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One page per feature, written for the thing you are trying to do. Nothing here needs a login, so you can read how any of it works before you sign up.

Help topics

Getting started

Setting the business up, choosing a plan, and deciding which parts of the product you want.

  • Automations

    Set a standing instruction once — chase the quote, ask for the review, nudge the invoice — and it happens every time without anybody remembering.

    Every plan, with some parts on Professional, Crew or Scale

  • Find anything — a page, a setting or a record in one box

    Press Ctrl+K or Search and type a few letters to go straight to a page, a tool's settings, or a client, job, proposal, invoice, lead or unit.

    Every plan, with some parts on Professional, Crew or Scale

  • For you

    One queue of everything addressed to you across every job — mentions, client replies and what is waiting on a decision.

    Every plan, with some parts on Professional, Crew or Scale

  • Setting up and hiding what you do not use

    Tell us your trade and a few things about how you work, and you start with the tools that fit — reversible at any time.

    Every plan

  • Setting up from your website

    Give us your website address and we read it, find your Google listing, and fill most of your setup in for you — nothing saved until you agree to it.

    Professional

  • The dashboard

    The page you land on after signing in — whether you are getting paid, what needs you today, and how the year compares to last.

    Every plan

  • The phone app

    SMG Tools for iPhone and Android — where to get it, signing in, the camera and the label scanner, files, and what stays on the website.

    Every plan

  • Trade kits — the tools and starter content for your kind of work

    A kit is the tools a trade uses and the starter content that makes them useful on day one. Take your trade's at setup or any time after, and keep only what you want.

    Every plan

  • Your business details

    The name, logo and contact details that appear on everything your clients see, plus the settings the rest of the product reads.

    Every plan

  • Your tools — add what your business does, remove what gets in the way

    Every tool SMG Tools has, on one page, with the state each is in for your business. Add one, put one away, and find out why you cannot see one.

    Every plan

Clients and properties

The people you work for, where their equipment is, and what they can see for themselves.

  • Clients

    Keep every client in one place, with their equipment, their agreements, everything you have said to them, and what their work has been worth.

    Every plan

  • Everything you have said to a client

    One thread per client — every text, email, note, reply, document and call — so "what have we told this person" takes one click.

    Every plan

  • Getting in, where they came from, and their PO number

    The three things people put in custom fields, built properly — site access, lead source, and the customer's own reference on the invoice.

    Every plan

  • Text messages and consent

    Text your clients reminders and confirmations they actually read, with the consent record and opt-out handling the law requires.

    Professional

  • Units at a client's property

    Keep a record of the equipment you service at each property — what it is, when it went in, and everything you have done to it.

    Every plan, with some parts on Professional, Crew or Scale

  • What your client sees about your people and their job

    Publish a worker's name, face and role so a customer knows who is knocking, and share the photos and notes that show what you found.

    Every plan

  • When a client replies

    A client's text or hub reply lands on their job as a note and reaches a person, rather than waiting in a queue nobody opened.

    Every plan

Quoting and winning work

Turning an inquiry into a priced proposal, and a proposal into a signed job.

  • Angi

    Give Angi your address and key, and each lead Angi sells you is on your Leads page within seconds, with Angi's numbers, the homeowner's answers and what the lead cost.

    Professional

  • Calculators

    Turn the spreadsheet you quote a project from into a calculator — a few numbers in, every line the job takes worked out and priced on the proposal, with how.

    Every plan, with some parts on Professional, Crew or Scale

  • Drafted for you

    A draft quote for each new request, and one from a site walk's photos and words, priced from your own Price Book and waiting in For you.

    Professional

  • E-signatures and change orders

    Get proposals and change orders signed electronically, with the identity check and audit trail that make the signature stand up.

    Every plan, with some parts on Professional, Crew or Scale

  • Proposal options

    Offer the same job at two to four prices on one proposal, with extras your customer can tick, and let them choose and sign for exactly one.

    Every plan, with some parts on Professional, Crew or Scale

  • Proposals

    Build a priced proposal in a guided wizard, send it, see when your client opens it, and have the job created for you the moment they sign.

    Every plan, with some parts on Professional, Crew or Scale

  • Service agreements

    Sell recurring work — maintenance plans, quarterly programs, seasonal schedules — and have the visits and the jobs produced for you.

    Every plan, with some parts on Professional, Crew or Scale

  • Site Intelligence: measure the job, price the job

    Keep a site's areas, lengths and counts at the client's address, measured once — typed, traced on imagery or from roof data — and price every proposal there from them.

    Every plan, with some parts on Professional, Crew or Scale

  • The phone assistant

    An assistant answers the calls you can't, takes down what the caller needs, can book a visit from your availability, and leaves you a queue to call back from.

