Sub-statuses extend the five built-in workflow statuses (Not started, Ready to start, In progress, Completed, Cancelled) with your firm's own working states. They let you track real-world hand-offs — "Awaiting client documents", "In review", "Submitted to authority", "Lost to competitor" — without inventing new top-level statuses for each one.

Add a sub-status

  1. Open Settings > Statuses (sometimes labelled Workflow Status).
  2. The page shows the five built-in statuses. Not started and Ready to start are fixed and cannot be customised — they exist only as starting states.
  3. Pick the parent status you want to extend (In progress, Completed, or Cancelled) and click + Add Status.
  4. Enter:
  • Name — what the sub-status represents (e.g. "Awaiting client documents").
  • Colour — used as the badge colour on the workflow and in lists. Pick something distinct from your other sub-statuses.
  • Description — optional, shown as a tooltip when users hover.
  1. (Optional) Restrict to services — pick the services for which this sub-status should be available. Leave blank to make it available on every service. Restricting keeps the dropdown tidy — a tax-return sub-status doesn't clutter an audit workflow's options.
  2. Click Save.

The sub-status is immediately available to users when they change the workflow status to the parent state.

Reorder, edit, or delete

  • Reorder — drag sub-statuses up and down to control the order they appear in the dropdown.
  • Edit — click the sub-status to update the name, colour, or service restriction.
  • Delete — only allowed if no workflow is currently in this sub-status. Otherwise, archive it to keep historical data intact.

Using sub-statuses

On any workflow's Details tab, the Status dropdown shows the five top-level statuses. Once you pick one with sub-statuses configured, a second dropdown appears with the available sub-statuses. The combination — parent status plus sub-status — is what shows up in lists, reports, and the activity log.

Tip: Common sub-status patterns by parent:

  • In progress — Awaiting client docs, In review, Awaiting authority response.
  • Completed — Submitted, Filed, Closed and archived.
  • Cancelled — Lost to competitor, Client cancelled, Duplicate.

Tying the right sub-status to the right service keeps each team's dropdown short and focused on what they actually use.

Note: Changing or removing a sub-status does not retroactively edit historical workflows that used it — past data preserves the sub-status name and colour from when it was set, so reports remain accurate.