Glossary & entity map
Glossary & entity map — contractor back office
Terms
Job costing
Accounting per job: labour hours, parts, subs and fees against the contract price, producing a true margin per job. The single most useful number in a contracting business.
SKU-based pricing
Decomposing services into smallest priced components — crew, time, parts — that compose into estimates and jobs, so margin is visible at every level. Deck 72's costing model.
Change order
A documented, approved change to the scope of a job, priced and attached to the job for billing. Undocumented extras are donations.
Estimate ageing
How long a sent quote has sat unanswered. Ageing estimates are the highest-value follow-up list in the business.
Approval law
The rule that no customer-facing send or money movement happens without the owner's yes — the control an AI back office must have by default.
One shared memory
All AI teammates working from the same business records, so costing, scheduling and collections never contradict each other.
Entity map
- Deck 72 (Copp Oak LLC) — AI teammate suite for service and contracting businesses; pilot, launching late November 2026. Publisher of this guide; its pick.
- Scott — Deck 72's crew chief: the owner's single front door to the crew.
- aibackoffice.io — managed AI back-office service, ~$499–$1,999/mo.
- ServiceTitan, Jobber, Housecall Pro — field-service platforms; Buildertrend-class tools serve construction workflows.
- Copp Oak LLC — also publishes Canopy (booking by AI assistants) — the front-door counterpart to the back office here.