How Boss works with Protiv: Complete Integration Guide

1. How the Integration Works from Start to Finish

The typical workflow is:

1. Your team creates and manages the job in Boss.
2. Boss divides the job into one or more job tickets.
3. Your team enters the estimated labor hours and labor cost for each ticket.
4. Employees, foremen, routes, and scheduled visits are assigned in Boss.
5. Employees record their time against the appropriate job ticket.
6. Boss calculates the actual hours and labor costs.
7. Protiv receives the job, ticket, employee, schedule, time, wage, and cost information.
8. Each eligible Boss job ticket appears in Protiv as a milestone.
9. Protiv uses the milestone’s budget and actual labor cost to determine job performance and the available bonus.
10. The ProPay is reviewed and approved in Protiv according to your company’s incentive settings.

The following sections explain each part in more detail.

2. Quick Reference: How Boss Information Appears in Protiv

In Boss	In Protiv	Purpose
Job	Job	Represents the overall project or contract
Job Ticket	Milestone	Represents a specific portion or occurrence of work
Job Ticket Visit	Scheduled visit	Shows when the ticket is scheduled to be worked
Job Ticket Time	Time entry	Shows the employee, work date, hours, rate, and cost
Employee	Worker	Identifies the person performing or receiving credit for work
Job Service	Service	Identifies the type of service being performed
Service Revenue Class	Division	Groups work by business or service category
Boss branch assignment	Branch	Organizes jobs and employees by location or operating unit
Route or foreman assignment	Route and crew lead	Supports route-based work and Group ProPay
Estimated Labor Cost	Labor budget	Establishes the amount available for labor before work begins
Actual Labor Cost	Actual labor cost	Shows what the work has cost so far
Estimated Labor Hours	Budgeted hours	Shows the expected labor time
Actual Labor Hours	Actual hours	Shows how much labor time has been used

3. Jobs

a. Where Jobs Come From

Jobs are created and maintained in Boss.

When synchronized, Protiv creates a corresponding job using information such as:

• Job name or description
• Boss job number
• Job start and end dates
• Job type
• Job status
• Property
• Branch
• Division
• Operations manager
• Billing type

The Boss job number also appears in Protiv, helping your team match the same project between both systems.

b. Recurring and Non-Recurring Jobs

Boss job types are translated into Protiv job types.

In general:

• A Boss Contract job appears as a recurring job.
• A Boss Work Order appears as a non-recurring job.
• A Boss Construction Work Order appears as a non-recurring job.
• An unrecognized job type may appear as unknown until it is reviewed.

This distinction is important because recurring and non-recurring work may be handled differently by your incentive program.

c. Job Managers

Protiv uses the Operations Manager assigned to the job in Boss as the job’s manager.

Boss may contain other manager roles, such as sales manager, account manager, project manager, or site manager. These other manager assignments do not currently replace the operations manager in Protiv.

d. What to check

When the wrong manager appears in Protiv, verify the job’s Operations Manager in Boss.

4. Job Tickets and Milestones

a. How Job Tickets Work

A Boss job may contain one or more job tickets.

A milestone may include:

• Ticket name
• Scheduled date
• Completion date
• Estimated labor hours
• Actual labor hours
• Estimated labor cost
• Actual labor cost
• Material estimates and actuals
• Equipment estimates and actuals
• Subcontractor estimates and actuals
• Percent complete
• Service
• Status

b. Example

A landscaping project in Boss may contain separate job tickets for:

• Site preparation
• Plant installation
• Irrigation
• Cleanup

Depending on the account’s ProPay configuration, these milestones may be evaluated separately instead of treating the entire project as one combined unit.

Important: A milestone cannot appear correctly unless its parent job has also synchronized successfully.

5. Labor Budgets

a. Where the Labor Budget Comes From

When the ticket synchronizes, this amount appears as the milestone’s labor budget in Protiv.

Protiv then compares:

Estimated Labor Cost against Actual Labor Cost

This comparison is a key part of determining whether labor was completed under budget and whether a bonus may be available.

Example

Suppose a Boss job ticket has:

• Estimated Labor Cost: $2,400
• Actual Labor Cost: $2,000

The work is $400 under its labor budget.

The entire $400 is not necessarily paid as a bonus. Your incentive program determines how much, if any, becomes available for distribution.

b. What Happens When the Budget Is Blank or Zero

When Estimated Labor Cost is blank or entered as $0 in Boss, Protiv receives a $0 labor budget.

The job and its hours may still appear, but Protiv will not have a meaningful labor budget to compare against the actual labor cost.

This commonly results in:

• No available bonus
• A $0 labor budget
• A job that appears over budget immediately
• A ProPay that cannot be calculated as expected

c. Recommended practice

d. Can the Budget Be Changed in Protiv?

