School & Fleet Workflow Guide

1. Big picture workflow

A single operational chain runs from the moment something is noticed on a boat to the moment the work is handed to billing:

Every page in the school / fleet workspace sits on this chain. Knowing where you are on it tells you what to do next.

2. Roles

3. Where to go

All Boats

Fleet overview and boat status. What appears here follows your role and vessel assignments.

Boat Status Report / BSR Items

Review legacy reports; on school-fleet boats, instructors report new safety items one at a time through BSR Items.

Manager Desk

Fleet intake and review. One page shows:

• Recent BSRs.
• Reported defects awaiting triage.
• Submitted work awaiting review.
• Recently fixed items for context.

Weekly Workload

Manager / office planning surface:

• Assign ordinary tasks and defects to a person or outside vendor.
• Set priority.
• Estimate labor hours.
• Filter and sort by boat, assignee, priority, or due status.

My Work

Maintenance execution surface:

• Only the work assigned to you.
• Status lanes: pending, in progress, needs more info, submitted for review.
• Add labor hours, supplies, receipts, and photos as you go.

Billing Queue

Office handoff surface:

• Approved work ready for billing.
• Completed work still awaiting manager review.
• Items moved to QuickBooks tracking for accounting follow-up.

4. All Boats

Use All Boats to scan vessel status, due work, and open issues in the active workspace. Fleet Owners, Managers, and Office Staff see every fleet vessel. Maintenance, Instructors, and Owner / Client users see assigned vessels only; the page does not grant access beyond those assignments.

5. Manager Desk

Manager Desk is the staff triage hub for Fleet Owners, Managers, and Office Staff. Use its current tabs and controls to review incoming operational items, submitted work, and recent activity, then direct each item into the appropriate next step.

6. BSR Inbox

Fleet Owners, Managers, and Office Staff review new BSR items here. Use the listed decisions to convert an actionable item to work, close it without a task, or mark a duplicate. Maintenance, Instructors, Owner / Client, and Billing roles do not receive this staff inbox.

7. Weekly Workload

Fleet Owners, Managers, and Office Staff use Weekly Workload to plan and assign work across the fleet, set the available priorities and estimates, and filter the current queue. It is a staff planning surface, not a worker’s personal task list.

8. My Work

My Work is available to Fleet Owners, Managers, Office Staff, Maintenance, and Instructors. It concentrates work assigned to the signed-in user and shows its current status. Open an item to use the progress, evidence, or completion controls that the item and your role provide; completed work follows the current staff-review flow.

9. Billing Queue

Fleet Owners, Managers, Office Staff, and Billing users can use the Billing Queue. It separates completed work awaiting review from approved work ready for billing and tracks the available QuickBooks handoff action. Billing access does not also grant Manager Desk or general fleet-vessel access.

10. Owner communications

This staff hub is available to Fleet Owners, Managers, and Office Staff. Keep internal staff discussion and evidence in internal fields; use deliberately owner-visible messages and decisions only for content intended for the owner portal. Converting a communication into operational work requires organization-management authority, so that action is limited to Fleet Owners and Managers.

11. Boat Status Report (BSR) workflow

On school-fleet boats, instructors report each new safety issue as a separate BSR item through BSR Items, optionally adding photos and A/B/C priority. Managers review items in BSR Inbox and may convert a reviewed item to a task, close it without a task, or mark it duplicate. The legacy Boat Status Report is for reviewing historical reports; instructors cannot start a new legacy report.

12. Maintenance work lifecycle

Each piece of work moves through a small number of clear states:

• Pending — assigned but not started.
• In Progress — the worker has started.
• Submitted for Review — the worker says the job is complete and the manager or office must review it.
• Needs More Info — the manager has sent it back for better notes, photos, or details.
• Ready for Billing — the manager has approved the work and the office can invoice or move it to QuickBooks.
• Closed / Moved to QuickBooks — finished administratively.

13. Labor, supplies, receipts, and rates

• Maintenance enters hours and selects a work type: General or Technical.
• Managers / office set the internal hourly rates for each work type.
• Mechanics do not see labor rates. Internal cost lives on the management side only.
• Supplies can be entered in the receipt currency, including XCD.
• Receipts and photos are internal evidence — they support the manager review and the billing handoff.
• QuickBooks remains the accounting system of record. Vessel Ready supplies the operational evidence; QuickBooks owns the invoice.

14. What Vessel Ready is not replacing

• Not QuickBooks.
• Not payroll.
• Not HR.
• Not bookings.
• Not a full ERP.

Vessel Ready is the operational bridge: reported issue → assigned work → evidence → manager approval → billing handoff. The systems either side of that chain stay where they are.

15. First pilot recommendation

For a new school / fleet pilot, start small:

• One or two boats.
• One manager.
• One office / admin user.
• One maintenance user.
• One instructor / captain.
• Run one full cycle: BSR → defect → assignment → My Work → review → Billing Queue.