    Professional

  • The Price Book

    Everything you charge for, each with its price and what it costs you, quoted and invoiced from, and told what it should sell for from your own costs and jobs.

    Every plan, with some parts on Professional, Crew or Scale

  • Thumbtack

    Connect Thumbtack and each lead arrives on your Leads page within seconds with its conversation, Thumbtack hears how the work went, and each lead's price is counted.

    Professional

  • What your open quotes are worth

    Your win rate from your own history, and what the quotes currently out are worth at that rate.

    Every plan

  • Your pipeline on one board

    Every lead, captured call and open quote as cards in columns you drag between — one answer to what is in the pipe and what is stuck.

    Every plan

Scheduling and the field

Who is going where, in what order, and what the crew sees when they get there.

  • Appointments

    Book site visits, estimates and client meetings, link them to a job, and have your client reminded the day before.

    Every plan

  • Assigning work and the Day Board

    Put people on jobs, see the whole day as a lane per person, and move work between them without a group text.

    Every plan

  • Online booking and availability

    Publish what you can be booked for and when, and let customers pick a real time that fits your crew, your area and your travel.

    Every plan, with some parts on Professional, Crew or Scale

  • Putting yourself on the roster

    If you do the work yourself, you need a worker record — here is how to get one, and what stops working without it.

    Every plan

  • Route planning

    Turn a day's stops into a driven order with real arrival times, so you know when the crew reaches each door and when they are back.

    Every plan, with some parts on Professional, Crew or Scale

  • Scheduling and dispatch

    Write down what each person can do, then ask who should take a job and when it could be done — ranked with reasons, by profit if you like, and assigned on its own if you want.

    Every plan, with some parts on Professional, Crew or Scale

  • Shifts and time off

    Give a person a week that alternates with a second one, change any day or week, keep a rota of who is on call and get after-hours work to them, and let the crew ask for time off.

    Every plan

  • Taking a request and booking the visit

    Capture a call, a text or a walk-in as a job, check the address is somewhere you actually go, and book the first visit in the same form.

    Every plan, with some parts on Professional, Crew or Scale

  • The calendar

    One view of everything with a date on it — appointments, milestones, invoice due dates, proposal expiries and warranty follow-ups.

    Every plan

  • The crew's phone

    What a field member gets instead of the console — one day at a time, sized for a thumb, three taps to record what happened.

    Every plan

  • Weather: the forecast against every visit

    See Google's forecast for each visit's hours where you already look, know which visits the weather puts at risk and why, and move one to a clearer day in a few clicks.

    Professional

  • Who has which van today

    Give out vans and machines for the day, see them on the Day Board beside the work, and let the crew see what they were given.

    Every plan

  • Work at your own place

    Say which kinds of work happen at your own shop, studio or bay, name its spaces, take bookings and drop-offs there with no address, and see the day by space.

    Every plan

  • Workers

    One roster of the people who do your work — employees, subcontractors and you — with what their hours cost, their licenses and what clients see of them.

    Every plan

Doing the work

The job itself — the steps, the readings, the photos and the record of what was done.

  • Equipment readings, service and cost

    Track hours and readings on a machine, know what it is due for, and see what it actually cost a job.

    Every plan

  • Field service compliance

    Record regulated work to a fixed shape, keep licenses current, lock finished records and export what a regulator asks for.

    Every plan, with some parts on Professional, Crew or Scale

  • Inventory: stock in the shop and on every van

    Count the shop and every van on a phone, record every part a job used, keep the vans restocked, and know what your stock is worth at average cost.

    Every plan, with some parts on Professional, Crew or Scale

  • Job checklists

    Write down the steps a kind of work always needs, have the crew work them in order, and stop a job closing until the required ones are answered.

    Every plan, with some parts on Professional, Crew or Scale

  • Jobs

    The record every other part of the product hangs off — the work, who it is for, what was done, what it cost and what it made.

    Every plan, with some parts on Professional, Crew or Scale

  • Measurements and readings

    Define what your business measures, take readings against the thing measured, and see what it read last time.

    Every plan

  • Mentioning a teammate in a note

    Type @ in a job note to reach somebody, and see who has read it.

    Crew

  • Projects — plan a big job in stages

    Lay a remodel or any multi-week job out as stages that hold their tasks and visits, schedule a whole stage at once, and watch its progress and margin stage by stage.

    Every plan, with some parts on Professional, Crew or Scale

  • Say it once — several steps and a job's wrap-up in one go

    Say everything you mean in one go — a new customer, a phone call, the end of a job — and check a form for each step before anything is saved.

    Professional

  • The assistant — ask by typing or talking

    Tell the product what happened instead of filling in a form, by typing or by speaking — and see the filled-in form before anything is saved.

    Professional

Billing and getting paid

Invoices, milestones, online payment and chasing what is owed.

