Job sheet template: eight fields for every trade visit, with a filled-in example

A job sheet template is one page with the same eight fields for every visit: the job reference, the customer and site, times on site, what was reported, found and done, materials, agreed changes, photos, and the job's status. Copy it onto paper, into a spreadsheet or into a job app, and fill it in before you leave site. If someone who wasn't there can invoice the job from the sheet alone, the template is working.

It suits owner-run plumbing, heating, electrical, building, roofing and joinery firms, whether the owner fills in every sheet or a small team hands them to a partner or office person each evening. Below you'll find the template itself, how to fill in each field, extra fields for certificate and building work, a filled-in example, how to get people using it, and how long to keep the sheets.

For the wider routine around it, from the brief before the visit to handing the job back to the office, see how to record trade jobs on site so the office can invoice. This page is the form itself.

Eight fields every job sheet carries

Most job sheets fail in one of two ways. Some have a single box marked "Work done" and a signature line, so the office rings site to ask what was used and whether the customer agreed the extra. Others copy a supplier's form with thirty boxes, and engineers fill in the first five and leave the rest.

Eight fields cover what the office needs on almost every visit. Anything else goes in an "If relevant" section underneath, which people fill in only when it applies.

Keep the status to a short fixed list, so the office can sort a pile of sheets at a glance: Ready to invoice, Waiting for part, Return visit booked, Further quote needed, or Not completed (see notes). "Done" isn't on the list, because it doesn't tell anyone what to do next.

Under the eight, add the "If relevant" section with tick boxes and a short line for each: equipment make, model and serial number; certificate or record reference; building regulations notification due; recommendations or work the customer declined; waste removed; and customer sign-off. People only fill these in when they apply, which is what stops them being skipped on the jobs where they matter.

Good and bad entries for each field

The template only works if what goes in the boxes is usable. The difference between a sheet the office can invoice from and one it can't is usually a few words.

Reported, found, done. "Fixed leak" covers all three and proves nothing. "Customer reports drip under kitchen sink since Saturday" is what was reported. "Joint on cold feed under sink weeping, trap and waste dry" is what was found. "Remade joint, checked after fifteen minutes, dry" is what was done. If the customer rings in a month about a different leak, those three lines settle it in seconds.

Times on site. Write clock times, not "about two hours". If you left site to collect a part, write when you left and when you came back. Whether that time gets charged is a pricing decision for the office, made with the quote in front of it. The engineer's job is to record what happened.

Materials. Quantity, description and where it came from: "2 x 15mm elbows, van stock" rather than "fittings". Words like "bits" and "sundries" can't be invoiced or restocked. If a part was bought for the job, keep the receipt with the job reference, on paper or as a photo, so the office can check the price.

Changes agreed. Write the variation number, the price and how the customer said yes: "V1, replace second radiator valve, £45 plus VAT, approved by text 10.15am". If they agreed in person, write their name and the time, then send a short text or email confirming it before you leave. A variation with no record of approval is the one the customer disputes.

Photos. "9 photos, saved to J-2231" is enough. The point is that the office can find them without asking, and that the before photos exist if anyone questions the after.

Status and next action. "Waiting for part: cylinder thermostat ordered from the merchant, office to book the return visit when it arrives" tells everyone what happens next. "Needs going back to" tells no one anything.

Sign-off. If the customer signs, the signature should sit under a completed sheet, so they are confirming what is written above it. A signature on an empty sheet only confirms that you turned up.

Extra fields for certificate and building work

Some trades produce paperwork that the job sheet should point to, not replace. The job sheet records that a certificate or record exists and where it is. The certificate itself follows its own rules, set by the registration schemes and regulations behind it, not by this template.

Add the lines that fit your trade to the "If relevant" section:

• Gas and heating: appliance make, model and serial number; the reference of any safety record or commissioning checklist completed; whether warranty registration is due, and who is doing it.
• Electrical: the certificate or report type and its number; whether notification through your scheme is due, and by when.
• Building and joinery: whether the work needs building regulations sign-off, who is handling it, and any inspection booked; skip hire and waste removal.
• Roofing: access equipment used, scaffold dates if it was hired, and any guarantee paperwork due to the customer.

Put a date and a name against anything that's due. A notification or warranty registration with no owner is the one that gets missed, and the gap usually shows up months later, when it's harder and dearer to put right.

If you're unsure whether a job needs a certificate or a notification at all, ask your registration scheme. The job sheet can record the answer, but it can't give it.

Illustrative example: a filled-in job sheet

This is an invented job for a two-person roofing firm, to show the template in use. The customer's name, the address and the prices are made up.

Everything the office needs is on it: the price agreed at quote, the extra and how it was approved, a part bought for the job with its receipt, and the time off site to collect it. The declined gutter clearance is written down too, so if Mrs Okafor rings in the winter about water coming in at the back, the firm can show it was spotted and offered.

The office can invoice this the same afternoon without ringing the roofer, which is the whole point of the template. Our invoice template for trades shows what that invoice needs to carry, including the VAT and CIS lines.

Paper, spreadsheet or app versions

The same eight fields work in any format. What changes is how the sheet gets back to the office, and how quickly.

