LBC Assist user guide
Plain-language help for registration, billing, projects, permits, field assistants, reports, account administration, and security settings.
LBC Assist is organized around tenants, licensed users, and projects. Most day-to-day work starts on the portal, where you select a project and open the service you need: Permit Assistant, Diagram Assistant, Time Assistant, Mileage Assistant, or Task Assistant.
Quick Workflows
New tenant setup
- Register the contractor business and default administrator.
- Select the initial license bundles and count.
- Complete Stripe Checkout to start the trial or paid subscription.
- Add users, assign licenses, and grant only the permissions each user needs.
- Create projects and assign users to the project services they should use.
Daily project work
- Sign in and choose a project from the portal.
- Select the project address if the project has more than one location.
- Open the relevant assistant for permits, diagrams, time, mileage, or tasks.
- Use Reports to review completed work, invoices, permits, task activity, time, and mileage.
When something is missing
- Confirm your user has an active assigned license.
- Confirm your permissions include the page or service you need.
- Confirm the project has that service enabled.
- Confirm you are assigned to that service on the project.
Access, Roles, Permissions, and Licenses
Access is tenant-scoped. Your tenant is the contractor business account you belong to. The application reads your tenant, permissions, billing status, license assignment, and project assignments from the server.
| Control | What it affects |
|---|---|
| Assigned license | A user must have an active assigned license to sign in and use paid services. |
| Default tenant administrator | Super user for the tenant. This user always keeps one protected paid license. |
| Administrator role | Grants all tenant permissions and broad administrative access. |
| Project service assignment | Controls whether a user can open Time, Mileage, Tasks, Diagrams, or Permit Assistant for a project. |
| Billing status | Setup, trialing, active, past due, suspended, terminated, or other Stripe-driven states. |
Core permissions include project create/edit, permit create/edit/delete, user management, audit log viewing, reports viewing, account management, billing management, time management, mileage management, task management, and diagram access.
Registration and First Billing Setup
Create an account
Registration collects contractor business information, the first administrator's user information, a password, legal acceptance, and an initial billing package. The first user becomes the default tenant administrator.
Select license bundles
Choose at least one paid license. Bundles can be mixed. The selected total becomes the starting paid license pool after Stripe Checkout completes. Trial eligibility applies only up to the configured trial license limit.
Complete Stripe Checkout
Stripe collects and verifies payment information. If a free trial applies, billing starts automatically when the trial ends. If the selected package exceeds the trial limit, paid billing starts immediately.
Portal Home
The portal is the hub after sign-in. It shows account-level links, your project list, and expandable launch panels for enabled project services.
Top links
Account, Billing, My Profile, Users, Reports, Audit Logs, and Help appear based on your permissions. My Profile and Help are available to signed-in users.
Location access
Location prompts help record field activity such as time and mileage. Users can still navigate without location access, but some field entries may need manual/admin override.
Billing setup state
New tenants that have not completed Stripe setup can reach Billing and My Profile, but the project workspace stays closed until billing and license setup is complete.
Projects and Project Setup
Project list
The portal project list shows active projects by default. Use Reload Projects to refresh and Show archived to include archived projects. Selecting a project opens project actions and service launch panels.
Create project
Create Project captures project name, optional description, owner information, property address, property type, address cost, parcel or tax ID, owner mailing address, enabled services, and the mileage tracking mode. Parcel lookup can help fill the parcel/tax ID when available.
Edit project
Edit Project lets permitted users update project details, owner information, property locations, mailing address, enabled services, mileage tracking mode for future entries, and user assignments. Projects can also be archived, restored, or deleted.
Project user assignments
Assign users by service. A user may have access to one service on a project and not another. Service columns only appear when that service is enabled for the selected project.
Permit Assistant
Permit Assistant opens from a selected project and permit. It is organized as a step-by-step workflow and saves progress for the permit.
| Step | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Project Scope | Describe the work and continue to jurisdiction discovery. |
| Jurisdiction | Review permitting authorities detected for the project scope and address. |
| Permit Catalog | Review likely permit requirements and choose the relevant permit. |
| Permit Requirements | Review extracted requirements, forms, and supporting-document expectations. |
| Documentation Prep | Answer generated questions needed to assemble the permit documentation bundle. |
| Diagramming | Capture lot outline details, attach or reference Diagram Assistant tabs, and generate the bundle. |
Diagram Assistant
Diagram Assistant opens in project context and embeds the diagram editor with General, Floorplan, Engineering, and custom Construction/Contractor libraries. Use it for construction visuals, flow charts, site-related sketches, and diagrams that may support permit packages.
Diagram tabs are saved to the project. Permit Assistant can reference selected diagram tabs during documentation bundle generation when a permit requires drawings or visual support.
Time Assistant
Current session
Choose a start reason and start time tracking for the selected project. Open sessions appear until they are stopped. Closed entries show in the entry history.
Manual entries
Users in Manage Time mode can create or edit entries for assigned users. Manual/admin override entries are useful when location or device capture was not available.
Time reasons
Account managers with time permissions can add tenant-specific reasons and mark time reasons as billable or non-billable. Default reasons can be disabled or re-enabled.
Mileage Assistant
Mileage Assistant tracks project travel. The project controls whether new mileage activity is tracked per segment or per trip. Existing entries keep the mode they were created with.
Per segment
Users start a trip and later end it. The entry stores start and stop time, locations, reason, and distance when available.
