Tradies

Tradies: from the job call to the invoice

The enquiry, the site visit, the quote and the invoice are one job. Treat them that way, on one customer record, so the office can bill what the site actually did.

7 min read

A missed callback on a leaking roof is not a CRM feature gap. It is a job that never became a record. The whole run from call to paid invoice should hang off one customer, with the address, the access notes, the quote and the extras in the same place.

Tradies lose money in the gaps: the call that stayed in a phone, the quote written from memory, the invoice that missed the second storey because the photo never left the ute.

The whole run from call to paid invoice should hang off one customer, with the address, the access notes, the quote, and the extras in the same place.

If the office still invoices what they thought you did, the site never reached the record. That is where money leaks, not on the tools.

The first call is the job

Address, access, urgency, who to text. Put it on a lead before you hang up. If it is after hours, still capture it, and date the follow-up for the morning. A voicemail that lives only on the van phone is how Monday starts behind.

The office should be able to see the new job without waiting for the tradie to 'mention it later'.

Quote from those notes

If the quote is written somewhere else, you will forget the extra switchboard or the second storey. The record is the brief. Photos and a sentence from the visit belong there before anyone types prices.

When the customer asks why a line is there, you point at the note from the day, not at a guess.

✓Book the visit from the same record
✓Quote the work from the same notes
✓Do the job, and add extras before you leave site
✓Invoice from the same place, matching the quote and the extras

“We were fast on the tools and slow on the paper. The office would invoice what they thought we did. Once the job notes had to be on the record before we left site, invoices went out the next morning and we stopped undercharging the fiddly extras.”
Owner, electrical company, Ballarat

Photos and extras

If something changes on site, add it to the job notes before you leave. That is what the invoice will need, and it is what the customer agreed while they could still see the problem. A photo in a personal camera roll is not a variation.

Tell the customer the extra while you are there. Write it. Then bill it. Skip any of those three and you either gift the work or fight about it later.

The office should see the site

If the office cannot see the site notes, the invoice will be late or wrong. That is the whole argument for one record. The person who bills is rarely the person who crawled under the house.

A five-line note and two photos beat a Friday debrief that never happens.

One job, one record, all the way through

Enquiry, booking, quote, work, invoice. If any of those steps lives in a book only one person understands, the job is fragile. People get sick. Phones die. The record should still be enough to finish and get paid.

The first call is already the job

Address, access, urgency, who to text. Put it on a lead before you hang up. If it is after hours, still capture it, and date the follow-up for the morning.

A voicemail that lives only on the van phone is how Monday starts behind. The office should see the new job without waiting for someone to mention it later.

If you are on a roof when they ring, a short note as soon as you can stop is still better than a story at the depot.

Quote, visit, extras, bill

When something changes on site, add it before you leave. Tell the customer the extra while they can still see the problem. Write it. Then bill it. Skip any of those three and you either gift the work or fight about it later.

A photo in a personal camera roll is not a variation. The office cannot invoice a camera roll.

✓Book the visit from the same record
✓Quote the work from the same notes
✓Add extras before you leave site
✓Invoice from the same place, matching quote and extras

Billing should not invent the site

The person who bills is rarely the person who crawled under the house. If the office cannot see the site notes, the invoice will be late or wrong.

A five-line note and two photos beat a Friday debrief that never happens.

People get sick. Phones die. The record should still be enough to finish the job and get paid.

A week of one-record jobs

This week, every new call becomes a record before anyone quotes. Every site visit gets extras on the record before the van moves. Every invoice is drafted from that record.

You will feel slower for two days. Then you will feel the office stop chasing you for 'what did we do at Smiths'.

Leave-site rule

Extras and photos on the record before the van moves. Not at the depot. Not on Friday. The customer is still there, and the problem is still visible.

If you skip that, you will gift the work or argue later. Both cost more than two minutes on site.

After-hours calls still become jobs

A leaking roof at 8pm is still a job. Capture it, date the morning follow-up, and make sure the office sees it without waiting for a story.

Voicemail only on the van phone is how Monday starts behind. The record should exist even if the reply waits until light.

Foxtra is aimed at this loop: enquiry, booking, quote, work, invoice, without a paper trail that only one person understands. Put the job on a record at the first call, and do not let the rest of the work live somewhere else.

Put the job on a record at the first call, and do not let the rest of the work live somewhere else. Enquiry, booking, quote, work, invoice.

If the office cannot see the site notes, the invoice will be late or wrong. Capture on the call, update on site, bill from the same place.

One job, one record, from the first call to the paid invoice. The office should not have to invent the site.

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