{ "version": 1, "generated": "2026-09-21", "about": "Help content for SMG Tools, one entry per task section. Written from the user stories that define the product, and covering only what has shipped. The anchor is a stable link into the page.", "pages": 68, "sections": 332, "entries": [ { "feature": "automations", "featureTitle": "Automations & Workflows", "page": "Automations", "group": "Getting started", "section": "Understand the shape", "anchor": "understand-the-shape", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/automations#understand-the-shape", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [ "automations", "jobs", "proposals", "invoices", "appointments", "clients", "sms" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Every automation is the same three parts:\n\n**When** something happens · **if** some condition holds · **do** something.\n\n*When a job is finished, if the client has agreed to texts, text them two hours later asking for a\nreview.* You say it once, and it happens every time afterwards." }, { "feature": "automations", "featureTitle": "Automations & Workflows", "page": "Automations", "group": "Getting started", "section": "Turn one on", "anchor": "turn-one-on", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/automations#turn-one-on", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [ "automations", "jobs", "proposals", "invoices", "appointments", "clients", "sms" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Open **Automations** and pick a recipe. Each one is a ready-made instruction with its parts already\nmatched up, so you are choosing a behavior rather than assembling one from a blank screen.\n\nThe confirmation tells you in plain words what will now happen and when, so you can see whether it is\nwhat you meant before you switch it on." }, { "feature": "automations", "featureTitle": "Automations & Workflows", "page": "Automations", "group": "Getting started", "section": "What they are good for", "anchor": "what-they-are-good-for", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/automations#what-they-are-good-for", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [ "automations", "jobs", "proposals", "invoices", "appointments", "clients", "sms" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "The recipes cover the gaps that cost the most:\n\n- **Chasing a quote** that has been sent and not answered.\n- **Nudging an invoice** that has gone past due.\n- **Asking for a review** while the work is still fresh.\n- **Telling you about finished jobs nobody has invoiced** — and that email opens the Jobs list with\n those jobs already selected, so you can bill them in one go. See\n [Invoicing several jobs at once](/help/batch-invoicing)." }, { "feature": "automations", "featureTitle": "Automations & Workflows", "page": "Automations", "group": "Getting started", "section": "Turn one off", "anchor": "turn-one-off", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/automations#turn-one-off", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [ "automations", "jobs", "proposals", "invoices", "appointments", "clients", "sms" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Switch an automation off and it stops. Nothing it already did is undone — the texts that went, went —\nbut no further ones are sent.\n\nIt is worth reviewing what you have on after a few months. An automation you forgot about is still\nmessaging your clients." }, { "feature": "automations", "featureTitle": "Automations & Workflows", "page": "Automations", "group": "Getting started", "section": "What it costs", "anchor": "what-it-costs", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/automations#what-it-costs", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [ "automations", "jobs", "proposals", "invoices", "appointments", "clients", "sms" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "The automations themselves are on every plan. What an individual one *does* follows the usual rule:\nan email costs nothing and is on Starter, and a **text** needs Professional because a message costs\nper send. See [Text messages and consent](/help/sms-notifications)." }, { "feature": "for-you", "featureTitle": "For You — Notes to Clients, Their Replies, and the Attention Queue", "page": "For you", "group": "Getting started", "section": "Understand what a note is here", "anchor": "understand-what-a-note-is-here", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/for-you#understand-what-a-note-is-here", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [ "jobs", "work-notes", "clients", "sms", "email", "client-hub", "team" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "- A note that **mentions a teammate** is a message to them — see\n [Mentioning a teammate in a note](/help/team-notes).\n- A note **shared with the client and sent** is a message to them, delivered by email or text\n according to what they agreed to.\n- What the client **texts back**, or types on their own page, lands on the job as a note from them —\n see [When a client replies](/help/client-reply-trigger).\n\nEvery one of those lives on the job it is about. Nothing drifts, because nothing left." }, { "feature": "for-you", "featureTitle": "For You — Notes to Clients, Their Replies, and the Attention Queue", "page": "For you", "group": "Getting started", "section": "Open your queue", "anchor": "open-your-queue", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/for-you#open-your-queue", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [ "jobs", "work-notes", "clients", "sms", "email", "client-hub", "team" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "**For you** is one list of everything addressed to you, across every job you can see.\n\nIt is not a place to talk. There is no reply box on the queue, because replying happens on the job\nwhere the conversation belongs. The queue's job is to make sure nothing addressed to you waits for\nyou to happen to open the right job." }, { "feature": "for-you", "featureTitle": "For You — Notes to Clients, Their Replies, and the Attention Queue", "page": "For you", "group": "Getting started", "section": "Clear it", "anchor": "clear-it", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/for-you#clear-it", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [ "jobs", "work-notes", "clients", "sms", "email", "client-hub", "team" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "An item leaves the queue when you have dealt with it. What is left is genuinely outstanding, which is\nwhat makes the count worth looking at.\n\nIf it is empty, nothing is waiting on you — and you can believe that, because everything that would\nbe waiting is in one list rather than spread across jobs." }, { "feature": "for-you", "featureTitle": "For You — Notes to Clients, Their Replies, and the Attention Queue", "page": "For you", "group": "Getting started", "section": "Why not an inbox", "anchor": "why-not-an-inbox", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/for-you#why-not-an-inbox", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [ "jobs", "work-notes", "clients", "sms", "email", "client-hub", "team" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "A separate chat channel has three problems this arrangement does not: it duplicates the record, it\ndrifts from the job over time, and it does not appear in the job's own history when somebody reads it\nback a year later.\n\nNotes are the history. The queue is a view over them." }, { "feature": "workspace-setup", "featureTitle": "Workspace Setup & Module Visibility", "page": "Setting up and hiding what you do not use", "group": "Getting started", "section": "Answer the setup wizard", "anchor": "answer-the-setup-wizard", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/workspace-setup#answer-the-setup-wizard", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "organization", "dashboard", "navigation" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "The first thing a new owner sees asks about their business — how they schedule, how they handle the\nmoney, whether they have a crew, whether they track mileage. Your answers are written straight to\nyour settings.\n\nIt takes a couple of minutes and you can skip any of it." }, { "feature": "workspace-setup", "featureTitle": "Workspace Setup & Module Visibility", "page": "Setting up and hiding what you do not use", "group": "Getting started", "section": "Understand what the wizard actually is", "anchor": "understand-what-the-wizard-actually-is", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/workspace-setup#understand-what-the-wizard-actually-is", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "organization", "dashboard", "navigation" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "**The wizard is just a friendly way of setting switches.** It writes exactly the same settings the\nFeatures page writes, and if it were deleted tomorrow nothing would break.\n\nThat matters because it means nothing the wizard did is trapped in the wizard. Everything it set you\ncan find, read and change later, in one place, without repeating an interview." }, { "feature": "workspace-setup", "featureTitle": "Workspace Setup & Module Visibility", "page": "Setting up and hiding what you do not use", "group": "Getting started", "section": "Turn parts of the product on and off", "anchor": "turn-parts-of-the-product-on-and-off", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/workspace-setup#turn-parts-of-the-product-on-and-off", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "organization", "dashboard", "navigation" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Under **Settings → Modules**, each optional area has a switch.\n\n**Turning Mileage off makes the app smaller. Turning it on makes it bigger. Nothing else changes.**\nThe switch is honored by the navigation and by every other entry point that leads into that area, so\nturning something off does not leave a link that goes somewhere you said you did not want." }, { "feature": "workspace-setup", "featureTitle": "Workspace Setup & Module Visibility", "page": "Setting up and hiding what you do not use", "group": "Getting started", "section": "Change your mind at any time", "anchor": "change-your-mind-at-any-time", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/workspace-setup#change-your-mind-at-any-time", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "organization", "dashboard", "navigation" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Nothing here is a one-way door.