Roadway Yoke

Roadway Yoke runs the sign side of a traffic-control and signage business: a sign order from design and customer proof approval, through printing, laminating, mounting and QC on the shop floor, out to the field where each post goes in — locates, digging, the concrete base, the post, the sign, and a verification photo.

It is built on Job Cost Yoke. Every sign order, panel and install site belongs to a job, and every hour and every dollar they consume lands on that job's cost lines. Roadway Yoke adds the workflow; Job Cost Yoke keeps the books on it.

It is not a manufacturing MRP. There is no bill-of-materials netting and no planned orders — a make-to-order sign shop needs a traveler for each sign and a true cost for each job, and that is what this is.

Requirements

• Job Cost Yoke must be installed first. The catalog shows Requires Job Cost Yoke on the listing, with a button that takes you to it. While Roadway Yoke is installed, Job Cost Yoke can't be uninstalled.
• On the free plan, install the second of the two apps with demo data turned off — both demo books together come close to the free plan's record limit.

What installs

• Sign Orders — the order board: Design → Signature requested → Approved → In production → Ready to install → Installing → Installed.
• Shop — the shop floor, one card per sign face (or per batch of identical faces): Queued → Printing → Laminating → Mounting → QC → Staged. You see at a glance how many faces are waiting at the laminator.
• Field — install sites, one per post or foundation: Scheduled → Locates requested → Cleared → Excavated → Base poured → Post set → Sign hung → Verified.
• Shop Efficiency — rework by sign code across all jobs.

On a job in Job Cost Yoke, Roadway Yoke adds the job's sign orders, its install sites and its rework chart to the job page.

The install also adds traffic-control and signage cost codes (posts and tube, blanks, sheeting, finishes, hardware, concrete, design / shop / field / traffic control labor, trucks, excavation equipment, TTC devices, private locates) and activities (design, print, laminate, mount, QC, locates, dig, concrete base, TTC setup, shift and pickup) to Job Cost Yoke. They stay if you uninstall.

The rules the boards enforce

• No approval, no print. A sign order can't leave Signature requested until the customer has approved the proof — either by e-signature, or by recording who approved it, when and how (with the signed proof attached). E-signature is an add-on; the recorded approval works without it.
• QC before install. An order can't be released to install until someone has signed off QC.
• No locate ticket, no digging. An install site can't be cleared for excavation until the utility locate ticket number is recorded.
• Base before post. A post can't be set until the base pour date is recorded.
• Photo before verify. A site can't be verified without an install photo.

A panel that fails QC goes back to Printing. Each rejection adds one to the panel's rework count, which is what the rework charts add up — the sign codes that keep coming back are where the shop is losing time.

Costing the work

Roadway Yoke doesn't have cost records of its own; it uses Job Cost Yoke's. When a cost line belongs to a specific panel or install site, set its Work Item Type (sign_panel or install_site) and Work Item — the panel's and site's pages then list their own costs. Import recipes for payroll, accounting job-cost reports and rental or dispatch exports are on the Job Cost Yoke page; for a traffic-control business:

• Payroll job-cost export — shop and field hours land as labor lines. Use the cost codes LAB-SHOP, LAB-FIELD and LAB-TTC and, where the punch carries it, the activity (print, laminate, mount, dig, TTC shift…).
• Accounting job-cost report — sheeting, blanks, tube and concrete bought for a job land as material lines under the matching MAT- code.
• Rental or dispatch system export — TTC devices and equipment days land as equipment lines (EQ-TTC), with Source set to external. If the same export records crew hours that payroll already pays, import those as hours with a zero amount.