  • Bank payments

    Let a client pay an invoice from their bank account, beside the card, for a few dollars of processing rather than a card's percentage.

    Every plan

  • Getting set up to take payment

    Connect a payment account so clients can pay an invoice online, and see clearly whether you are actually set up before you send one.

    Every plan

  • How long your clients take to pay

    The Getting paid report — how many days your clients typically take to pay an invoice, how many pay by the due date, month by month and client by client.

    Every plan, with some parts on Professional, Crew or Scale

  • Invoices and getting paid

    Bill a job, email your client a link they can pay by card, and have the payment recorded against the invoice without you touching it.

    Every plan, with some parts on Professional, Crew or Scale

  • Invoicing several jobs at once

    Pick the completed jobs nobody has billed yet and make all their invoices in one go, then send them together.

    Every plan

  • Milestones and the payment schedule

    Break a job into stages of the work, and say what your client pays and when on its payment schedule — a deposit, a payment when a stage is done, the balance at the end.

    Every plan

  • Sales tax

    Your own sales tax rates, found by the ZIP code where the work is done; tax on the lines that are taxable; exempt clients; and what you owe each state, county and city.

    Every plan

  • Tips

    Let customers add a tip when they pay an invoice online, kept as your income rather than folded into the job's revenue.

    Every plan

Costs and profit

What a job cost, what you kept, and which kinds of work are worth doing.

  • Approving hours and sending them to payroll

    Review a pay period person by person, approve it, and export a file for your payroll provider instead of retyping a week.

    Every plan

  • Ask about your own business

    Ask what you made last quarter, what moved it, or why a job came in under — answered from your own reports, with a monthly summary that arrives without being asked for.

    Professional

  • Commissions and pay rules

    Say what each worker earns from a job — a percentage, a flat amount or so much per item sold — and the pay report works it out when the customer pays.

    Every plan

  • Comparing jobs against their estimates

    One report across every job — which are healthy, which are bleeding money, and how each is tracking against what it was quoted at.

    Every plan

  • Connecting a bank account

    Pull your bank and card transactions in automatically and match them against your expenses, payments and income — with you deciding every match.

    Professional

  • Expenses

    Record what you spend, against a job or against the business, and scan a receipt to fill the form in for you.

    Every plan, with some parts on Professional, Crew or Scale

  • Exporting to QuickBooks

    Three files your bookkeeper can import straight into QuickBooks Online — customers, invoices and transactions — instead of retyping a quarter.

    Every plan

  • Hours against the estimate

    See whether a job is taking the hours it was sold at, which jobs are bleeding hours right now, and who logs what.

    Every plan

  • Job costing and margins

    Price work from real labor rates, then watch the estimate against what the job is actually costing while it is still running.

    Every plan

  • Margin alerts

    Get told while a job is still running that its margin is slipping, with the dollar impact, the reason, and what to do about it.

    Every plan

  • Mileage

    Log business trips with the date, the purpose and the distance, against a job or against the business, and export them for tax time.

    Every plan, with some parts on Professional, Crew or Scale

  • Purchases matched to jobs

    Tie each business card to the worker who carries it, and every purchase on it is matched to the job they were on that day, for the worker to confirm with one tap on Crew and Scale.

    Professional

  • Purchasing: suppliers, purchase orders and what they charge you

    Keep your suppliers and their prices, send purchase orders for stock or a job, receive what arrives, and check every supplier's bill against what you ordered before you pay it.

    Every plan, with some parts on Professional, Crew or Scale

  • Reports you build yourself

    Build a report of your own records by hand, or describe it in a sentence — a chart, every figure's records, the period before, a PDF, and a notice when it has run.

    Every plan, with some parts on Professional, Crew or Scale

  • Sending your records to QuickBooks or Xero

    Connect QuickBooks Online or Xero once, confirm where each kind of record goes, and your customers, invoices, payments, refunds, costs and payouts are sent as they change.

    Every plan, with some parts on Professional, Crew or Scale

  • Target margins

    Write down once what a good margin looks like, for the business and per kind of work, so every page can tell you whether a number is good.

    Every plan

  • Tax reporting

    A tax summary in Schedule C categories, a set-aside figure for quarterly payments, and the 1099 totals for your subcontractors.

    Every plan

  • Time tracking

    Log hours against a job in quarter-hour steps, mark what is billable, and turn billable time into an invoice line.

    Every plan

  • What you owe each subcontractor

    Approved hours against payments recorded, per pay period, with the balance carried forward so an unpaid week is still owed next month.

    Every plan

  • Where your profit comes from

    One report grouping your finished work by how each customer first came in, against what each source cost you, so you can see which sources send the customers who make money.

