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

Ask a plumber, an HVAC shop or a cleaner what they keep in custom fields and the same three answers come back. Rather than a generic field that holds each as text nothing understands, this product builds the three things people actually put there.

Record how to get in

Site access lives on the client, and on each of its buildings once it has more than one (see Keep a client with several buildings). The job’s page shows it beneath the address, read-only, so the office sees at dispatch what the crew will see. A job at one of the client’s buildings shows that building’s codes and never another’s; a job at an address that is none of its buildings shows none, and says how to get in there in its own notes.

The gate code, the lockbox, the alarm, the dog, where to park, call first — written once instead of explained to every person you send.

It reaches the crew on their own phone with the job, which is the point. A gate code in a field nobody in a van can see is a gate code that gets phoned in.

A code looks the same wherever you read it — on the client, on the job and on the crew’s phone: bold, in a typewriter face, a size up from the words around it, so a 6 is not read as an 8 at the keypad.

Record where the customer came from

Each client carries a lead source, which is what lets the reporting answer which sign, which site or which neighbor actually brings you work.

It is a real field rather than free text, so the Clients list filters and counts by it and Where your profit comes from can add it up. Typed freehand, Facebook, facebook and FB are three sources.

Record the customer’s own reference

Some customers — property managers especially — require their own PO or work order number on every invoice before they will pay it.

Record it and it goes on the invoice where they need to see it. That is a field that exists purely to stop an invoice being rejected, and it pays for itself the first time.

Why these three and not a field builder

Every comparable product ships a custom-fields mechanism. This is the answer to what people put in it.

A generic field holds a gate code as text nothing understands — so it cannot reach the crew’s phone with the job, cannot be filtered on, and cannot be put on an invoice. Building the three real things means each one works where it is needed rather than merely being stored.