Every feature. One workflow.

A call, an email and a message arrive in three separate places.

Goes wrong: A request on a note on one person’s desk is only missed when the customer calls to ask why nobody turned up.

Calling back and forth about a slot that suits both sides.

Goes wrong: Nobody home on arrival: the drive is done, the hour is gone and the appointment has to be made again.

Measurements and type numbers on a notepad, photos in the camera roll.

Goes wrong: What was not written down surfaces on the day of the job — and the technician is there with the wrong materials.

The survey gets re-typed into Word or Excel that evening.

Goes wrong: The quote sits until the survey is no longer fresh, and what was discussed on site becomes a memory.

Sent as an attachment, and then you wait.

Goes wrong: You chase a quote the customer has not even opened — or that has long been sitting with someone else.

A yes in an email or over the phone.

Goes wrong: In a disagreement it is your word against the customer’s, and the extra work cannot be substantiated.

A whiteboard or a spreadsheet tab, and separate messages for the crew you hire in.

Goes wrong: Two jobs on the same technician at the same moment; a customer gets cancelled on the morning itself.

The office calls the technician to ask where they are.

Goes wrong: The office cannot tell the customer whether anyone is still coming, while they kept half a day free for it.

A paper docket, filled in between jobs.

Goes wrong: Hours and materials get reconstructed from memory that evening, and rounded down when in doubt.

A scribble on the docket, if there is anyone there to sign.

Goes wrong: If nobody is there, nothing happens — and afterwards the argument is about whether it was handed over as agreed.

The docket gets re-typed; what is illegible gets guessed at.

Goes wrong: Extra work nobody wrote down does not reach the invoice. That is work done and not paid for.

The invoice goes out when there is time for it.

Goes wrong: The later the invoice, the later the money — and the more often the customer first wants to know where the amount comes from.

The bank account and a list someone keeps.

Goes wrong: An invoice that falls due without anyone seeing it; chasing starts once it is noticed.

Receipts in the glovebox until the tax return.

Goes wrong: A receipt that fades or goes missing is a cost that can no longer be substantiated.

Their invoice arrives separately and gets put next to the job.

Goes wrong: It gets paid without anyone laying it next to what was actually done on that job.

What was replaced last year sits in the head of the technician who was there.

Goes wrong: That technician has moved on, and the next one starts from scratch on the installation.

A note in the diary, or nothing at all.

Goes wrong: Maintenance that skips a round is noticed only when the breakdown that follows from it arrives.

Raising the same invoice again every month or quarter, from a list or from memory.

Goes wrong: A period that gets skipped goes unnoticed: no job is missing, only revenue that was not invoiced.