    Every plan, with some parts on Professional, Crew or Scale

  • Which kinds of work make money

    One report grouping every job by its kind of work, so you can see what water heaters make and what the gutter work costs you.

    Every plan

Your business online

Your public page, online booking, and the page each client gets.

  • Client referrals and where your leads come from

    Give each client a link to pass on, credit the work it brings back to them for thirty days, and see which sources actually turn into money.

    Every plan, with some parts on Professional, Crew or Scale

  • Letting clients ask for a visit

    Take a request from your public page or a client's own link with the date and window that would suit them, and let them call a visit off from the page that tracks it.

    Every plan

  • Photos and documents from your clients

    Your clients add photos when they write about a job on their page, and send the documents you ask for — and each file is scanned for malware before anyone in your business can open it.

    Every plan, with some parts on Professional, Crew or Scale

  • Telling your customer somebody is on the way

    When the crew taps On my way, your customer gets a text and a page showing who is coming, when, and what van to look for.

    Every plan, with some parts on Professional, Crew or Scale

  • The contractor directory

    A free listing on smgtools.com/directory, where people search for a contractor by service and by town — alphabetical, with nothing to pay for placement.

    Every plan, with some parts on Professional, Crew or Scale

  • Warranties on your client's page

    Your client can see whether they are still covered — labor and materials, through what date — without ringing to ask.

    Every plan

  • Your client's own page

    One link where a client sees every quote, agreement, invoice and change order they hold with you — with no account and no password.

    Every plan

  • Your public page

    A shareable page for your business with your details, your hours and a quote form that feeds straight into your leads — no website needed.

    Every plan, with some parts on Professional, Crew or Scale

Your account and your data

Sign-in, your team, what we store, and getting your data back out.

  • Change history: who changed what, and when

    Every change to every record — who made it, the role they held and where it came from — back to your business's first day, and on most records each value before and after.

    Every plan

  • Company sign-in: your people sign in through Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace

    On Scale, prove your domain, connect your Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, approve the people who ask to join, and require everyone on the domain to sign in through the company.

    Scale

  • Connect a program with an API key

    Give Zapier, your website or a developer's program a key to read and write your clients, jobs, leads and appointments, only as far as you allow.

    Professional

  • Connect Claude or ChatGPT

    Ask Claude or ChatGPT about your business, answered from your own records as far as your role reaches — and confirm what it prepares on SMG Tools' own card.

    Professional

  • Connect SMG Tools to Zapier

    Have the apps you already use hear about your jobs, leads and invoices, and feed SMG Tools in return, with Zapier and no code.

    Professional

  • Getting set up on Scale

    Scale includes a person to bring your records across, set your team up and walk your crew through it — what that covers, what to have ready, and what it does not include.

    Every plan, with some parts on Professional, Crew or Scale

  • Importing and exporting your data

    Bring your client list, price book and equipment in from another system, and get any list back out in the same columns.

    Every plan

  • Keeping the account secure

    See every device signed in, get told when a new one appears, and require everybody in the business to use a second factor.

    Every plan

  • Notifications on your phone

    Turn notifications on for your phone or computer, and what is addressed to you arrives as a notification that opens it — mentions, replies, new work, bookings.

    Every plan

  • Passkeys

    Sign in with your face or your fingerprint instead of a password — faster on a phone, and impossible to phish.

    Every plan

  • Plans and billing

    What Starter, Professional, Crew and Scale each include, how the transaction fee works, and how to change or cancel your plan.

    Every plan, with some parts on Professional, Crew or Scale

  • Referring another business

    Invite another business to SMG Tools and earn credit on your own subscription when they become a paying customer.

    Every plan

  • Roles: what each person can see and change

    Give each person a role that fits their work — dispatcher, estimator, bookkeeper, crew lead — and on Scale, build your own from the same list.

    Crew

  • Signing in

    Sign in with an email and password, with Google, Microsoft or Apple, or with a passkey — and add a second factor to protect the account.

    Every plan

  • Storage

    How much your plan keeps, what counts against it, what happens at 80% and when it is full, and how to make room or ask for more.

    Every plan, with some parts on Professional, Crew or Scale

  • The links you send clients

    Proposal and invoice links are short, expire and can be revoked, and every client link is protected in proportion to what it can actually do.

    Every plan

  • Webhooks and an inbound lead address

    Have other software told when something happens in SMG Tools, and let a form or a lead service outside it create a lead here.

    Every plan, with some parts on Professional, Crew or Scale

  • Your data and your rights

    Download every record your account holds, delete your personal data, control cookies, and see exactly who else touches your information.

    Every plan

  • Your team and what each person can do

    Invite people by email and give each a role — and each gets a product shaped by that choice.

    Crew

Building something against this? /help/index.json is every section with its anchor, and /llms.txt is the same thing for a language model.