\n\n**Turning a module off never deletes anything.** The records stay exactly as they were, and turning\nit back on brings them back into view unchanged. If you hide Mileage in March and turn it back on in\nOctober, every trip you logged is still there.\n\nThat is what makes it safe to switch things off — you are hiding a part of the product, not throwing\naway a part of your business." }, { "feature": "workspace-setup", "featureTitle": "Workspace Setup & Module Visibility", "page": "Setting up and hiding what you do not use", "group": "Getting started", "section": "What to do first", "anchor": "what-to-do-first", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/workspace-setup#what-to-do-first", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "organization", "dashboard", "navigation" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "The **Get Started** checklist on your dashboard is the resume point for setting up without talking to\nanybody. It leads with bringing in your client list and connecting a payment account, because those\nare the two that change your week most — see\n[Importing and exporting your data](/help/import-export) and\n[Getting set up to take payment](/help/payment-adoption)." }, { "feature": "dashboard", "featureTitle": "Dashboard", "page": "The dashboard", "group": "Getting started", "section": "Read the numbers literally", "anchor": "read-the-numbers-literally", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/dashboard#read-the-numbers-literally", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "**Every figure means exactly what its label says.** That sounds obvious and it is a stricter promise\nthan it looks.\n\nA number on a dashboard prompts one question — *which ones?* — so a figure you can click leads to\nexactly the list it counted. If a total says eleven and the list it opens shows eight, that is a\ndefect here rather than a helpful narrowing.\n\nYou can trust what you read and act on it without opening a report to check." }, { "feature": "dashboard", "featureTitle": "Dashboard", "page": "The dashboard", "group": "Getting started", "section": "Get set up", "anchor": "get-set-up", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/dashboard#get-set-up", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "New businesses get a **Get Started** checklist showing what still needs doing — bringing in your\nclient list, connecting a payment account, setting your labor rates. It leads with payment setup,\nbecause getting paid online is the thing that changes a business's week the most.\n\nNothing on it is a gate. You can ignore the whole list and still send an invoice today." }, { "feature": "dashboard", "featureTitle": "Dashboard", "page": "The dashboard", "group": "Getting started", "section": "Trim it to what you use", "anchor": "trim-it-to-what-you-use", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/dashboard#trim-it-to-what-you-use", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "The dashboard is made of widgets, and you can trim it to the ones you actually look at. A business\nthat does not track mileage should not be scrolling past a mileage panel every morning.\n\nSome widgets belong to the dashboard itself. Others are owned by the feature that produces them and\nare only shown here — which is why turning a module off takes its widget with it rather than\nleaving an empty box." }, { "feature": "dashboard", "featureTitle": "Dashboard", "page": "The dashboard", "group": "Getting started", "section": "Jump to what needs you", "anchor": "jump-to-what-needs-you", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/dashboard#jump-to-what-needs-you", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "The dashboard is a set of doorways more than a report. **At-risk jobs** opens the jobs whose margin is\ndrifting; the uninvoiced prompt opens the jobs nobody has billed. In each case the widget is a\nshortcut into the screen where you can actually do something, rather than a number you then go\nhunting for." }, { "feature": "organization", "featureTitle": "Organization", "page": "Your business details", "group": "Getting started", "section": "Fill in your profile", "anchor": "fill-in-your-profile", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/organization#fill-in-your-profile", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Under **Settings → Organization**, set:\n\n- **Business name.**\n- **Logo.**\n- **Contact details** — phone, email, address.\n- **Hours of operation.**\n\nThese are not decoration. Your name and logo head every invoice, proposal, report and email your\nclients receive, and your contact email is where their replies go. A business that has not filled\nthis in sends documents that look unfinished.\n\nYour address is also used as the starting point for\n[mileage](/help/mileage-tracking) and for judging how far away a job is." }, { "feature": "organization", "featureTitle": "Organization", "page": "Your business details", "group": "Getting started", "section": "Know what an organization is", "anchor": "know-what-an-organization-is", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/organization#know-what-an-organization-is", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "**Your business is the boundary around all of your data.** Every record belongs to it, and nothing\ncrosses from one business to another.\n\nIt is created once, when you register, and your account belongs to it from that moment. There is no\nstep where you pick an organization or get moved between them." }, { "feature": "organization", "featureTitle": "Organization", "page": "Your business details", "group": "Getting started", "section": "Where the rest of the settings live", "anchor": "where-the-rest-of-the-settings-live", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/organization#where-the-rest-of-the-settings-live", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "The organization settings area holds the things the rest of the product reads:\n\n- **Job Types** — the kinds of work you do, which the reporting depends on.\n- **Labor Rates** and **Cost Templates** — what work costs and what you charge.\n- **Modules** — which parts of the product you want at all.\n- **Client Reminders** — when clients get reminded about appointments.\n- **Service Zones** — where you work.\n- **Online Booking** and **Bookable Services** — what customers can book and when.\n- **Checklists**, **Measurements**, **Materials** and **Compliance** — how the work gets recorded.\n\nEach is covered by its own help page, and the settings navigation groups them the way you would\nlook for them." }, { "feature": "client-management", "featureTitle": "Client Management - Documentation", "page": "Clients", "group": "Clients and properties", "section": "Add a client", "anchor": "add-a-client", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/client-management#add-a-client", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Open **Clients** and choose to add one. The only thing required is a name; everything else can wait\nuntil you know it.\n\n- **Name** — a person's name, up to 200 characters.\n- **Business name** — if you are working for a company rather than a household.\n- **Email** and **phone** — how you reach them, and where an invoice or a proposal will go.\n- **Address** — the property you will be working at.\n- **Notes** — anything else worth knowing.\n\nYou can add a client from the middle of writing a proposal or booking a job, so you do not have to\nstop and set one up first." }, { "feature": "client-management", "featureTitle": "Client Management - Documentation", "page": "Clients", "group": "Clients and properties", "section": "Find a client", "anchor": "find-a-client", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/client-management#find-a-client", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "The search box on the Clients page matches on **name, business name, email or phone**, and it\nsearches as you type. Typing part of a phone number finds the client whether or not you remember how\nit was formatted.\n\nAlongside search there are two filters:\n\n- **Active, archived or all.** Active is what you see by default.\n- **Source** — where the client came from, if you are tracking that. *Any source* is the default.\n\nThe list is alphabetical and pages at 25 at a time, which you can change to 10, 50 or 100." }, { "feature": "client-management", "featureTitle": "Client Management - Documentation", "page": "Clients", "group": "Clients and properties", "section": "Keep a client’s details up to date", "anchor": "keep-a-clients-details-up-to-date", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/client-management#keep-a-clients-details-up-to-date", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Open a client and edit any field. Changes are kept with the record of who made them and when.\n\nBeyond the contact details, a client's page carries:\n\n- **Site access** — the gate code, where to park, which door to use, who to ask for. Written once\n rather than explained to each person you send.\n- **Where they came from** — the lead source, so you can see later which kinds of marketing brought\n you work.\n- **Whether they are asked for a review** after a job finishes.\n- **Texting consent** — marketing texts and service texts are answered separately, because agreeing\n to a reminder about tomorrow's visit is not agreeing to be sold to." }, { "feature": "client-management", "featureTitle": "Client Management - Documentation", "page": "Clients", "group": "Clients and properties", "section": "See what a client is worth", "anchor": "see-what-a-client-is-worth", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/client-management#see-what-a-client-is-worth", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "A client's page adds up their work for you without you having to run a report:\n\n- **Time totals** — the hours logged against their jobs, split into total, billable, invoiced and\n not yet invoiced, so you can see at a glance whether work is sitting unbilled.\n- **Lifetime value** — what this client has been worth across everything they have ever bought.