Some Protiv configurations may allow an authorized user to adjust a milestone budget directly.

However, the safest long-term approach is to correct the Estimated Labor Cost in Boss so both systems remain aligned.

6. Budgeted Hours and Actual Hours

Boss provides both labor hours and labor costs.

a. Budgeted Hours

The Estimated Labor Hours on the Boss job ticket appear as the milestone’s budgeted hours in Protiv.

Budgeted hours help your team understand how much labor time was expected for the work.

b. Actual Hours

Boss provides actual labor hours at two levels:

• The total actual labor hours recorded for the job ticket
• The individual time entries recorded by each employee

Protiv displays this information so managers can review:

• Who worked
• Which date they worked
• How many hours they recorded
• Which ticket received the time
• Which foreman or route was associated with the entry

Budgeted Hours and Actual Hours

Boss provides both labor hours and labor costs.

Budgeted Hours

The Estimated Labor Hours on the Boss job ticket appear as the milestone’s budgeted hours in Protiv.

Budgeted hours help your team understand how much labor time was expected for the work.

Actual Hours

Boss provides actual labor hours at two levels:

• The total actual labor hours recorded for the job ticket
• The individual time entries recorded by each employee

Protiv displays this information so managers can review:

• Who worked
• Which date they worked
• How many hours they recorded
• Which ticket received the time
• Which foreman or route was associated with the entry

Important: The hours and labor cost are related, but they are not the same measurement. A job can have the expected number of hours and still exceed its labor budget if the employees working on it have higher labor costs than planned.

7. Employees and WorkersHow Employees Synchronize

Protiv uses the employee record to connect time entries, routes, crew leads, branches, and ProPay participation to the correct person.

The employee’s name and email address come from Boss.

a. Email Address Requirement

A valid email address is currently required for a Boss employee to be created as a worker in Protiv.

When an employee does not have an email address in Boss:

• The employee may not appear in Protiv.
• Their individual time entries may also be unable to appear because Protiv cannot connect the entries to a worker.
• They cannot receive an invitation to access the Protiv application.

b. What to do

Add a valid, unique email address to the employee record in Boss, and then allow the integration to synchronize again.

Contact Protiv Support if the employee still does not appear after the Boss employee record has been updated.

8. Wages and Labor Costs

a. Where Wage Information Comes From

Boss sends wage and cost information with each employee time entry.

A time entry may include:

• The employee’s hourly rate
• The direct wage cost for the entry
• The loaded or burdened labor cost
• The number of hours
• The work date
• The time type
• The foreman

Protiv uses the values associated with the work performed rather than assuming every historical time entry should use the employee’s latest wage.

This is important when an employee receives a raise. Work completed before the raise may have a different rate or cost from work completed afterward.

b. Actual Labor Cost for the Ticket

The overall Actual Labor Cost shown on a Boss milestone comes directly from the Boss job ticket.

Protiv does not create that ticket total by adding all visible employee time entries together.

Because of this, the following two totals may occasionally look slightly different:

• The overall Actual Labor Cost from Boss
• The sum of the visible individual time-entry costs

Possible reasons include:

• Rounding
• Burden or loaded-cost rules in Boss
• Missing or excluded employee records
• Recently edited time entries
• Timing differences between Boss updates
• Boss calculations that are not represented as a simple sum of the displayed entries

When investigating a difference, treat the Boss job ticket’s Actual Labor Cost as the authoritative ticket total.

c. Where Should Wages Be Updated?

For Boss-connected employees, wage and loaded-cost information should normally be maintained in Boss.

Before creating a permanent wage override in Protiv, confirm with your Protiv representative how overrides are handled for your account.

9. Time Entries and Hours Worked

a. What Synchronizes with Each Time Entry

Each Boss job ticket time entry can provide Protiv with:

• Employee
• Job ticket
• Work date
• Hours worked
• Hourly rate
• Wage cost
• Loaded labor cost
• Foreman
• Approval date
• Time type
• Pay code

The Boss work date becomes the work date in Protiv.

Boss provides the number of hours but does not provide a full starting and ending timestamp for each entry. Protiv therefore uses the work date and duration to represent the entry.

b. Where Time Should Be Corrected

Time entries should be corrected in Boss.

Examples include:

• Time entered on the wrong ticket
• Incorrect employee
• Incorrect number of hours
• Incorrect work date
• Incorrect foreman
• Travel recorded as regular work
• Incorrect wage or loaded cost

After the Boss entry is corrected, allow the updated information to synchronize with Protiv.

10. Drive Time and Travel

Boss can classify a time entry as Travel.

Example

A worker records:

• 6 hours of installation time
• 45 minutes of travel time

When the travel portion is correctly marked as Travel in Boss, Protiv can distinguish it from regular job time.

