# Overview

What Cyanic Job Book is, what it changes for each role, and how it improves profitability, accountability and sustainability for a land surveying company.

Source: https://getjobbook.com/help/Overview
Last updated: 2026-09-17

## What is Job Book?

Job Book is a project management and workflow system for land surveying companies. It helps to automate the flow of value through your company, gives staff the tools they need to stay accountable, and lets you make better business decisions with real-time analytics and reporting.

Job Book is the result of years of working with survey companies and implementing their best practices. We have seen first-hand the improvements in profitability and quality-of-life experienced by our Job Book customers, and we hope you love it as much as they do.

When you log in you land on the dashboard, a wall of cards, one for each part of the system. The [Dashboard](https://getjobbook.com/help/Dashboard) page walks through the cards, the **Navigate** menu and **Settings**.

![The Job Book dashboard with all sixteen cards](https://getjobbook.com/_astro/dashboard.C_DZeKiB.png)

*Everything in Job Book starts from here. Pick a card and its links take you straight into that module.*

Your own dashboard may be smaller than this one. Which cards you see depends on your role and on the modules your company has licensed; see [What each role sees](https://getjobbook.com/help/Dashboard#what-each-role-sees).

## How will Job Book improve my life?

Job Book helps in different ways depending on your role.

### Administrators

1. You will spend much less time:
    * Collecting daily work records and other paperwork from employees.
    * Preparing for payroll and reimbursement activities.
    * Getting project information and approvals from project managers.
    * Creating invoices and keeping track of what work still needs to be billed.
    * Keeping different rate sheets organized across different customers and different kinds of jobs.
    * Generating reports and KPIs for management.
    * Getting data into your accounting system.
2. You will find it reassuring that the system automatically coordinates project manager approvals of invoices and other processes to reduce the number of mistakes that could show up during billing.
3. It will be easier to support your customers, because all job information is a few clicks away.
4. You will be able to get your weekends back.

### Management

1. You will be able to see the status and financial health of your jobs in real-time.
2. You will be able to see when a job is going off-track, so you can make that call to your client now, instead of waiting until the end of the month or the end of the project when the hours are tallied up.
3. You will be able to search past jobs by area or any information, so that you can put together estimates for new jobs.
4. You will be able to catch errors in records submitted by your team, and improve the profitability of your jobs.
5. You will be able to delegate your job activities to other managers, as project information is centralized and easy to pick-up.
6. You will no longer have to wait for Accounting/Bookkeeping to tell you if you are making or losing money on a job.
7. You will be able to plan the work instead of reacting to it: the Tasks / Scheduling module breaks a job down into tasks and puts them on a calendar, where you assign them to employees by dragging and dropping. See [Task Scheduling](https://getjobbook.com/help/task-scheduling).
8. You will be able to see where your equipment is and who has it, because the Assets module tracks your company's assets and lets you assign ownership to an employee.

### Job Coordinators

1. You will be able to set a job up yourself (client, locations, contacts, billing configuration and line items) instead of queueing behind an Administrator. See [Job Setup](https://getjobbook.com/help/Job_Setup#creating-a-job).
2. You will be able to create and update the clients those jobs belong to, so the record everyone works from stays current. See [Clients](https://getjobbook.com/help/Clients).
3. You will be able to apply the right rate sheet to a job, and adjust the rates on the job when the bid calls for it.
4. You will be able to do all of that from the account you already have. Job Coordinator is a role of its own, normally paired with Technician or Manager, and it stops short of an Administrator's wider access.

### Technicians

1. You will spend much less time filling out paperwork.
2. You will find it easier to enter hours and equipment against your jobs.
3. You will spend less time asking your manager about which line items you should be using.
4. You will be able to view all of your hours and the status of your expenses.
5. People will stop bugging you about your handwriting or losing paper in the truck.
6. You will be able to book time off in the same app you fill your timesheets in, and see who else is away on the company calendar. See [Leave Tracking](https://getjobbook.com/help/leave-tracking-overview).
7. You will be able to file your hazard assessments and tailgate meetings from the field, instead of carrying paper forms back to the office. See [Safety](https://getjobbook.com/help/Safety).

## How will Job Book improve my company?

### Improve Profitability

1. Reduce the mistakes that lead to under-billing.
2. Invoice your customers much more quickly.
3. Reduce the amount of overhead across all roles in the company. Administrators will have more time for crew organization, scheduling, safety, marketing materials and bookkeeping.
4. Learn what your best kinds of clients and jobs are, so you can focus on what makes you the most money.
5. Find where you're coming up short on estimates and where you need to raise your rates.
6. Reduce the pain of growing your company by automating processes and keeping information centralized and organized for everyone who needs it.
7. Make it much easier to merge with or acquire other companies by having everyone work on the same system.
8. Make more money from your equipment by learning which equipment is used the most and which is a bottleneck.
9. Staff can more easily work remotely, with less communication with the office.
10. When the company makes more money, you will be able to hire the best surveying talent to work different kinds of jobs or increase capacity.

### Improve Accountability

1. Staff are given the tools and are incentivized to enter hours accurately.
2. The system keeps track of what actions must be completed and by whom, so nothing falls through the cracks.
3. You get better visibility on jobs and operations across the organization, and problem areas show up sooner so you can correct them faster.
4. Improved clarity around roles and responsibilities results in less conflict between employees.

### Improve Sustainability

1. Onboard new hires more easily, and integrate them into the existing process.
2. Reduce the pain and lost knowledge from the departure of key staff, as all project information is centralized and easily reassigned.
3. Staff spend more time on what they love and less on tedious overhead, which improves employee retention.
4. When survey companies are more profitable, it improves the stature and sustainability of the whole surveying profession!

## Now is the Time

The next pages walk through setting your Job Book system up: [Users and Employee Profiles](https://getjobbook.com/help/Users_and_Employee_Profiles) and [Administration Settings](https://getjobbook.com/help/Administration_Settings). Create your offices on Administration Settings before you add employee profiles, because a profile carries an office.

We will be with you every step of the way.

Sincerely,

Mike & Doug, and the Cyanic Job Book team.

_PS: If you don't already have Job Book, [Get Job Book](https://getjobbook.com)_

## Introduction videos

The first episode of each of the manual's two YouTube series is an introduction to Job Book: the Setup Guide,
which goes on to walk through the initial setup, and the How to Use Guide, which covers the day-to-day work.

Watch the video: [Job Book Setup #1: Introduction to Job Book Project Management Software](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7Hzdxgs8Y4)

Watch the video: [Job Book How to Use Guide #1: Intro | Software for Land Surveyors](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHzxB9CH8J0)

## Related Guides

- Overview
- [Dashboard](https://getjobbook.com/help/Dashboard)
- [Users and Employee Profiles](https://getjobbook.com/help/Users_and_Employee_Profiles)
- [Administration Settings](https://getjobbook.com/help/Administration_Settings)
- [Clients](https://getjobbook.com/help/Clients)
- [Job Setup](https://getjobbook.com/help/Job_Setup)
- [Reports](https://getjobbook.com/help/Reports)