Paper. A duplicate book printed with the eight fields and the "If relevant" section gives you a copy in the van and one for the office. Print the field names, leave writing space under the three reported, found and done lines, and number the pages so a missing sheet shows up. Paper suits one or two people who hand sheets in every evening. It struggles when sheets sit in the van for a week, or when photos are spread across several phones.

Spreadsheet. One row per job and one column per field, with the status column set as a drop-down so it only accepts the five agreed values. Each morning, filter on "Ready to invoice". Keep photos in a shared folder per job, named with the job reference, so the row and the photos always match.

Job app. Many job management apps offer custom forms or checklists. Rebuild the eight fields in the same order, make the core ones required and the "If relevant" ones optional, and check the form still works on a phone with no signal. If you're choosing an app, ask the supplier to build this form on the demo, and use our guide to choosing job management software for a trade business to test it on your own jobs. The free trade business software checklist turns a few answers about your team into three priorities to take into that demo.

Whichever format you use, give the sheet the same job reference the quote and the invoice use. When the three documents share one number, the office can move from one to the next without guessing.

Why engineers skip fields

A template looks finished on the desk, but the fix for a skipped field is rarely more training. The test is the fortieth job, at five o'clock, in the rain. Paul, who writes these guides, has spent more than ten years leading the development of job and data-capture systems used by field engineers, and testing them before go-live. The same few reasons for blank fields come up again and again. Each one has a fix.

The field doesn't apply, but it looks required. If every box looks compulsory, people learn to ignore boxes. Splitting the eight core fields from the "If relevant" section fixes most of this on its own.

The order doesn't match the visit. A visit runs arrive, look, fix, tidy, leave. Put the fields in that order, so the sheet fills from top to bottom as the job happens. A materials box at the top gets filled from memory at the end, and memory loses parts.

Free text where a tick would do. Status, photos taken and sign-off are choices, not essays. Tick boxes or drop-downs are quicker to fill in, and the office can sort and count them.

It asks for things the office already knows. The customer's name and address should come from the brief, written in by the office before the visit or filled in automatically on an app. If you keep an enquiry record, take those details from the enquiry record in your callback routine. The engineer then fills in only what they alone know.

The sheet goes unread. If a sheet goes into a tray and nothing happens, the next one gets less care. When whoever does the admin checks every returned sheet the next morning, and asks about the gaps the same day, the gaps tend to close quickly.

That fourth point changes how the template feels to use. A job sheet isn't a blank form for the engineer to complete from scratch. It's the brief going out with the job and coming back with the site's answers added.

Trial the template with one engineer first

Changing everyone's paperwork at once makes it hard to see what's working. A short trial with one person shows you which fields get filled in, which get skipped, and why.

1. Pick one person and one common job type, such as small repairs or annual services.
2. Use the template on every one of those jobs for two weeks.
3. Each morning, whoever does the admin checks the previous day's sheets against the list below and marks any field left blank or too vague to invoice from.
4. At the end of the fortnight, count the marks by field.
5. Change the template where the marks cluster: reword the field, move it, turn it into a tick box, or move it to "If relevant".
6. Roll it out to everyone, and explain the changes.

A field that's blank on half the trial sheets is telling you something about the template, not just about the engineer. If the same gap keeps appearing in changes agreed, the fix often sits earlier in the job, in how extra work is priced and agreed. Our guide on writing a quote and agreeing changes in writing covers that part.

How long to keep job sheets

HMRC doesn't name job sheets in GOV.UK's list of records the self-employed must keep, but that list does include all sales and income, with proof such as sales invoices. Job sheets often back those records up, so a sensible approach is to keep them with your other business records for the same length of time.

If you're self-employed, GOV.UK says to keep your records for at least five years after the 31 January submission deadline for the tax year they relate to. In practice, a job sheet is kept for at least five years after the deadline for the tax return that includes that job.

If you run a limited company, GOV.UK's guidance on company and accounting records says to keep records for 6 years from the end of the last company financial year they relate to, and longer in some situations. It also says HMRC can fine a company £3,000, or a director can be disqualified, for not keeping accounting records.

A job sheet also holds personal data: names, addresses, phone numbers and sometimes photos of the inside of someone's home. The ICO's guidance on how long to keep personal data says not to keep it longer than you need it, but that records kept because the law requires them, such as tax records, are generally not treated as kept for too long. The ICO also notes that this guidance is under review following the Data (Use and Access) Act.

In practice, keep the sheet, but don't keep what you no longer need on it. Key safe and alarm codes are the clearest example: write them on the brief rather than the job sheet, or strike them out once the job closes. Photos are another: keep the ones that show the work and delete the rest.

This is not legal advice or tax advice. It summarises the GOV.UK and ICO guidance linked above. That guidance doesn't set different periods for England, Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland. If your accountant gives you a different retention period for your business, follow theirs.

Fill in your first job sheet tomorrow

Copy the eight fields onto a sheet of paper or a spreadsheet tonight and use it on tomorrow's first job. Then ask whoever does the admin to try invoicing that job from the sheet without ringing you. Whatever they have to ask about is the field to fix first.

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