Custom workflows

Settings → Status labels (see the Branding & white-label article) only renames what a built-in status is called — it never changes when something can move, or how it counts toward money or reports. Settings → Workflows is different: it lets you define the actual set of stages an entity moves through, and the paths between them, for Jobs, Quotes, Bookings, and (in a scoped way — see below) Invoices.

Open Settings → Workflows → New workflow, pick the entity type, and either “Start from default lifecycle” (the built-in stages, as an editable starting point) or build from a blank two-state scaffold. Add states — each with a label, a color, and whether it’s the initial or a final state — and add transitions between two states with a label of their own (e.g. “Schedule,” “Approve”).

A transition can optionally require a specific role (owner, admin, operator, accounting, sales, or staff) before it’s allowed, and a state can require specific fields be filled in before an entity can move into it.

Only one workflow can be the default per entity type at a time — that’s the one new and existing records of that type resolve their status, badge, and legal next moves from. An entity type with no custom workflow (or none marked default) uses the exact built-in lifecycle every workspace starts with. Archive a workflow to retire it without deleting it; restore it later if you need to.

An Invoice workflow only ever defines a PRE-SEND approval chain (e.g. Draft → Pending approval → Approved) — it can never represent Sent, Partial, Paid, Overdue, or Void. Those are always computed from actual payments and due dates, never a custom state. Mark at least one of your states “sendable” so Meridian knows an invoice sitting in it is actually allowed to send.

Any state in a custom workflow — “Job enters ‘Diagnosed’,” “Quote enters ‘Approved’,” and so on — is available as a trigger under Settings → Automations, right alongside the canonical triggers. See the “Automations” article for the full model.