A customer calls about a job. Someone has to quote it, schedule a tech, order parts, track hours and send an invoice. Somewhere in the middle, money slips through the cracks.
Usually nobody is doing anything wrong. Each step lives in a different place: a phone call, a spreadsheet, a text to the tech, a handwritten job sheet, an invoice typed at the end of the week from whatever anyone remembers.
Free: the Trades & Field Service course. A plain-language walk through quoting, scheduling, timesheets, invoicing and bank checks. Start the course
What the gaps cost you
Extra parts, extra hours and out-of-pocket purchases that never reach the invoice are work you did and were not paid for. You rarely see it, because every individual invoice looks normal.
Why information does not flow
The details exist. They are just recorded in different places, by different people, at different times, and nothing carries them from one step to the next. The fix is a flow that captures each detail once, where it happens.
The process: five steps from enquiry to paid
1. Capture the enquiry and quote it in line items
Record the customer and what they need, then send a quote broken into labour, materials and travel.
Example: “Quote: 6 hours labour, listed materials, travel.”
Pro tip: Get the customer’s approval in writing, even if it is an email reply.
2. Put the job on one shared schedule
Everyone sees the same weekly view of techs, jobs and open slots, and changes are visible to all.
Example: “Alex has Monday and Tuesday, Sam has Wednesday.”
Pro tip: Publish the week on Friday so nobody learns their jobs by text at 7 a.m.
Free: the Trades & Field Service course. A plain-language walk through quoting, scheduling, timesheets, invoicing and bank checks. Start the course
3. Log hours and parts on the job, on the day
Record time, parts and expenses at the job site, not from memory on Friday afternoon.
Example: “Two extra parts and 45 minutes of troubleshooting, logged before leaving.”
Pro tip: A photo of any receipt, taken at the time, saves a hunt later.
4. Invoice from the job record
When the job is done, everything that happened is on it. Creating the invoice is a review, not a reconstruction.
Example: “Quoted items, actual hours, parts used and expenses are all on the invoice.”
Pro tip: Send it with a way to pay online. It speeds up payment.
5. Check the bank against the books weekly
Match payments received to invoices once a week so the books are current at tax time.
Example: “Eight payments matched, one chased.”
Pro tip: Do it on the same day each week so it stays short.
Where this runs
All five steps work with a phone, a spreadsheet and a calendar. When volume grows, we run the same flow inside the business system we set up for clients (Odoo Community), so the information captured at step one is still there, accurately, at step five. None of it needs a large team or an IT department. The process is the point. The tool just keeps it going when you are busy. The free two-minute Enquiry Leak Check will show you where enquiries slip away in your business.
Your next step
Pick the step where you lose the most and fix that first. If you want a plain-language walk-through of all five, the free Trades & Field Service course covers quoting, scheduling, timesheets, invoicing and bank checks.
Free: the Trades & Field Service course. A plain-language walk through quoting, scheduling, timesheets, invoicing and bank checks. Start the course