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Digital Job Sheets
Job sheets are key to your day-to-day business operations and guide your field team through each job.
They help ensure engineers have everything they need to carry out a job - both information and parts.
They allow you to issue fast and accurate invoices and share details of the job with customers.
They are also a crucial part of documentation. Completed job sheets provide an audit trail for both finance and compliance and act as a record of work done.
Being able to access notes from previous visits makes it easier to carry out repeat work. It helps you fix problems more efficiently on the first try. It also lets you schedule the right amount of time for the job, based on actual experience.
This guide will cover a deeper look at everything you need to know about job sheets, including:
- What they are and why they’re important
- How to create them
- Tips on using job sheets efficiently in your business operations
- Their benefits for finance, compliance, and accuracy
The way you structure and organise your job sheets can be the difference between business success and business stress. We'll look at digital job sheets that everyone can access, as well as traditional paper job sheets. We’ll explore the importance of having a flawless job sheet system to support your overall job management.
BigChange: all-in-one job management software with digital job sheets
Here's an overview video of BigChange - the UK's #1 job management software
What are Job Sheets?
Job sheets are a key tool for all field service businesses.
They act as a blueprint for your technicians, helping them to complete everything needed and in the right order.
Completed job sheets can include any certificates, photographs or documentation that formed part of the job.
Since everything is in one place, they act as a full shared history for your business and your customer.
Whether using digital or paper versions, they are the core administrative tool for your operations.
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Importance of Job Sheets in Various Industries
Job sheets are crucial in service industries as they link the field, office, and customer together. Having a single source of information that you share keeps everyone briefed and in-sync. It provides current and correct information for invoicing and helps speed payment.
Clearly, then, they provide a helpful birds' eye view of each job but you also need access to the nitty-gritty. When well-designed job sheets are part of a job management system, they provide business detail as well as overview. You can easily isolate individual engineer performance or the average time spent on certain types of jobs.
This allows you to understand who your top performers are and use it, for example, for pay and job allocation purposes. In industries with small margins, it's important to compare your predicted profit margins with the actual ones.
Learn more about the essential role of job sheets for field service businesses.
How Do Digital Job Sheets Differ from Traditional Paper-Based Ones?
For those still operating with a paper-based system, digital job sheets will be a revelation.
This is because digital job sheets include all the bits you love about their paper equivalents, without any of their drawbacks.
In practice, paperless job sheets mean no more soggy, dirty, lost or late paperwork and no more frustrating delays.
It replaces the need for regular drop off and collection of documentation. Instead, engineers receive digital job sheets immediately upon assignment, straight to their tablet. Once they complete the job, the job sheets seamlessly integrate into your CRM system via the cloud-based software.
Another key difference is that there is no need to worry about storage when you go digital. Some offices have wall-to-wall filing cabinets full of job histories - not an issue when your files are virtual. Digital job sheets are also easy to find when you need them. They come with the benefit of data filtering, so that you can find them immediately when a customer calls.
If your software provider offers a customer portal, your customers can find job sheets themselves, without the need to call you. This works even more effectively when it is part of a complete job management solution. When all of the essential aspects of your business, such as financial management, job scheduling, and business intelligence work together, you slash your administration time.
Key Elements of an Effective Job Sheet
You need to include certain elements in your job sheets, regardless of the format you opt for.
As a minimum, you need to include the customer address, contact and phone number.
On a practical level, additions such as job description and reference number are also useful.
For situations where there are a number of different jobs carried out for the same customer you need clear identification. This will also ensure that you are not waiting longer for payments as a result of confusion.
The best designed job sheets capture the information you need in the ideal order and format. To enforce compliance, the order in which the forms are answered is set, including safety checks and RAMS. Technicians work systematically through the job sheets and complete each necessary step before the next one can be started. In this way, you'll meet all regulations, every time.
Benefits of Using Digital Job Sheets
For many field service businesses, the move to digital job sheets means less admin and faster response times. It can also act as a way of standing out from the crowd in a competitive marketplace.
To make the most of that competitive edge, it's worth spending time getting the look and feel of your documents sorted. Strongly branded, professional-looking job sheets give your customers reassurance that your company knows what it's doing. After all, no-one ever lost work because because they were too organised and polished.
Choose software that allows you to create fantastic looking, editable templates. That way, you can rest assured, you won't outgrow them and incur additional expenses for updates.
Now, let's look at some of the additional advantages.
Real-time Updates
One of the great benefits of digital job sheets is that they are stored in the cloud.
That means that whether they are on the road or in the office, your team can access the information instantly.
Improved communication is always an advantage and means that your schedulers can quickly spot and act on any problems.
It also allows you to be much more responsive for your customers. You can schedule and send an urgent job instantly to an engineer's tablet. Engineers and technicians can easily check their job sheet app for any additional details or required tasks. Clearly shown updates and additional instructions appear as popups on their screen.
Reduce Errors
Mistakes happen easily and this is especially true when it involves inputting lots of data. An all-in-one job management system reduces errors by adding information only once.
Not only does this mean less opportunities for mistakes or conflicting data, it reduces your admin altogether.
Once your engineer has completed the job sheets, your admin team can view them. To keep everything in one place, they can then create invoices direct from the job details. Some job management software will even allow you to automate this process and then send the invoice to the customer.
Efficient Resource Allocation
Job sheets allow you to be more efficient with your resources in a few different ways.
Your road team doesn’t need to waste time sifting through paperwork or entering duplicate information anymore.
Digital job sheets are faster to complete and ensure engineers have all the necessary information readily available.
Entering data in job sheets can also help improve scheduling. This includes knowing the average time it takes for certain jobs and identifying the most efficient technicians or engineers. By doing so, you can effectively manage your team resources and gain valuable insights into your fleet.
Monitor Progress
Real-time job progress tracking measn there's no need for office teams to rely on phone calls when issues arise.
Taking a proactive approach, administrators can contact the engineer to learn what the issue is and reschedule other jobs if needed.
Keep Everything in One Place
Unlike paper-based job sheets, digital job sheets are easy to find and difficult to lose.
Safely and securely stored in the cloud, they are also accessible wherever you are and at any time.
Whether you need to find them the day of completion or a year later, recalling them is a matter of minutes.
An all-in-one system stores customer information together, making it easy to understand your customer relationship. When reviewing contracts, it's important to know the value of their business and your profit margins. Having all of your job sheets, history and information in one place makes this much easier to do.
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Do your job sheets need an upgrade?
Send them automatically
Save time and avoid mistakes by creating and emailing job sheets automatically when the job has finished (or after a quick check).
Customise for your customer
Create tailored job sheets for each job type to meet customer-specific needs and requirements.
Store them on the portal
Keep job sheets organised and provide customers with a portal for quick and easy access.
Look professional
Make a great impression with polished and professional job sheet templates.
See trends and reports
Use built-in reporting tools to easily analyse trends and make informed decisions for your business.
Mobile Job Sheet App for Field Workers
The mobile job sheet app modernises your road team’s routine, allowing for quicker admin, better communication, and professional customer service.
Your engineers and technicians can access job sheets via tablet or phone, ready with all the information they need to start the job.
Thanks to custom templates and interactive features, it’s quick and easy to log progress, enter details, and record notes. As part of our job management solution, you can also send customer-facing invoices, notifications, and updates directly through the app.
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