\n- **Their service agreements**, if they are on one, and what those entitle them to." }, { "feature": "client-management", "featureTitle": "Client Management - Documentation", "page": "Clients", "group": "Clients and properties", "section": "Look back at everything you have said", "anchor": "look-back-at-everything-you-have-said", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/client-management#look-back-at-everything-you-have-said", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "The client's page carries their whole communication history in one thread — emails, texts, notes you\nsent them and their replies — so you never have to work out which conversation happened where before\nyou call them back.\n\nIt also links straight to **their own page**: the client hub, where they can see their jobs,\ndocuments and warranties without signing in to anything." }, { "feature": "client-management", "featureTitle": "Client Management - Documentation", "page": "Clients", "group": "Clients and properties", "section": "Track the equipment at their property", "anchor": "track-the-equipment-at-their-property", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/client-management#track-the-equipment-at-their-property", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "A client's page lists the **units** at their property — a furnace, a water heater, a rooftop unit —\neach with its make, model, serial number and its own service history. Recording a job against a unit\nis what builds that history, so next time anybody attends they can see what was done before.\n\n**Units due** on the Clients page pulls together every unit across every client that is due for\nservice, which is the list to work from when you are filling a quiet week." }, { "feature": "client-management", "featureTitle": "Client Management - Documentation", "page": "Clients", "group": "Clients and properties", "section": "Bring your clients in from somewhere else", "anchor": "bring-your-clients-in-from-somewhere-else", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/client-management#bring-your-clients-in-from-somewhere-else", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "If you are moving from another system, or from a spreadsheet, **Import** on the Clients page takes a\nfile of clients, and **Import units** takes their equipment. **Export** gives you the list back out\nin the same shape at any time — your records stay yours." }, { "feature": "client-management", "featureTitle": "Client Management - Documentation", "page": "Clients", "group": "Clients and properties", "section": "Archive a client you no longer work for", "anchor": "archive-a-client-you-no-longer-work-for", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/client-management#archive-a-client-you-no-longer-work-for", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Clients are archived, never deleted. Archiving takes a client out of the active list and leaves\neverything attached to them exactly as it was: their jobs, their invoices, their history. If they\ncome back, unarchive them and nothing has been lost.\n\nThis is deliberate. A deleted client would take a year of invoices and job records with them, and\nthe one time anybody needs those is the one time they cannot be recovered." }, { "feature": "client-communication-history", "featureTitle": "Client Communication History", "page": "Everything you have said to a client", "group": "Clients and properties", "section": "Open the thread", "anchor": "open-the-thread", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/client-communication-history#open-the-thread", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "clients", "jobs", "invoices", "proposals", "service-agreements", "sms", "call-agent", "automations" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "A client's page carries their whole communication history, newest first.\n\nIt holds everything the business has said to them and everything they have said back:\n\n- **Texts and emails** the product sent under your name.\n- **Notes you sent from a job**, and their replies.\n- **Documents** — proposals and invoices — with when each was sent, resent, reminded about, opened\n and answered.\n- **Calls** the phone assistant took, as transcripts." }, { "feature": "client-communication-history", "featureTitle": "Client Communication History", "page": "Everything you have said to a client", "group": "Clients and properties", "section": "Read what actually happened", "anchor": "read-what-actually-happened", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/client-communication-history#read-what-actually-happened", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "clients", "jobs", "invoices", "proposals", "service-agreements", "sms", "call-agent", "automations" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Each entry says the **channel**, the **moment**, and — this is the useful part — **whether it went,\nor was blocked and why**.\n\nA text that was never sent because the client had not agreed to service texts is a different fact\nfrom one that was sent and ignored, and on the phone with an annoyed customer that difference is the\nwhole conversation." }, { "feature": "client-communication-history", "featureTitle": "Client Communication History", "page": "Everything you have said to a client", "group": "Clients and properties", "section": "Answer the question in one click", "anchor": "answer-the-question-in-one-click", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/client-communication-history#answer-the-question-in-one-click", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "clients", "jobs", "invoices", "proposals", "service-agreements", "sms", "call-agent", "automations" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "*What have we told this person?* is now one page rather than six.\n\nThat is the entire feature. Nothing new is recorded — every entry in the thread was already being\nkept somewhere — and what changed is that they can be read together." }, { "feature": "client-communication-history", "featureTitle": "Client Communication History", "page": "Everything you have said to a client", "group": "Clients and properties", "section": "Where else it appears", "anchor": "where-else-it-appears", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/client-communication-history#where-else-it-appears", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "clients", "jobs", "invoices", "proposals", "service-agreements", "sms", "call-agent", "automations" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "The job's own notes still show the conversation about that job, including client replies — see\n[Jobs](/help/job-management) and [When a client replies](/help/client-reply-trigger).\n\nThe thread on the client is the wider view: everything, across every job." }, { "feature": "client-job-facts", "featureTitle": "Client and Job Facts — Getting In, Where They Came From, and Their Reference Number", "page": "Getting in, where they came from, and their PO number", "group": "Clients and properties", "section": "Record how to get in", "anchor": "record-how-to-get-in", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/client-job-facts#record-how-to-get-in", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "clients", "jobs", "invoices", "my-day", "leads", "import-export", "webhooks" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Site access lives on the client, and on a job when that visit is different.\n\nThe gate code, the lockbox, the alarm, the dog, where to park, *call first* — written once instead of\nexplained to every person you send.\n\nIt reaches the crew on their own phone with the job, which is the point. A gate code in a field\nnobody in a van can see is a gate code that gets phoned in." }, { "feature": "client-job-facts", "featureTitle": "Client and Job Facts — Getting In, Where They Came From, and Their Reference Number", "page": "Getting in, where they came from, and their PO number", "group": "Clients and properties", "section": "Record where the customer came from", "anchor": "record-where-the-customer-came-from", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/client-job-facts#record-where-the-customer-came-from", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "clients", "jobs", "invoices", "my-day", "leads", "import-export", "webhooks" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Each client carries a **lead source**, which is what lets the reporting answer which sign, which\nsite or which neighbor actually brings you work.\n\nIt is a real field rather than free text, so the Clients list filters by it and\n[the lead reporting](/help/referrals) can add it up. Typed freehand, *Facebook*, *facebook* and *FB*\nare three sources." }, { "feature": "client-job-facts", "featureTitle": "Client and Job Facts — Getting In, Where They Came From, and Their Reference Number", "page": "Getting in, where they came from, and their PO number", "group": "Clients and properties", "section": "Record the customer’s own reference", "anchor": "record-the-customers-own-reference", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/client-job-facts#record-the-customers-own-reference", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "clients", "jobs", "invoices", "my-day", "leads", "import-export", "webhooks" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Some customers — property managers especially — require their **own PO or work order number** on\nevery invoice before they will pay it.\n\nRecord it and it goes on the invoice where they need to see it. That is a field that exists purely\nto stop an invoice being rejected, and it pays for itself the first time." }, { "feature": "client-job-facts", "featureTitle": "Client and Job Facts — Getting In, Where They Came From, and Their Reference Number", "page": "Getting in, where they came from, and their PO number", "group": "Clients and properties", "section": "Why these three and not a field builder", "anchor": "why-these-three-and-not-a-field-builder", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/client-job-facts#why-these-three-and-not-a-field-builder", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "clients", "jobs", "invoices", "my-day", "leads", "import-export", "webhooks" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Every comparable product ships a custom-fields mechanism. This is the answer to what people put in\nit.