Per trip
The system can update location during the trip and close when the user returns to the start area, or the user can end the trip manually.
Manual/admin entries
Manage Mileage mode allows manual start and stop details, address entry, editing, deletion, and force close support when appropriate.
Task Assistant
Task Assistant supports individual task views and management views for users with task management permission.
My Task View
Filter by start date, due date, and status. Task statuses include open, in progress, blocked, question, closed, not closed, and all.
Manage Tasks
Managers can create, update, assign, clear, reload, and page through project tasks. Tasks can be assigned to all assigned users or a specific assignee.
Comments and questions
Task rows support comments, questions, answers, edited note history, question assignee changes, and question withdrawal where allowed.
Reports
Reports are tenant-scoped and use the filters shown for the selected report type. Results can be viewed in the browser or exported as CSV, XLS, or PDF.
| Report family | Examples |
|---|---|
| Time | Time by user/project, time by user/date range, total time, billable/non-billable project hours. |
| Mileage | Total mileage by project, mileage by reason, and close-mode filtering. |
| Tasks | Tasks by project, task note edits, task questions and answers. |
| Permits | Permits created for a project and permit events created by a user. |
| Notifications | Push notification coverage, enabled categories, devices, and latest delivery outcomes. |
| Billing invoices | Stripe invoice lines for full-month charges, partial periods, prorations, credits, and upcoming previews. |
Account Management
The Account page changes tenant-level settings. Treat these options carefully because they affect everyone in the tenant.
| Account option | Impact |
|---|---|
| Contractor business | Changes the tenant business name shown across the portal and reports. |
| Business information | Updates contact number, primary email, website, license number, insurance provider, policy provider, and licensee name. |
| Audit log retention | Controls how long tenant audit log entries are retained, within the allowed range. |
| Session timeouts | Sets web idle timeout, web max session length, mobile access-token lifetime, and mobile refresh-token lifetime. |
| Password policy | Controls minimum length, expiration, history reuse, complexity, and lockout attempt count. |
| Account termination | Default-admin-only request that keeps service active through the current billing period, then starts suspension, termination, and purge processing. |
| Customer data export | Default-admin-only ZIP export of tenant-scoped persisted service data, with security secrets redacted. |
| Time reasons | Adds, edits, enables, or disables tenant time reasons. Default reasons can be disabled or re-enabled but not edited or deleted. |
| Mileage reasons | Adds, edits, enables, or disables tenant mileage reasons. Default reasons can be disabled or re-enabled but not edited or deleted. |
| Tenant default administrator | Shows the protected super user for the tenant. This user keeps the required first paid license. |
Billing and License Management
License pool
Billing shows paid licenses, assigned licenses, available licenses, monthly package amount, current billing status, and pending package changes.
Package changes
Added licenses are sent to Stripe for immediate prorated billing. Reductions are scheduled for the next billing cycle and do not create credits or refunds. The tenant cannot reduce below one paid license.
Reducing licenses
If assigned users exceed the paid license count when a reduction takes effect, LBC Assist unassigns newest non-default-administrator license assignments first until assigned users fit the paid pool.
Payment method
The Update payment method button opens Stripe Billing Portal. Stripe handles card entry, required verification, invoices, and payment-method storage. LBC Assist does not store full card numbers, expiration dates, or CVV/CVC values.
User Management
Users with user management permission can create users, assign licenses, set permissions, reset passwords, lock or archive users, delete passkeys, and delete eligible users.
| User option | What it does |
|---|---|
| Assign license from pool | Lets the user sign in if billing is active and a paid license is available. |
| Permissions | Controls access to projects, permits, users, audit logs, reports, account, billing, time, mileage, tasks, and diagrams. |
| Lock User | Prevents sign-in without deleting the user record. |
| Archive User | Hides the user from normal lists and removes them from day-to-day selection surfaces. |
| Require password reset | Forces the user through password reset at next sign-in. |
| Delete passkeys | Removes saved passkeys for that user so they must sign in by password or register a new passkey. |
| Delete User | Removes eligible non-protected users. The current user and default admin are protected from unsafe deletion. |
My Profile
Display mode
Choose light, dark, or system display mode.
Task notifications
Configure push notification windows, event categories, task management notifications, project scope, and registered device cleanup.
Passkeys
Add or remove passkeys for passwordless sign-in.
Password
Change your password. The tenant password policy controls the allowed new password.
Audit Logs
Audit Logs show tenant activity history for users with audit viewing permission. Filters include date range, user, log entry type, project, entry type, service, and admin override status. Use audit logs to review changes, troubleshooting history, billing/license events, and administrative actions.
Legal and Service Terms
The Legal page links to Terms and Conditions, Privacy Policy, Service Level Addendum, and Termination and Suspension Policy. Registration and first-login legal acceptance are versioned. When the legal policy set changes, users may be asked to review and accept the current version before continuing.
Troubleshooting
I cannot sign in
Check username/email and password, confirm the account is not locked or archived, confirm a license is assigned, and confirm tenant billing is active, trialing, or otherwise allowed.
A service button is missing
The service may be disabled on the project, you may not be assigned to it, or your user may not have the required permission.
Stripe checkout or billing portal does not open
Reload Billing and try again. If the tenant is still in setup state, finish checkout from Billing. If a payment method needs verification, Stripe will prompt for it in Checkout or Billing Portal.
Time or mileage location is wrong
Confirm browser or mobile location permissions. A user with the relevant manage permission can correct entries with manual/admin override where business rules allow it.