Fencing Data Model — Permits & Takeoff | FieldCamp

How a fencing business runs in FieldCamp: Request, Estimate, Job, Visit, Invoice, plus a permit and utility-locate gate and fence-segment takeoff records.

A fencing business is about 85% covered by FieldCamp's core records on day one.

A customer calls for a new fence, you measure and quote it, you schedule a crew, you bill, and you get paid — that is the same connected chain every trade runs.

The chain maps one-to-one onto FieldCamp: Request → Estimate → Job → Visit(s) → Invoice → Payment.

Multi-option pricing for cedar versus vinyl versus aluminum, posts and panels priced from the catalog, and a week-long commercial perimeter run as a multi-day job all work without a single new record type.

Two things make fencing its own setup.

Install day is gated by compliance — permits and the legally required 811 utility locate must be cleared before a crew can dig — and takeoff-style jobs with several runs of different style and height benefit from a per-run measurement record.

FieldCamp models both as custom objects on top of the core, nothing more.

FieldCamp works for any size, from a single-truck operator to a multi-location franchise, residential or commercial — and everything described here can be tailored.

What the core already gives you

Most of a fencing business runs on the standard records, used exactly as they ship.

Requests capture the first call or web booking and convert straight to a quote, a work order, or a bill.
Estimates & Invoices carry the quote and the bill. Fencing estimates are usually multi-option — a single Good / Better / Best quote where the customer picks cedar, vinyl, or aluminum on the spot — with a deposit amount and payment terms.
Jobs are the work order. A one-day residential install is a single job; a multi-phase commercial run is a multi-day job that creates one Visit per day and rolls completion back up.
The Price Book holds posts, panels, pickets, rails, gates, concrete, and hardware with cost, price, and vendor detail. They flow onto estimates, jobs, and invoices as line items.
Team Members and Service Areas cover crews, routing, and territories.
Deposits and partial payments are recorded against the Invoice.

Tear-out, removal, and material lists are handled as Price Book line items, not new records. The fencing setup adds only what the core genuinely cannot do — the compliance gate and the per-run takeoff.

What fencing adds

On top of the core, the fencing setup introduces two custom objects, both built on FieldCamp's customization engine and both attached to the Job they belong to.

Fence Permit — the install-day gate

Fence Permit is the pre-install compliance record. It sits under a Job, so each permit and locate belongs to a specific install, and it is the reason fencing is its own setup rather than a handful of custom fields.

A simple checkbox could store a permit number, but it could not block the crew from digging until approvals land. Fence Permit is a status-driven record with its own workflow and its own expiry tracking, so the install cannot start until compliance is satisfied.

Field	What it holds
Permit type	Building permit, HOA approval, utility locate, or engineered drawing
Permit number	The issued permit reference
Issuing authority	The city, county, or HOA that granted it
Submitted date	When the application went in
Approved date	When it was granted
Expiry date	When the permit lapses — drives the expiry countdown
Locate ticket number	The 811 utility-locate ticket
Locate valid until	When the 811 marks expire and the locate must be re-run
Permit fee	The cost paid for the permit
Permit document	The scanned permit or locate confirmation
Notes	Free-text detail

The record page is assembled from building blocks: a header showing the current status, the fields themselves, a breadcrumb link back to the parent Job, a compliance block that counts down the permit and locate expiry, and a files block for the scanned documents.

An automation can send a reminder as an expiry or locate-valid-until date approaches, and notify the scheduler the moment a permit is approved.

Fence Segment — the takeoff worksheet

Fence Segment is an optional per-run measurement record. One segment is one stretch of fence — a north run, a gate side — with its own style, height, and material profile.

It is built for takeoff-style jobs that have several runs of different specs, common on commercial work and some residential.

For a simple single-run residential job it is overkill; the site-survey form covers that. Offer it as an add-on, not a default.

Field	What it holds
Segment label	The name of the run, such as "North run" or "Gate side"
Fence style	Wood or cedar, vinyl, chain link, aluminum or ornamental, composite
Linear feet	The length of the run
Fence height	The height in feet
Post spacing	Distance between posts, defaulting to 8 feet
Post count	Calculated from linear feet and post spacing
Gate count	Number of gates on the run
Terrain	Flat, sloped, or stepped
Materials	Linked Price Book products for this run
Segment photos	Site photos of the run

Post count is a calculated field — FieldCamp divides linear feet by post spacing and adds one, so the count updates as the measurement changes.

Priced totals still flow through the estimate and invoice line items; the segment is the takeoff worksheet, the estimate is the quote.

Fence Segment has no workflow of its own — it is a spec line, not a lifecycle record. Its page shows a header, the fields, a link back to the Job, the linked materials, and a photo gallery.

Fields on the Job

A few custom fields on the core Job round out the setup without any new record:

Project type — residential or commercial, which drives the branching below.
Total linear feet — the headline measurement for the whole job.
Primary fence style — the dominant material.
Removal required — whether an old fence is being torn out.
HOA required — whether HOA approval is in play.