\n\nA generic field holds a gate code as text nothing understands — so it cannot reach the crew's phone\nwith the job, cannot be filtered on, and cannot be put on an invoice. Building the three real things\nmeans each one works where it is needed rather than merely being stored." }, { "feature": "sms-notifications", "featureTitle": "SMS Notifications & Consent", "page": "Text messages and consent", "group": "Clients and properties", "section": "Understand what the law requires", "anchor": "understand-what-the-law-requires", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/sms-notifications#understand-what-the-law-requires", "plan": "Professional", "entitlement": "professional", "modules": [ "appointments", "referrals", "clients", "organization", "jobs" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Under the US TCPA, a promotional message sent without prior express written consent carries statutory\ndamages of **$500 to $1,500 per message** — and that lands on the business that sent it, not only on\nthe platform. Carriers separately require that STOP and HELP always work.\n\nThat is why this product will not let you text somebody who has not agreed, and why it asks for the\ntwo kinds of agreement separately." }, { "feature": "sms-notifications", "featureTitle": "SMS Notifications & Consent", "page": "Text messages and consent", "group": "Clients and properties", "section": "Get consent, in two kinds", "anchor": "get-consent-in-two-kinds", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/sms-notifications#get-consent-in-two-kinds", "plan": "Professional", "entitlement": "professional", "modules": [ "appointments", "referrals", "clients", "organization", "jobs" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "A client answers two questions, not one:\n\n- **Service texts** — messages about work they have actually booked. A reminder about tomorrow's\n visit.\n- **Marketing texts** — anything promotional.\n\nThey are separate because agreeing to a reminder is not agreeing to be sold to, and treating one as\nthe other is precisely what the rules are about.\n\nConsent is recorded on the client, where you can see it, and every decision to text anybody goes\nthrough the same check. **No part of the product decides consent for itself.**" }, { "feature": "sms-notifications", "featureTitle": "SMS Notifications & Consent", "page": "Text messages and consent", "group": "Clients and properties", "section": "Honor STOP and HELP", "anchor": "honor-stop-and-help", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/sms-notifications#honor-stop-and-help", "plan": "Professional", "entitlement": "professional", "modules": [ "appointments", "referrals", "clients", "organization", "jobs" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "A client who replies **STOP** is opted out, immediately and everywhere. **HELP** answers with who is\ntexting them and how to reach you.\n\nNeither of those is something you have to configure or remember. They are handled for you because a\ncarrier will suspend a number that does not honor them." }, { "feature": "sms-notifications", "featureTitle": "SMS Notifications & Consent", "page": "Text messages and consent", "group": "Clients and properties", "section": "What gets texted", "anchor": "what-gets-texted", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/sms-notifications#what-gets-texted", "plan": "Professional", "entitlement": "professional", "modules": [ "appointments", "referrals", "clients", "organization", "jobs" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Texts are sent as a consequence of something that happened — an appointment approaching, a job\nfinishing — rather than in the middle of a request. That is a deliberate design decision with a\npractical effect: **an outage at the message provider can never fail a booking.** The booking\nsucceeds and the text is sent when it can be." }, { "feature": "sms-notifications", "featureTitle": "SMS Notifications & Consent", "page": "Text messages and consent", "group": "Clients and properties", "section": "What it costs", "anchor": "what-it-costs", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/sms-notifications#what-it-costs", "plan": "Professional", "entitlement": "professional", "modules": [ "appointments", "referrals", "clients", "organization", "jobs" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Texting needs **Professional**, because unlike an email a text costs us per message.\n\nEvery equivalent notification is available by email on every plan. Choosing Starter does not mean\nyour clients go unreminded; it means the reminder arrives by email." }, { "feature": "client-equipment", "featureTitle": "Client Equipment — The Units at a Customer's Property", "page": "Units at a client's property", "group": "Clients and properties", "section": "Add a unit to a client", "anchor": "add-a-unit-to-a-client", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/client-equipment#add-a-unit-to-a-client", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [ "client-equipment", "clients", "jobs", "appointments", "compliance", "service-agreements", "proposals", "client-hub", "my-day", "automations", "data-rights" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Open a client and add a unit to their property. Record what it is: the make, the model, the serial\nnumber, where in the building it is, when it was installed and by whom, and what servicing it needs.\n\nYou do not have to fill everything in at once. The serial you took a picture of today is worth\nrecording even if the install date is a guess nobody has made yet." }, { "feature": "client-equipment", "featureTitle": "Client Equipment — The Units at a Customer's Property", "page": "Units at a client's property", "group": "Clients and properties", "section": "Arrive knowing what is there", "anchor": "arrive-knowing-what-is-there", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/client-equipment#arrive-knowing-what-is-there", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [ "client-equipment", "clients", "jobs", "appointments", "compliance", "service-agreements", "proposals", "client-hub", "my-day", "automations", "data-rights" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "The day's visit lists the units at that property with their model, serial, age, and **the last three\nthings done to them**.\n\nThat is the difference between \"there's a boiler somewhere in the basement\" and knowing you are\nlooking at a nine-year-old unit you replaced a pump on eighteen months ago." }, { "feature": "client-equipment", "featureTitle": "Client Equipment — The Units at a Customer's Property", "page": "Units at a client's property", "group": "Clients and properties", "section": "Build the history without extra work", "anchor": "build-the-history-without-extra-work", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/client-equipment#build-the-history-without-extra-work", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [ "client-equipment", "clients", "jobs", "appointments", "compliance", "service-agreements", "proposals", "client-hub", "my-day", "automations", "data-rights" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "A unit's history accrues from the work you were doing anyway:\n\n- **A job names the units it touched**, so the visit lands on the record.\n- **A compliance entry's serial number links to the unit** it was taken on, rather than being typed\n into a box and lost.\n- **A measurement taken on a unit** is kept against that unit, so next winter you can see what it\n read last year.\n\nThe unit's page is then the service history a customer asks for and a technician needs, and neither\nof you had to assemble it." }, { "feature": "client-equipment", "featureTitle": "Client Equipment — The Units at a Customer's Property", "page": "Units at a client's property", "group": "Clients and properties", "section": "Find the work that is due", "anchor": "find-the-work-that-is-due", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/client-equipment#find-the-work-that-is-due", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [ "client-equipment", "clients", "jobs", "appointments", "compliance", "service-agreements", "proposals", "client-hub", "my-day", "automations", "data-rights" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "**Units due** on the Clients page pulls together every unit across every client that is due for\nservice. It is the list to work from when you are filling a quiet week, and it is built from\nequipment you already recorded rather than a reminder somebody had to set." }, { "feature": "client-equipment", "featureTitle": "Client Equipment — The Units at a Customer's Property", "page": "Units at a client's property", "group": "Clients and properties", "section": "Bring your units in from somewhere else", "anchor": "bring-your-units-in-from-somewhere-else", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/client-equipment#bring-your-units-in-from-somewhere-else", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [ "client-equipment", "clients", "jobs", "appointments", "compliance", "service-agreements", "proposals", "client-hub", "my-day", "automations", "data-rights" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "**Import units** on the Clients page takes a file of equipment against your existing clients, so\nmoving from another system does not mean re-keying a decade of serial numbers. See\n[Importing and exporting](/help/import-export)." }, { "feature": "client-visibility", "featureTitle": "Client Visibility — Worker Profiles and Shared Notes", "page": "What your client sees about your people and their job", "group": "Clients and properties", "section": "Tell your client who is coming", "anchor": "tell-your-client-who-is-coming", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/client-visibility#tell-your-client-who-is-coming", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "workers", "jobs", "work-notes", "job-media", "public-page" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "The biggest anxiety in residential service work is not knowing who is about to knock. A name, a face\nand a line about what somebody does turns an unknown van into a person.