- Original Poster
- #1
Hi,
I'm after advice on digitalizing job card management. We are a small engineering business with 6 employees, 3 of which are workshop based, and the other 3 mainly on-site from our mobile service vehicles. We specialize in the repair of agricultural & plant machinery, fabrication, hydraulics, and machining.
Currently, every job, whether on-site or at the workshop has a paper-based job card that contains the customer, date, PO, parts used, labour, and employee(s) name who have worked on the job. Any sketches, supplier quotes, calculations, cross references, and emails relating to parts or requirements for the job are hand noted or printed and stapled to the job card. Some job cards can be as simple as 1 sheet, others can have 7-8 pages of docs if it’s a larger job requiring multiple numbers of staff or visits.
On job completion, these job cards and accompanying documents are scanned in by our bookkeeper and archived on our business server based on customer and year. An invoice will then be manually created on Quickbooks Online showing parts used and total labour with a description of work completed. Each week we will complete anywhere between 15-40 job cards.
We can then look back at job cards with all relevant information on our server for reference when needed.
I'm looking to digitalize and streamline this whole process. We've looked at and tried EWorksManager, Fergus, Katana, Jobber, Job Logic, Jobify etc etc. There are hundreds of systems to manage this. The problem is, they are all too complicated for what we need, and as such won’t get used. They are also mainly field service-based systems that follow the usual job accepted, on-route, on-site, and completed procedure. Users can also only see jobs that are assigned to them.
We require a straight forward and simple system which will:
We don’t need any type of scheduling, work planning or appointment planning. This appointment-type scheduling is the fundamental core of the above packages. This is great if you’re running 10+ plumbers, electricians or cleaners that are booked in with customers for a specific date and time. Or great if you had an administrator in the office 5 days a week dedicated to booking jobs, scheduling work load and appointment times for employees.
This wouldn’t suit us. We’d spend more time canceling appointments, moving appointments, and clubbing appointments together. We tend to have multiple in-house and on-site jobs going on at one time. Our job types mainly consist of:
Bearing the above in mind, can anyone recommend suitable software? Or alternatively, a UK-based company that can assist us in the development of a custom package?
I’ve also considered doing something with Microsoft Access or Google Forms, but these have their draw backs too. Has anyone had any experience in using Zapier for something similar?
Any help is appreciated.
Many thanks,
I'm after advice on digitalizing job card management. We are a small engineering business with 6 employees, 3 of which are workshop based, and the other 3 mainly on-site from our mobile service vehicles. We specialize in the repair of agricultural & plant machinery, fabrication, hydraulics, and machining.
Currently, every job, whether on-site or at the workshop has a paper-based job card that contains the customer, date, PO, parts used, labour, and employee(s) name who have worked on the job. Any sketches, supplier quotes, calculations, cross references, and emails relating to parts or requirements for the job are hand noted or printed and stapled to the job card. Some job cards can be as simple as 1 sheet, others can have 7-8 pages of docs if it’s a larger job requiring multiple numbers of staff or visits.
On job completion, these job cards and accompanying documents are scanned in by our bookkeeper and archived on our business server based on customer and year. An invoice will then be manually created on Quickbooks Online showing parts used and total labour with a description of work completed. Each week we will complete anywhere between 15-40 job cards.
We can then look back at job cards with all relevant information on our server for reference when needed.
I'm looking to digitalize and streamline this whole process. We've looked at and tried EWorksManager, Fergus, Katana, Jobber, Job Logic, Jobify etc etc. There are hundreds of systems to manage this. The problem is, they are all too complicated for what we need, and as such won’t get used. They are also mainly field service-based systems that follow the usual job accepted, on-route, on-site, and completed procedure. Users can also only see jobs that are assigned to them.
We require a straight forward and simple system which will:
- Sync with Quickbooks
- Allow us to create a new job & add pictures, emails, notes etc.
- Allow employees and managers to view all active jobs from both desktop PC and iOS app (or login via chrome on an iPad)
- Allow employees to select an active job, add labour and parts
- Invoice to Quickbooks
- Allow managers to search back through past jobs for various customers
- Allow managers to search for parts used in past jobs
- Managers then check and authorize invoice to be send
We don’t need any type of scheduling, work planning or appointment planning. This appointment-type scheduling is the fundamental core of the above packages. This is great if you’re running 10+ plumbers, electricians or cleaners that are booked in with customers for a specific date and time. Or great if you had an administrator in the office 5 days a week dedicated to booking jobs, scheduling work load and appointment times for employees.
This wouldn’t suit us. We’d spend more time canceling appointments, moving appointments, and clubbing appointments together. We tend to have multiple in-house and on-site jobs going on at one time. Our job types mainly consist of:
- Customers can turn up at the workshop unannounced to purchase parts or have a quick repair done
- Jobs on-site can either be a breakdown in which case is immediately actioned, or pre-planned works, which depending on priority and complexity is clubbed together with other jobs in a similar location.
- In-house jobs such as welding, lathe machining, machine rebuilds and repair is continuous. Each morning we will delegate staff work schedules for that day considering factors such as part availability, breakdown jobs etc. But given we are a small business, staff tend to know what jobs are waiting for parts, and which jobs they can crack on with. As such they are given some autonomy to work through jobs they know they can proceed with. Having a management tool they can look through themselves, update and set a job status will take a load off management and help them manage themselves as such.
Bearing the above in mind, can anyone recommend suitable software? Or alternatively, a UK-based company that can assist us in the development of a custom package?
I’ve also considered doing something with Microsoft Access or Google Forms, but these have their draw backs too. Has anyone had any experience in using Zapier for something similar?
Any help is appreciated.
Many thanks,
