That work order syncs into Ply as a Job, instantly.
The materials on the invoice come across with it, and Ply deducts the quantities from the stock location that matches the warehouse selected on each line.
The result: your stock levels in Ply reflect what actually left the truck or the shelf, based on what your techs invoiced in the field.
What this means for your team
The warehouse selection is what drives the deduction. If a tech picks the wrong warehouse, the stock comes off the wrong location in Ply. Worth making part of your tech training.
Set up each truck as a location in Ply. Techs almost always pull from their own truck, so each truck needs to exist as a Ply location and be sent to FieldEdge to be selectable.
Don't manually adjust stock in Ply for materials used on jobs. The job sync already handles it, adjusting by hand on top of that will double-count the usage.
Only physical inventory items appear in Ply. Non-inventory and service items don't carry a warehouse dropdown and don't affect quantities.
Bundles
A Bundle in FieldEdge is a template that adds a group of line items in one click, instead of adding each item individually. Bundles keep working normally, the underlying items are still your Ply-managed items.
Categories
FieldEdge does not require items to have a category. Uncategorized items land under a parent "Uncategorized" group.
If you do categorize:
An item can belong to one category or subcategory only.
Categories nest as parent/child, up to roughly five levels deep.
On mobile, FieldEdge shows a visual price book, where categories and items can carry images to make it easier for techs to find things.
Part requests and purchasing
Purchasing is not part of the current integration. Part requests in FieldEdge continue to work as they do today and do not flow through Ply.
For reference, in FieldEdge you can:
Pull a line item from an invoice into a part request, or create the request directly.
Choose the vendor (the vendor list comes from QuickBooks, update vendors in QuickBooks, and FieldEdge pulls them in).
Update cost on the request if your vendor gives you a different price than the average cost on file.
Move the request through Requested → Ordered → Received. Once a request is marked Received, it's locked and can't be edited. Requests can be cancelled before that.
Sync requests to QuickBooks as either Bills or POs — this is a global setting, so it applies to all part requests.
Taxes, commissions, and payroll
These stay in FieldEdge and QuickBooks, Ply doesn't touch them.
Item-level tax: each item is flagged taxable or non-taxable.
Customer-level tax: on QuickBooks Online, customers are assigned tax codes (including non-taxable codes for tax-exempt customers). Defaults can be set and overridden per customer.
Commissions and spiffs: FieldEdge reports on commissionable sales but does not calculate individual commission amounts.
Payroll: handled in QuickBooks. Time entries can be recorded in FieldEdge and synced over.
FieldEdge user profiles
Useful to know when someone tells you they "can't see" something:
Profile | Access |
Admin | Full access, office and mobile |
Manager | Nearly identical to Admin, but cannot edit Admin users, and typically cannot access payment settings, item categories, or accounting integration settings |
Dispatcher | Work orders, invoices, quotes, customers. No settings, no reports |
CSR | Invoices, quotes, service agreements, customer records. No dispatching, no financial reporting, no dashboard, no settings |
Technician | Mobile app only. No office access |
Employees are pulled into FieldEdge from QuickBooks, and each FieldEdge user is tied to an employee record. That's how FieldEdge knows who created an invoice when it posts to QuickBooks.
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