\n\nA worker's profile can carry a **public part**: their first name, a photo, and a short line about what\nthey do. That is what a customer sees — not their contact details, not their rates, not anything else\non the record.\n\n**You choose what is published, per person.** A worker with nothing published is not\ndescribed, and the customer sees the business rather than a blank." }, { "feature": "client-visibility", "featureTitle": "Client Visibility — Worker Profiles and Shared Notes", "page": "What your client sees about your people and their job", "group": "Clients and properties", "section": "Show your client what you found", "anchor": "show-your-client-what-you-found", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/client-visibility#show-your-client-what-you-found", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "workers", "jobs", "work-notes", "job-media", "public-page" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "A crew photographs a cracked heat exchanger and writes down what they saw. That is exactly what a\ncustomer needs to see to believe a quote.\n\nA note or a photo on a job can be **shared with the client**, and what is shared appears on their own\npage — see [Your client's own page](/help/client-hub). Everything else stays internal.\n\nSharing is per item and deliberate. Nothing a crew writes becomes customer-facing because somebody\nforgot a setting." }, { "feature": "client-visibility", "featureTitle": "Client Visibility — Worker Profiles and Shared Notes", "page": "What your client sees about your people and their job", "group": "Clients and properties", "section": "Where the line sits", "anchor": "where-the-line-sits", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/client-visibility#where-the-line-sits", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "workers", "jobs", "work-notes", "job-media", "public-page" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Three things are worth being clear about:\n\n- **Internal is the default.** Notes, photos and worker details are private until somebody publishes\n them.\n- **Publishing is reversible.** Unshare something and it stops being visible, including on a page\n your client has already opened.\n- **Nothing about rates, costs or margins is ever publishable.** There is no setting that would show\n a customer what a job cost you." }, { "feature": "client-reply-trigger", "featureTitle": "Client Reply Trigger", "page": "When a client replies", "group": "Clients and properties", "section": "A reply to something you sent", "anchor": "a-reply-to-something-you-sent", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/client-reply-trigger#a-reply-to-something-you-sent", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "automations", "work-notes", "jobs" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "If you sent your client a note from a job and they reply, the reply lands on that job, addressed to\n**you** — the person who wrote to them — and you get an email.\n\nThat is the straightforward case, and it works because the product knows who was expecting an\nanswer." }, { "feature": "client-reply-trigger", "featureTitle": "Client Reply Trigger", "page": "When a client replies", "group": "Clients and properties", "section": "A reply to nothing in particular", "anchor": "a-reply-to-nothing-in-particular", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/client-reply-trigger#a-reply-to-nothing-in-particular", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "automations", "work-notes", "jobs" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "The harder case is the client who texts *\"are you still coming Tuesday?\"* about a job nobody has\nwritten to them from.\n\nThere is no conversation to attach it to, so it is filed on their **most recent open job** and\naddressed to nobody in particular. Without anything further, it would sit in the **For you** queue\nuntil somebody happened to look — which in a two-person business at four in the afternoon can easily\nbe tomorrow." }, { "feature": "client-reply-trigger", "featureTitle": "Client Reply Trigger", "page": "When a client replies", "group": "Clients and properties", "section": "Make sure somebody hears about it", "anchor": "make-sure-somebody-hears-about-it", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/client-reply-trigger#make-sure-somebody-hears-about-it", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "automations", "work-notes", "jobs" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Turn on the automation for client replies and an unaddressed reply reaches a person instead of\nwaiting to be found.\n\nIt is the same standing-instruction mechanism as everything else on\n[Automations](/help/automations): something happened, nobody is going to notice on their own, so tell\nsomebody." }, { "feature": "client-reply-trigger", "featureTitle": "Client Reply Trigger", "page": "When a client replies", "group": "Clients and properties", "section": "Where replies live", "anchor": "where-replies-live", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/client-reply-trigger#where-replies-live", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "automations", "work-notes", "jobs" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Every reply, addressed or not, is on the job as a note and in that client's communication history.\nNothing depends on the notification having been seen — the record is complete either way, and the\nautomation is about how quickly you find out." }, { "feature": "e-signatures", "featureTitle": "E-Signatures & Legal Protection", "page": "E-signatures and change orders", "group": "Quoting and winning work", "section": "Sign a proposal", "anchor": "sign-a-proposal", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/e-signatures#sign-a-proposal", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Your client opens the proposal link with no account. When they are ready to accept, they choose how\nto sign:\n\n- **Draw** — sign with a finger or a mouse, the way they would on paper. Works on a phone.\n- **Type** — type their full name, which appears in a script hand as they type.\n\n**Both are legally equivalent.** Neither is a lesser signature than the other.\n\nBelow the signature is a box they have to tick, stating that they agree to conduct the transaction\nelectronically and that their electronic signature has the same legal effect as a handwritten one.\nThe **Accept & Sign** button stays unavailable until they have entered their name, signed, and ticked\nthat box — all three, not two of the three." }, { "feature": "e-signatures", "featureTitle": "E-Signatures & Legal Protection", "page": "E-signatures and change orders", "group": "Quoting and winning work", "section": "Prove it was really them", "anchor": "prove-it-was-really-them", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/e-signatures#prove-it-was-really-them", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Before a proposal can be signed, a **six-digit code** is sent to the contact already on the client's\nrecord — not to an address typed into the form, which would prove nothing.\n\nOn **Starter** the code goes by email. Sending it by **text** needs Professional, because a text costs\nus per message.\n\nThe signature then carries which channel proved it and when, alongside the time, the IP address and\nthe browser used. That combination is the audit trail, and it is what you would produce if the\nsignature were ever questioned.\n\nChange orders are not yet behind a code. Signatures captured before this check existed remain valid\nand are shown as unverified rather than quietly presented as though they were checked." }, { "feature": "e-signatures", "featureTitle": "E-Signatures & Legal Protection", "page": "E-signatures and change orders", "group": "Quoting and winning work", "section": "Keep the document as it was signed", "anchor": "keep-the-document-as-it-was-signed", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/e-signatures#keep-the-document-as-it-was-signed", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "At the moment of signing, a PDF of the document is generated and stored, frozen, exactly as it stood.\n\nThis matters more than it sounds. Without it, a change to how proposals are laid out a year from now\nwould change what a signed proposal appears to say. The stored copy cannot be altered by anything\nthat happens to the product afterwards.\n\nBoth sides can download it: you from the proposal's page, and your client from their own link." }, { "feature": "e-signatures", "featureTitle": "E-Signatures & Legal Protection", "page": "E-signatures and change orders", "group": "Quoting and winning work", "section": "Send a change order", "anchor": "send-a-change-order", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/e-signatures#send-a-change-order", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Once a proposal has been accepted, changes to the work are **change orders** against the job rather\nthan edits to a signed document.\n\nA change order carries:\n\n- **Written sections** you can arrange and edit, the same content blocks proposals use — so a change\n order can properly explain itself rather than being one paragraph in a box.\n- **Line items** showing what the change actually costs, so your client can see the arithmetic\n instead of being handed a number.\n\nYou send it, your client **accepts** it, and the acceptance is recorded with the same audit trail and\nfrozen as its own signed PDF.\n\nHaving the product draft change-order wording for you needs **Professional**, since it spends your\nAI allowance. Writing it yourself works on every plan." }, { "feature": "e-signatures", "featureTitle": "E-Signatures & Legal Protection", "page": "E-signatures and change orders", "group": "Quoting and winning work", "section": "What this costs", "anchor": "what-this-costs", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/e-signatures#what-this-costs", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "**Signing is on every plan** — proposals and change orders both, including the stored signed PDF.\nIt replaces the acceptance step every plan already had, so nothing you could do before is now behind\na payment.