The site-survey form

On-site measurement is captured with a Fence Site Survey form rather than a pile of fields: linear footage per side, gate locations and sizes, height, terrain and slope notes, obstacles, sprinkler and utility notes, photos, and customer sign-off.

The form attaches to the Job, its submission is stored on the Visit, and it surfaces on the record page. Commercial handoffs use a second completion and punch-list form with a checklist block.

The permit and locate lifecycle

The Fence Permit record moves through its own workflow. It starts unsubmitted, runs through approval, tracks the separate 811 locate, and ends when approvals expire.

The install gate lives on the Job, not on the permit. The Job's start-work step carries a guardrail so the install cannot begin until the permit is approved and the locate is cleared.

That guardrail is toggleable — on for commercial and front-yard residential, off for a small permit-exempt repair.

Blocking the start of work on a child permit's stage is enforced with a rule on the Job plus the toggleable requirement, rather than a single built-in "parent waits for child stage" setting.

The result is the same gate; this is the path that builds it.

Residential vs commercial

The same records serve both. The difference is expressed through the Residential or Commercial project type, the customer type, and how strict the install gate is.

Residential

A homeowner is the decision-maker and the Customer is an individual, with a one-off or one-to-three-day install. A permit is often required only for taller or front-yard fences, but the 811 locate is always legally required. Billing is a deposit up front and the balance on completion, with a customer signature at finish.

Commercial

The buyer is a property manager or general contractor, recorded as a business Customer with separate property and billing addresses. Jobs are multi-day and often multi-phase across several buildings or runs, with multiple permits and engineered drawings. Work is usually purchase-order driven, and handoff runs through a general-contractor sign-off with a punch list.

The install gate is where the two diverge most. The permit requirement on the start-work step is switched on for commercial and front-yard residential, and switched off for small repairs that need no permit — one setting, the same model.

One model, every size. A single-truck operator measuring a backyard fence and a commercial contractor running a fenced perimeter across a campus use the same Request, Estimate, Job, Visit, and Invoice — plus the permit gate and takeoff records where they earn their place.

A few things fencing tools sometimes advertise are not part of this model. Structured progress billing with retainage is handled as separate invoices per phase, not an automatic schedule of values.

Measurements are entered from the survey or a Fence Segment, not drawn on a satellite map. And material lists are assembled from the catalog as line items, optionally aided by kits, not auto-generated from fence-style rules.

Built on the customization engine

Everything above is the customization engine applied to fencing — nothing here is hard-coded.

You add the Fence Permit and Fence Segment record types and their fields, give Fence Permit its own stages and the start-work guardrail, and arrange each page from building blocks. The same tools build a setup for any trade; fencing is one configuration of them.

Jobs

The work order the permit gate and fence segments attach to — line items, scheduling, and status from draft to paid.

Visits

The install appointments under a Job, where the site survey is captured and sign-off is collected.

Estimates & Invoices

Good / Better / Best fence quotes and the invoices and payments that follow.

Permits

The permit custom object pattern, shared across fencing, electrical, and construction.

Coming from Jobber

Most fencing businesses run on Jobber, the SMB leader for trades, and its install-and-quote shape maps cleanly into FieldCamp.

A client calls, you quote the fence, you schedule the crew, you bill, and you get paid — the same chain in both tools. ServiceTitan also serves fencing; Jobber is where most smaller fencing shops live.

The records line up nearly one-to-one for the basics, and FieldCamp adds room to grow where Jobber stops.

In Jobber	In FieldCamp	Notes
Client	Customers	The party you bill and serve. FieldCamp keeps billing, service, and property addresses on one record.
Property	The customer's service address, or a Property custom object when a client has several sites	A single-site homeowner uses the address on the customer; multi-site clients get a Property record of their own.
Request	Requests	The inbound inquiry, with inspection and quote stages, converting straight to a quote or job.
Quote	Estimates & Invoices	Fence quotes with Good / Better / Best options, deposits, and online approval.
Job	Jobs	The work order — one-off, multi-day, or recurring.
Visit	Visits	Each scheduled trip on a job, with dispatch, on-site capture, and sign-off.
Invoice	Estimates & Invoices	One-click invoicing with partial and full payments and overdue tracking.
Products & Services (materials)	Price Book	Posts, panels, pickets, gates, concrete, and hardware with cost, price, and vendor detail.
Team	Team Members	Crews and contractors, with skills and service areas.

Where Jobber stops, FieldCamp keeps going. Jobber has no per-run measurement record; FieldCamp adds the Fence Segment takeoff worksheet as a custom object so each run carries its own style, height, and linear feet.

What you gain. Jobber's structure is fixed — the objects and how they relate are set for you.

In FieldCamp every record is yours to rename, extend, and restage, so you can match your Jobber setup first and then go past it with custom objects & fields and your own stages & workflows — the permit gate and the project records this page describes.

One honest note. For the install-and-quote basics, the move is near one-to-one.

The difference is on the upside: FieldCamp adds the measurement and project records — the Fence Segment takeoff and the permit gate — that a fencing shop grows into.