Repair shops, workshops and tailors: jobs, deposits and collection

The job ticket, without the paper

Every workshop runs on a book of numbered tickets and a shelf of items with tags on them. The failure mode is always the same: a customer rings about a job from three weeks ago and nobody can find the ticket.

Here the job is attached to the customer, so the phone number they are calling from finds it. Parts and labour sit as separate line items, which also means the quote and the final bill are the same document with different lines.

• Parts and labour as separate lines on one job
• Serial number, measurements or model as custom fields
• A photograph of the damage before work started
• Deposit recorded, remaining balance visible
• Delivery date marking the job ready or handed over

Deposits and the balance on collection

A deposit on drop-off and the balance on collection is the standard arrangement, and it maps onto instalments directly. The pending payments screen then answers the question that actually costs a workshop money: which finished jobs are sitting on the shelf unpaid.

Why offline is not a footnote here

Workshops are often in basements, in industrial units with metal cladding, or at the back of a building where the signal dies. An app that needs the network to show a customer record is unusable in exactly the place you need it. This one never asks.