\n\nTwo things around it need **Professional**, and both because they spend on somebody's meter: having\nthe product draft change-order content, and delivering the verification code by text instead of\nemail." }, { "feature": "proposal", "featureTitle": "Proposals - Documentation", "page": "Proposals", "group": "Quoting and winning work", "section": "Write a proposal", "anchor": "write-a-proposal", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/proposal#write-a-proposal", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Open **Proposals** and start one. It is a wizard in four steps, and you can leave at any point with\n**Save as Draft & Exit** — coming back drops you at the step you stopped on.\n\n**Step 1 — who it is for.** Pick the client (you can add one without leaving the form), and\noptionally a title, the kind of work, the service address, a valid-until date and a target price.\nValid-until defaults to 30 days out. The client is the only thing you have to fill in to save a\ndraft.\n\n**Step 2 — describe the job.** Write what the work is, in whatever shorthand you would use in a\nnotebook.\n\n**Step 3 — review and adjust.** Three sections — the contract wording, the costing line items, and\nthe milestones — which you edit, add to and delete from until they say what you mean.\n\n**Step 4 — pricing.** Three numbers side by side, and the gap between them is the point of the whole\nscreen." }, { "feature": "proposal", "featureTitle": "Proposals - Documentation", "page": "Proposals", "group": "Quoting and winning work", "section": "Understand the three prices", "anchor": "understand-the-three-prices", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/proposal#understand-the-three-prices", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "This is the part worth reading twice, because it is what stops you quoting a number you cannot make\nmoney at:\n\n- **Target price** — what you set out to charge, typed in step 1.\n- **Built-up price** — what the line items actually add up to.\n- **Proposal price** — what your client sees, split across the milestones.\n\n**Use built-up price** makes the built-up total the proposal price in one click and re-cuts the\nmilestones by their percentages. It deliberately leaves the target alone, so you keep seeing the\ndifference between what you hoped to charge and what the work costs — in dollars and as a margin at\neach price.\n\nIf the milestones no longer add up to the line items, the summary says so rather than letting you\nsend a proposal whose parts disagree." }, { "feature": "proposal", "featureTitle": "Proposals - Documentation", "page": "Proposals", "group": "Quoting and winning work", "section": "Let the product draft it for you", "anchor": "let-the-product-draft-it-for-you", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/proposal#let-the-product-draft-it-for-you", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Describe the job in a sentence or two and the product proposes the contract sections, the costing\nline items and the milestones. Everything suggested is added straight to the proposal for you to\nedit or delete — nothing waits behind an accept-or-reject step.\n\nSuggestions come from two places and each is labeled so you know which you are reading:\n\n- **From your template library** — a match against a cost template you already wrote. These are\n preferred, because they are your real numbers.\n- **AI Generated** — work your templates did not cover.\n\n**Regenerate** replaces what the product suggested and leaves anything you edited or added yourself\nalone.\n\nDrafting needs **Professional**, because it spends against your monthly AI allowance. On Starter the\nwizard works identically with everything entered by hand, and the manual path is not a lesser\nversion of the flow — it is the same flow." }, { "feature": "proposal", "featureTitle": "Proposals - Documentation", "page": "Proposals", "group": "Quoting and winning work", "section": "Send it and see when it is opened", "anchor": "send-it-and-see-when-it-is-opened", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/proposal#send-it-and-see-when-it-is-opened", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Sending checks that the proposal is actually sendable first: it needs contract wording, at least one\nmilestone, a total above zero and a valid-until date. The email goes out with your business's\nbranding and a link unique to that client.\n\nYour client opens the link with no account and no password. They see your branding, the scope, the\nmilestones and the total, and they can download it as a PDF.\n\n**The first time they open it, you get an email.** After that, every view is counted, and the\nproposal's page shows how many times it has been opened and when it was last looked at — which is\nusually the most useful thing you can know before picking up the phone." }, { "feature": "proposal", "featureTitle": "Proposals - Documentation", "page": "Proposals", "group": "Quoting and winning work", "section": "Chase a proposal that has gone quiet", "anchor": "chase-a-proposal-that-has-gone-quiet", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/proposal#chase-a-proposal-that-has-gone-quiet", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "A proposal that has been sent but not answered gets **one follow-up email** automatically, a few days\nlater. Not a drip sequence — a single \"just checking in\" with the key details and a link back.\n\nYou choose the gap under **Settings → Organization** (three days by default, anywhere from one to\nthirty), and you can turn the follow-up off for an individual proposal from its page. A proposal that\nhas been accepted, declined or expired is never followed up. One that has merely been *viewed* still\nis, because opening something is not answering it.\n\nFollow-ups are on every plan. An email costs nothing worth charging for." }, { "feature": "proposal", "featureTitle": "Proposals - Documentation", "page": "Proposals", "group": "Quoting and winning work", "section": "Get it signed", "anchor": "get-it-signed", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/proposal#get-it-signed", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Your client accepts by typing their name as a signature, entering their name and email, and ticking\nthe agreement box. The acceptance is recorded with the time, their IP address and their browser, so\nthere is a real audit trail behind the signature.\n\n**The moment they accept, the job is created for you** — Approved, with the title, the description,\nthe kind of work, the line items and the milestones carried across. You do not re-key anything.\n\nThey can also decline, with optional feedback, which is worth more than silence." }, { "feature": "proposal", "featureTitle": "Proposals - Documentation", "page": "Proposals", "group": "Quoting and winning work", "section": "Revise a proposal you have already sent", "anchor": "revise-a-proposal-you-have-already-sent", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/proposal#revise-a-proposal-you-have-already-sent", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "**Create a revision** from any proposal. The new version gets its own link, and the old one is marked\nsuperseded — a client who goes back to the original link is told there is a newer version rather than\nreading a stale price. The proposal's page keeps the whole version history; the Proposals list shows\none row per proposal with a count of its versions.\n\nAfter a proposal has been accepted, changes are **change orders** on the job instead: additions and\ncredits you send for your client to acknowledge, with the same audit trail." }, { "feature": "proposal", "featureTitle": "Proposals - Documentation", "page": "Proposals", "group": "Quoting and winning work", "section": "Void, delete and expire", "anchor": "void-delete-and-expire", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/proposal#void-delete-and-expire", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "- **Void** works at any stage and is a soft delete — the record stays.\n- **Delete** only works on a draft. Once a proposal has been sent to somebody it can be voided but\n not erased.\n- **Expire** happens on its own when the valid-until date passes. An expired proposal cannot be\n accepted; if the client comes back late, create a revision." }, { "feature": "service-agreements", "featureTitle": "Service Agreements & Recurring Revenue", "page": "Service agreements", "group": "Quoting and winning work", "section": "Set up an agreement", "anchor": "set-up-an-agreement", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/service-agreements#set-up-an-agreement", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [ "service-agreements", "jobs", "appointments", "invoices", "clients", "compliance", "reports" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "An agreement records **who the client is, what is being done, how often, how much, and for how\nlong**. From that, everything else follows.\n\nYou create one from the client, so it lands against the right record from the start." }, { "feature": "service-agreements", "featureTitle": "Service Agreements & Recurring Revenue", "page": "Service agreements", "group": "Quoting and winning work", "section": "Let it produce the visits", "anchor": "let-it-produce-the-visits", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/service-agreements#let-it-produce-the-visits", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [ "service-agreements", "jobs", "appointments", "invoices", "clients", "compliance", "reports" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "From the schedule, the agreement produces **visits** — the times work is due. When it is time to do\nthe work, a visit becomes a **job**.\n\n**That job is an ordinary job in every respect.