Every report a service business runs, from revenue by tech to callbacks by job type, is built from work orders. When the work orders are complete and consistent, the reports are right. When they're thin, the office fills the gaps with guesses, and every downstream number inherits them.
Work order in plain English
Say an example homeowner calls about a water heater leaking at the base. The office creates a work order: customer, address, phone, job type "Water heater leak," priority, a two-hour arrival window tomorrow and the assigned plumber. The plumber arrives, finds the tank has failed, presents replacement options, installs the approved one, adds the parts, takes photos, notes the old unit's age and gets the customer's signature.
That single record now holds everything the office needs to invoice, cost the job, register the warranty and pay the plumber.
What should a work order include?
| Section | Fields | Used later for |
|---|---|---|
| Customer and site | Name, service address, contact, access notes | Routing, follow-up, history |
| The request | Job type, problem description, priority | Dispatch, reporting by job type |
| Scheduling | Arrival window, assigned tech, duration | Capacity, on-time arrival |
| Equipment | Make, model, serial, age, refrigerant type | Equipment history, warranty |
| Findings and work | What was found, what was done | Callbacks, quality reviews |
| Materials | Parts used, quantities | Invoice, truck stock, job costing |
| Evidence | Photos, forms, readings | Disputes, warranty claims, compliance |
| Close-out | Customer signature, payment | Invoicing, collections |
The work order lifecycle
- 1
Created
From a call, online booking, a membership visit or an estimate that sold.
- 2
Scheduled and dispatched
A tech and an arrival window are set, and the job is sent to the tech's phone.
- 3
In progress
En route, arrived, working. Status from the field keeps the office current.
- 4
Completed
Required notes, photos, parts and forms are done, and the customer signs.
- 5
Invoiced and closed
The invoice is built from the work order, payment is collected and the job is costed.
Work order vs invoice vs purchase order vs estimate
| Who it's for | What it says | |
|---|---|---|
| Work order | Your team | What the job is and what was done |
| Estimate | The customer, before work | What the work will cost if approved |
| Invoice | The customer, after work | What the customer owes |
| Purchase order | Your supplier | What you're buying and at what price |
Records the law asks you to keep
Some work order details aren't optional. Two federal examples:
- Refrigerant service. For appliances with a full charge of 50 pounds or more of an ozone-depleting refrigerant, EPA rules require the technician to give the owner or operator a record of the service: the appliance's identity and location, the date, the parts and type of work, the technician's name, and the amount and type of refrigerant added or removed. Records must be kept for at least three years.1 Many shops record the same details on every refrigerant job as good practice.
- Tax records. IRS Publication 583 lists invoices and receipts among the supporting documents to keep, and records generally must be kept until the period of limitations for the return runs out, three years in most cases.2
Warranty work is another reason for good records. The FTC's guide to federal warranty law explains when the Magnuson-Moss Act applies to repairs: not to warranties on services alone, but yes when a warranty covers both the parts and the workmanship.3 Either way, a work order with photos and serial numbers is your evidence when a claim is disputed.
How detailed should work order notes be?
Detailed enough that another tech could pick up the job tomorrow without calling anyone. Compare two example notes on the same no-cool call:
| Weak note | Useful note |
|---|---|
| "Replaced cap. Running." | "No cool. Condenser fan not running, 45/5 µF dual run capacitor measured 3.1 µF on the fan side (rated 5). Replaced with 45/5 from truck. Checked contactor (pitted, still OK, quoted replacement). System running, 19°F split after 15 minutes." |
The useful note takes a minute longer. It tells the next tech what was measured, flags a likely future repair, documents that the system was tested before leaving and gives the callback review something to work with if the customer calls back. Voice-to-text on the phone makes notes like this realistic for techs who hate typing.
Common work order mistakes
- Free-text job types. "AC fix," "No cool" and "A/C repair" become three job types, and reports stop comparing like with like. Use a fixed list.
- Notes that say "fixed." Write what was found and what was done, so the next tech and the callback review can use it.
- Parts left off. Every part missing from a work order is lost revenue on the invoice and a gap in truck stock.
- Too many required fields. Techs fill them with junk. Require what you'll actually use.
Before a work order can close
- Job type from the standard list
- What was found and what was done, in plain words
- Every part used, with quantities
- Equipment make, model and serial where relevant
- Photos and required forms
- Customer signature or a reason it's missing
How work orders work in TradesWork
TradesWork follows the ServiceTitan data model, so the work order is a job with one or more appointments, linked to a customer, a location and its equipment. In the technician app, the tech works the visit through guided stages (arrive, diagnose, present options, work, wrap up), and required items block finishing the job. It works with no signal and syncs when it can.
Forms and checklists can be required on a job type, and job costing builds each job's cost from stock used, purchase orders received and time from job statuses. For refrigerant, warranty and refrigerant tracking keeps cylinder-level records of every charge and recovery.
Footnotes
-
40 CFR 82.157, Appliance maintenance and leak repair, Code of Federal Regulations, via Cornell Legal Information Institute. Paragraphs (b) and (l). ↩
-
Publication 583, Starting a Business and Keeping Records, Internal Revenue Service. ↩
-
Businessperson's Guide to Federal Warranty Law, Federal Trade Commission. ↩