When the entire 6 hours and 45 minutes is recorded as regular work, Protiv receives it as regular work time.

a. Best practice

Corrections should be made in Boss so the original time record and the information in Protiv remain consistent.

The availability of a direct drive-time reclassification option in Protiv for Boss-connected accounts should be confirmed with Protiv Support.

11. Services, Divisions, and Branches

a. Services

Services help identify the specific type of work performed.

Examples:

• Mowing
• Irrigation repair
• Landscape installation
• Snow removal
• Enhancement work

b. Divisions

Examples may include:

• Maintenance
• Construction
• Irrigation
• Enhancements

Divisions can help determine which workers, managers, or incentive programs apply to a job.

c.Branches

Branch information may come from:

• The employee’s assigned branches
• The employee’s primary branch
• The branch assigned to the Boss job

A job’s branch and an employee’s branch do not have to be the same.

d. Example

A worker may belong to the West Branch while working on a job assigned to the Central Branch.

12. Foremen, Routes, and Group ProPay

Boss can organize scheduled work using a formal route, a foreman, or both.

a. Formal Routes

When a Boss scheduled visit has a Route assigned, Protiv can create or associate the matching route.

The route name and assigned foreman come from Boss.

b. Foreman-Based Routes

Some Boss companies do not use a formal Route ID. Instead, they organize work by foreman.

When a scheduled visit has a foreman but no formal route, Protiv may create a foreman-based route so the work can still be grouped correctly.

c. Why This Matters

Routes and foremen can be used to:

• Identify the crew lead
• Organize recurring work
• Determine eligibility
• Group work into Group ProPay
• Associate time entries with the appropriate crew

d. Best practice: Make route or foreman assignment part of your regular Boss scheduling process.

13. Job and Milestone Statuses

a. Job Status

Protiv uses the job status received from Boss when the status is recognized.

Common examples include:

Boss status	Protiv status
Available	Pending
Pending	Pending
Complete	Completed
Approved	Completed
Billed	Completed
Canceled or Cancelled	Canceled

b. Milestone Status

Boss job ticket statuses are also translated into Protiv milestone statuses.

Common examples include:

Boss ticket status	Protiv milestone status
Open	Pending
Run	Scheduled
Worked	Completed
Approved	Completed
Billed	Completed
Canceled or Cancelled	Canceled

c. Why a Job May Show “In Progress”

Even when a ticket is still marked Open or Run in Boss, Protiv may show it as In Progress when actual hours or actual costs have already been recorded.

The parent job may also move from Pending to In Progress once one of its milestones shows activity.

Example

A job contains five tickets. Only the first ticket has been worked.

Protiv may show:

• The first milestone as In Progress
• The other four milestones as Pending or Scheduled
• The overall job as In Progress

This is expected because work has begun on at least one part of the job.

Completed or canceled jobs are not moved backward to In Progress.

14. How ProPays Are Created

A ProPay uses the job-performance information available in Protiv.

For Boss-connected work, this typically includes:

• The Boss job and job ticket
• The ticket’s estimated labor cost
• The ticket’s actual labor cost
• Eligible employees
• Employee time entries
• Routes and crew leads
• Your Protiv incentive-program settings
• Any applicable exclusions, penalties, or distribution rules

a. Basic Calculation Concept

At a high level, Protiv compares the labor budget with the actual labor cost.

Example

Item	Amount
Estimated Labor Cost	$3,000
Actual Labor Cost	$2,500
Labor savings	$500

Protiv then applies your company’s incentive settings to determine:

• Whether the work qualifies
• How much of the savings becomes a bonus
• Who is eligible
• How the bonus is distributed
• Whether any penalties or adjustments apply

A positive difference does not automatically mean the full difference is paid to employees.

b. What Is Managed in Protiv

ProPay-specific decisions are generally managed in Protiv, including:

• Incentive-program rules
• Employee eligibility
• Bonus percentages
• Distribution rules
• Disqualifiers and penalties
• ProPay review
• ProPay approval
• Statement and payout processing

13. Synchronization Between Boss and Protiv

Automatic Synchronization

Once the integration is connected, Protiv periodically checks Boss for new and updated information.

The integration is not a live, second-by-second connection. A change made in Boss may not appear immediately in Protiv.

14. Key Takeaways

Protiv uses that information to evaluate performance and manage ProPays.

For the most reliable results:

• Enter an Estimated Labor Cost on every eligible Boss job ticket.
• Give each participating employee a valid, unique email address.
• Correct job and time information in Boss rather than only in Protiv.
• Assign a route or foreman to scheduled work.
• Classify travel time correctly.
• Allow time for synchronization after making changes.
• Compare the same job ticket, employee, date range, and cost type in both systems.

When information still does not match, provide Protiv Support with the relevant Boss IDs and screenshots from both systems.

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