** Time, expenses, compliance records, photos, margin,\ninvoicing — all of it behaves exactly as it does on work you booked by hand. Nothing about a\nrecurring visit is a second-class record, which is what makes your reporting mean the same thing\nacross your whole book." }, { "feature": "service-agreements", "featureTitle": "Service Agreements & Recurring Revenue", "page": "Service agreements", "group": "Quoting and winning work", "section": "See it from the client’s page", "anchor": "see-it-from-the-clients-page", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/service-agreements#see-it-from-the-clients-page", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [ "service-agreements", "jobs", "appointments", "invoices", "clients", "compliance", "reports" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "A client on an agreement shows it on their page, along with what it entitles them to and what they\nhave been worth to you over time. So the question \"are they on a plan, and what does it cover\"\nis answered where you are already standing when somebody rings." }, { "feature": "service-agreements", "featureTitle": "Service Agreements & Recurring Revenue", "page": "Service agreements", "group": "Quoting and winning work", "section": "Why it is worth doing", "anchor": "why-it-is-worth-doing", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/service-agreements#why-it-is-worth-doing", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [ "service-agreements", "jobs", "appointments", "invoices", "clients", "compliance", "reports" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "The recurring book is what makes a service business worth something. It is predictable, it is what a\nbuyer pays a multiple for, and it is visible here as a number rather than a feeling — which is the\nfirst step to growing it deliberately." }, { "feature": "proposal-forecast", "featureTitle": "Proposal Forecast", "page": "What your open quotes are worth", "group": "Quoting and winning work", "section": "Read the three figures", "anchor": "read-the-three-figures", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/proposal-forecast#read-the-three-figures", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "proposals", "pipeline", "reports" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Above the columns on [the pipeline board](/help/pipeline-board):\n\n- **Open quotes** — the Quoted column's total and how many.\n- **Win rate** — of the quotes **decided in the last twelve months**, the share accepted, with the\n count that produced it: *11 of 29*.\n- **Expected** — the open total at that rate." }, { "feature": "proposal-forecast", "featureTitle": "Proposal Forecast", "page": "What your open quotes are worth", "group": "Quoting and winning work", "section": "Look at the count, not just the rate", "anchor": "look-at-the-count-not-just-the-rate", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/proposal-forecast#look-at-the-count-not-just-the-rate", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "proposals", "pipeline", "reports" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "The win rate always shows the count behind it, and that is deliberate.\n\nA 67% win rate from *2 of 3* and a 67% win rate from *40 of 60* are the same percentage and\ncompletely different facts. Showing the rate alone would invite you to plan a quarter around three\nquotes." }, { "feature": "proposal-forecast", "featureTitle": "Proposal Forecast", "page": "What your open quotes are worth", "group": "Quoting and winning work", "section": "Understand what it does and does not measure", "anchor": "understand-what-it-does-and-does-not-measure", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/proposal-forecast#understand-what-it-does-and-does-not-measure", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "proposals", "pipeline", "reports" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "- **Decided quotes only.** A quote still out has not told you anything yet, so it is not in the rate\n — it is in the thing the rate is being applied to.\n- **Expired counts as not won.** A quote nobody answered is a quote you did not win, however it feels.\n- **Twelve months.** Long enough to be stable, recent enough to reflect what you charge now." }, { "feature": "proposal-forecast", "featureTitle": "Proposal Forecast", "page": "What your open quotes are worth", "group": "Quoting and winning work", "section": "Treat Expected as a planning figure", "anchor": "treat-expected-as-a-planning-figure", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/proposal-forecast#treat-expected-as-a-planning-figure", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "proposals", "pipeline", "reports" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Expected is the open total at your historical rate. It is useful for deciding whether the pipe is\nfull enough, and it is not a forecast of any individual quote.\n\nA single large quote can be most of the total, and it will either land or not — no rate makes half of\nit arrive." }, { "feature": "pipeline-board", "featureTitle": "Sales Pipeline Board", "page": "Your pipeline on one board", "group": "Quoting and winning work", "section": "Read the board", "anchor": "read-the-board", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/pipeline-board#read-the-board", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "leads", "captured-requests", "proposals", "jobs" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Columns are the stages. Cards are the opportunities, and there are two kinds:\n\n- **A request card** — a lead or a captured call that has not been quoted yet.\n- **A quote card** — a proposal that is out for a decision.\n\nThey look different because they need different things from you. A request needs quoting; a quote\nneeds chasing." }, { "feature": "pipeline-board", "featureTitle": "Sales Pipeline Board", "page": "Your pipeline on one board", "group": "Quoting and winning work", "section": "Move work along", "anchor": "move-work-along", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/pipeline-board#move-work-along", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "leads", "captured-requests", "proposals", "jobs" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Drag a card to move it. The board is a **view over the records you already have**, not a fourth list\nto keep up to date — moving a card changes the underlying lead or proposal, and changing one of those\nelsewhere moves its card.\n\nThat is why nothing here can drift out of sync with the Leads or Proposals pages." }, { "feature": "pipeline-board", "featureTitle": "Sales Pipeline Board", "page": "Your pipeline on one board", "group": "Quoting and winning work", "section": "See what the board is worth", "anchor": "see-what-the-board-is-worth", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/pipeline-board#see-what-the-board-is-worth", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "leads", "captured-requests", "proposals", "jobs" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Three figures sit above the columns, where the quotes they describe are:\n\n- **Open quotes** — the total and count of what is out for a decision.\n- **Win rate** — of the quotes decided in the last twelve months, the share accepted, with the count\n behind it (*11 of 29*).\n- **Expected** — the open total at that rate.\n\nSee [What your open quotes are worth](/help/proposal-forecast) for what those numbers mean and what\nthey deliberately do not." }, { "feature": "pipeline-board", "featureTitle": "Sales Pipeline Board", "page": "Your pipeline on one board", "group": "Quoting and winning work", "section": "Find what is stuck", "anchor": "find-what-is-stuck", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/pipeline-board#find-what-is-stuck", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "leads", "captured-requests", "proposals", "jobs" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "A card that has not moved is the thing the board is for. A quote sitting in the same column for three\nweeks is either dead or one phone call from closing, and both are worth knowing.\n\nAutomatic follow-ups handle some of that on their own — see [Proposals](/help/proposal) and\n[Automations](/help/automations)." }, { "feature": "appointment", "featureTitle": "Appointment Scheduling", "page": "Appointments", "group": "Scheduling and the field", "section": "Book an appointment", "anchor": "book-an-appointment", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/appointment#book-an-appointment", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Three ways to start one, and the last two save you typing:\n\n- **New Appointment** on the calendar.\n- **Click an empty date** in month view, which fills the date in.\n- **Click an empty slot** in week view, which fills in the date and the time.\n\nYou need a title, a date and a start time. If there is no end time, it assumes an hour. The **All\nday** toggle drops the times entirely, which is what you want for a delivery window or a day on a\nsite.\n\nOptionally add a location, notes, the job it is for and the client." }, { "feature": "appointment", "featureTitle": "Appointment Scheduling", "page": "Appointments", "group": "Scheduling and the field", "section": "Link it to a job and a client", "anchor": "link-it-to-a-job-and-a-client", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/appointment#link-it-to-a-job-and-a-client", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Pick the job and the client is filled in from it — you can override that if the meeting is genuinely\nwith somebody else.\n\nThe client picker searches by name, business, email or phone, and has **+ Add new client** in the\nlist, so a call that turns into a site visit does not make you stop and go set up a client first.\n\nAn appointment does not have to have either. Something that is just your own time is a valid\nappointment." }, { "feature": "appointment", "featureTitle": "Appointment Scheduling", "page": "Appointments", "group": "Scheduling and the field", "section": "Avoid double-booking yourself", "anchor": "avoid-double-booking-yourself", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/appointment#avoid-double-booking-yourself", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "When you save, the product checks whether the appointment overlaps one you already have, and tells\nyou if it does. An all-day appointment counts as overlapping anything else that day.\n\n**The warning is advice, not a refusal.** You can save over it — two things genuinely do sometimes\noverlap, and a scheduler that refuses to believe you is a scheduler people work around.\n\nIt checks your own appointments only, not milestones or invoice due dates, because an invoice falling\ndue is not a demand on your time." }, { "feature": "appointment", "featureTitle": "Appointment Scheduling", "page": "Appointments", "group": "Scheduling and the field", "section": "Remind your client the day before", "anchor": "remind-your-client-the-day-before", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/appointment#remind-your-client-the-day-before", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "An automatic reminder email goes to the client before the appointment. You choose how far ahead —\nanywhere from one to thirty days, one day by default — under **Settings → Client Reminders**.