Job Sheet Template for Trades: Which Fields to Fill In and Which Photos to Attach
A job sheet template is a fixed set of fields — customer, address, phone, the reported problem, the work done, parts used, time on site and photos — that every plumber, electrician or handyman fills in the same way on every call. Most small trade businesses already have one somewhere: a carbon-copy pad in the van, a Word file, a note pinned in a group chat. The trouble starts when it is filled in at the end of the day from memory, half the fields stay empty, and three weeks later a customer calls about a dripping joint and nobody can say what exactly was replaced. If every visit already sits in one calendar with job scheduling software, the job sheet is the next piece: the record of what actually happened at each address.
Below is a practical template — the fields to fill in, the photos worth attaching — and a way to keep it inside the order instead of on a separate piece of paper.
Why a paper job sheet fails a small team
The paper sheet is not wrong in itself. It fails because of when and how it gets filled in:
Customer details are copied twice. The request has already been taken and assigned — see how plumbing dispatch software sends the right plumber to each call — and then the technician copies the address and phone onto the sheet again, with typos.
The work is described in three words. "Replaced valve" does not say which valve, what size, or whether the old part is still in the customer's cupboard.
Photos live on personal phones. The technician did take a picture of the leak, but it sits between family photos and never reaches the office.
It is written after the fact. Notes made in the evening for five jobs blur together; times and materials are guessed.
The sheet travels in the van. It gets wet, lost or handed in a week late, so the office learns about a problem only when the customer calls back.
What fields a job sheet template should include
Most trade businesses end up with roughly the same template. Not every field applies to every job; what matters is that the same fields appear in the same order on every call, so the office can find an answer without phoning the technician.
Customer and location
Customer name and who to ask on site, if it is not the customer.
Full address with access details: floor, entry code, parking, where the stopcock or fuse box is.
Phone number for the day of the visit.
The request
What the customer reported, in their own words.
Date and time of the visit and the assigned technician.
Urgency: emergency, this week, or planned.
The work done
What was found — the actual cause, not the symptom.
What was done, step by step if it was more than one action.
Parts and materials used, described clearly enough to reorder them.
Time on site.
What is left: a recommendation, a follow-up visit, a part to order.
Sign-off
Many businesses still need a customer signature or an official completion document for invoicing or warranty. Keep that step exactly as you have it now. The job sheet is the working record from which that document is filled in, not a replacement for it.
Which photos to attach to a job sheet
Photos turn a job sheet from a claim into evidence. Agree on four moments and ask for them on every job of that type:
Before: the problem as found — the leak, the scorched socket, the broken lock — with enough of the room in frame to see where it is.
Hidden work: anything that will be closed up afterwards — the pipe inside the wall, the connections inside a junction box, the sealed joint under the bath panel.
After: the finished result from the same angle as the "before" photo.
Part label: the label or rating plate of the replaced part, if there is one.
"Before" and "after" from the same spot is the habit that pays off most: the office compares them in a second, and the customer sees the difference without any explanation.
How a job sheet template works in CosaNostra
In CosaNostra the job sheet is not a separate form — it is the order itself. An order already holds the customer, address, phone and comments, the stages of the work and the assigned employees, so the top half of the template is filled in the moment the job is created. You can create it by voice ("Tomorrow at 9, replace the mixer tap at 14 Oak Street, customer Maria, phone…, assign Alex") or from a screenshot of the customer's chat message, and it lands in the shared calendar on the right day with the technician's avatar.
The bottom half — what was done — lives in the stages and the checklist:
Stages such as "on site → work done → checked" show where the job stands without a phone call.
A checklist on the order holds the photo points: before, hidden work, after. Each point can carry a reference photo and a short description, so a new technician knows what a good result looks like.
AI photo verification compares the technician's photo with the reference and gives a score; anything below your threshold is flagged, so you open only the points that need attention. Location on the photo is optional.
Comments — the cause, the parts used, the recommendation — sit on the order next to the photos.
When the order is closed, it stays on its date in the calendar with its checklist, photos and comments. That is the work history: when the customer calls back, you open the date and see what was done instead of searching the van for a carbon copy. If you need an official completion document or a customer signature, fill it in from this history the way you do today — CosaNostra does not replace it.
Moving from paper to a digital job sheet in five steps
Take your current paper sheet and mark the fields people actually fill in.
Cut the list to those fields; everything else goes into comments.
Build one checklist per job type — leak repair, socket replacement, lock change — with before and after photo points and a reference photo for each.
Create next week's orders in the calendar, by voice or from chat screenshots, with the matching checklist attached.
After two weeks, look at which points get skipped and which photos fall below the threshold, and adjust the checklist rather than the people.
A job sheet template only works when it is filled in on site, in the same order, with photos. Keeping it inside the order, in the same calendar where you plan visits, removes the retyping and the lost paper. See how CosaNostra works for plumbers, electricians and handymen — the job sheet becomes part of every order instead of an extra chore.
Frequently asked questions
What should a job sheet template include?
Customer name, address with access details, phone, the reported problem, visit date and assigned technician, what was found and done, parts used, time on site, recommendations and before-and-after photos. The same fields in the same order on every call.
Which photos should a technician attach to a job sheet?
A "before" photo of the problem as found, photos of anything that will be hidden after the work, and an "after" photo from the same angle as the "before". If a part was replaced, add a photo of its label.
Does a digital job sheet replace the customer's signature or an official completion document?
No. In CosaNostra the order with its checklist, photos and comments is the working history of the job; an official document or signature, if you need one, is filled in from that history.
How do I get technicians to fill in the job sheet on site?
Make it part of the order they already open on their phone: the customer details are pre-filled and the checklist asks for each photo in turn. It takes a few minutes at the address instead of half an hour in the evening.
