Guides

When to move work orders off paper (and how to do it)

Paper work orders are cheap and nobody needs a password. Plenty of small crews run on a carbon pad for years. But there are clear signs it is starting to cost you.

Signs you’ve outgrown paper

• A tenant or customer calls to ask about a job and nobody can find the slip.
• Two techs show up for the same job, or nobody does.
• You can’t say how many jobs are open right now without walking the board.
• Billing at the end of the month means retyping hours from slips.
• Requests come in by text, voicemail and sticky note, and some get lost.

A one-week plan to switch

1. Day 1: Keep the paper pad. Enter only new jobs in the app.
2. Day 2: Add your techs. Show them the Today list on their phones and the Start and Done buttons.
3. Day 3: Put your request link where problems get reported: a QR code by the office door, your email signature, your website.
4. Day 4: Enter the open paper slips that are still in progress.
5. Day 7: Run your first CSV export of done slips and check it against your billing.

Keep paper where it helps

Some techs like a printed slip in the truck. Every order still prints, and our free work order template matches the same fields, so paper and the app tell the same story.