\n\nOne reminder per appointment, never a repeat. It is skipped for a canceled appointment, one with no\nclient on it, and any individual appointment where you have turned the reminder off.\n\nReminders by email are on every plan. Sending them by **text** is part of\n[SMS notifications](/help/sms-notifications) and needs Professional, because a text costs per\nmessage." }, { "feature": "appointment", "featureTitle": "Appointment Scheduling", "page": "Appointments", "group": "Scheduling and the field", "section": "Cancel one", "anchor": "cancel-one", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/appointment#cancel-one", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Canceling hides an appointment rather than deleting it. Canceled appointments are out of the way by\ndefault, and **Show canceled** in list view brings them back, grayed out. You can restore one at any\ntime.\n\nNothing here is ever hard-deleted, so \"what happened to that Tuesday visit\" always has an answer." }, { "feature": "work-assignment", "featureTitle": "Work Assignment & The Day Board", "page": "Assigning work and the day board", "group": "Scheduling and the field", "section": "Put somebody on a job", "anchor": "put-somebody-on-a-job", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/work-assignment#put-somebody-on-a-job", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "jobs", "appointments", "milestones", "calendar", "workers", "service-agreements" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "A job carries a set of people. Assign one or several from the job itself.\n\n**You assign to a worker, not to a login.** A worker is your record of somebody you pay — employee\nor subcontractor — and that matters for two reasons:\n\n- **A subcontractor who will never sign in can still be dispatched.** Your crew is not limited to\n people who hold accounts.\n- **The assignment and the hours land on the same person**, with no translating between two records.\n Time entries, subcontractor payments and service agreement visits already key on the worker." }, { "feature": "work-assignment", "featureTitle": "Work Assignment & The Day Board", "page": "Assigning work and the day board", "group": "Scheduling and the field", "section": "See the day on one board", "anchor": "see-the-day-on-one-board", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/work-assignment#see-the-day-on-one-board", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "jobs", "appointments", "milestones", "calendar", "workers", "service-agreements" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "The **Day Board** lays out a day with a lane per person and their jobs across it. It is the answer to\n\"who is where today\", and it is the screen to open when somebody calls in sick.\n\nMove a job from one lane to another to reassign it. Nobody has to be told twice, and nothing depends\non a text message being read." }, { "feature": "work-assignment", "featureTitle": "Work Assignment & The Day Board", "page": "Assigning work and the day board", "group": "Scheduling and the field", "section": "Spot a day going wrong", "anchor": "spot-a-day-going-wrong", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/work-assignment#spot-a-day-going-wrong", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "jobs", "appointments", "milestones", "calendar", "workers", "service-agreements" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "The board shows when somebody is running behind, so you find out from the screen rather than from the\ncustomer who has been waiting since two.\n\nThat is the difference between dispatching and just recording: you can move the last job of a\nfalling-behind day to somebody who is clear, before the phone rings." }, { "feature": "work-assignment", "featureTitle": "Work Assignment & The Day Board", "page": "Assigning work and the day board", "group": "Scheduling and the field", "section": "Plan the driving", "anchor": "plan-the-driving", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/work-assignment#plan-the-driving", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "jobs", "appointments", "milestones", "calendar", "workers", "service-agreements" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Where a day has several stops, the route planner puts them in a sensible order rather than the order\nthey were booked — see [Route planning](/help/route-planning)." }, { "feature": "work-assignment", "featureTitle": "Work Assignment & The Day Board", "page": "Assigning work and the day board", "group": "Scheduling and the field", "section": "What the crew sees", "anchor": "what-the-crew-sees", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/work-assignment#what-the-crew-sees", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "jobs", "appointments", "milestones", "calendar", "workers", "service-agreements" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "An assigned person sees that job on their own day, on their phone — see\n[The crew's phone](/help/field-experience). They do not see the board, the other lanes or anybody\nelse's day." }, { "feature": "availability", "featureTitle": "Availability & Online Booking", "page": "Online booking and availability", "group": "Scheduling and the field", "section": "Say what you can be booked for", "anchor": "say-what-you-can-be-booked-for", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/availability#say-what-you-can-be-booked-for", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [ "availability", "bookable-services", "appointments", "calendar", "jobs", "leads", "captured-requests", "client-hub", "customer-tracking", "contractor-directory", "invoicing", "for-you" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Under **Settings → Bookable Services**, list the things a customer may book. Each one carries:\n\n- **How long it takes** — the duration, which is what makes a real slot possible at all.\n- **A published price**, in your own words, if you want one shown.\n- **The kind of work** it should be filed under, so the job lands in the right place.\n- **Whether the diagnostic fee applies.**\n- **Who performs it** — which of your people can do this work.\n\nYou can archive a service, restore it, and drag them into the order a customer sees. Archiving a\nworker takes them off every service that named them, so you cannot end up offering a slot nobody can\nattend." }, { "feature": "availability", "featureTitle": "Availability & Online Booking", "page": "Online booking and availability", "group": "Scheduling and the field", "section": "Say when you can be booked", "anchor": "say-when-you-can-be-booked", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/availability#say-when-you-can-be-booked", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [ "availability", "bookable-services", "appointments", "calendar", "jobs", "leads", "captured-requests", "client-hub", "customer-tracking", "contractor-directory", "invoicing", "for-you" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "**Settings → Online Booking** holds the rest of the answer:\n\n- **Customers can book a visit online** — the master switch.\n- **How you promise a time** — **arrival windows** (*Morning*) or **exact times**. Pick the one you\n can actually keep.\n- **Booking hours**, per day, started off from your Hours of Operation.\n- **Minimum notice (hours)** — how much warning you need.\n- **Booking horizon (days)** — how far ahead you will commit.\n- **Capacity** — a number of visits per window, or one per bookable person.\n- **Travel buffer (minutes)** — the gap between jobs so the slot is honest.\n- **Slot interval** — how finely the day is cut.\n- **Blackout dates**, each with a private reason so you remember why.\n- **Confirmation** — **Instant**, or **Hold for my confirmation** if you would rather approve first.\n\nA **seven-day preview** on that page shows exactly what a customer would be offered, so you can see\nthe effect of a change before a stranger does." }, { "feature": "availability", "featureTitle": "Availability & Online Booking", "page": "Online booking and availability", "group": "Scheduling and the field", "section": "How a free slot is worked out", "anchor": "how-a-free-slot-is-worked-out", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/availability#how-a-free-slot-is-worked-out", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [ "availability", "bookable-services", "appointments", "calendar", "jobs", "leads", "captured-requests", "client-hub", "customer-tracking", "contractor-directory", "invoicing", "for-you" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Availability is arithmetic over things you already keep: your booking hours, your blackout dates,\nyour capacity, your travel buffer, the service's duration, and the appointments already on the\ncalendar.\n\n**There is one computation and every door reads it.** The office's **Find a time** in the appointment\nform, the intake screen, your public page and the phone all reach the same answer — so you never give\na customer one answer and your own screen another.\n\nTwo things make a booking here worth more than a booking on a generic scheduler:\n\n- **It knows your territory.** The service zones you drew decide whether a stranger can book at all.\n Somebody outside your area is captured as a request instead, because a booking you would not\n actually drive to is worse than no booking.\n- **It knows your crew.** Capacity comes from the roster you already keep rather than a number you\n typed once and forgot." }, { "feature": "availability", "featureTitle": "Availability & Online Booking", "page": "Online booking and availability", "group": "Scheduling and the field", "section": "Take bookings from your public page", "anchor": "take-bookings-from-your-public-page", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/availability#take-bookings-from-your-public-page", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [ "availability", "bookable-services", "appointments", "calendar", "jobs", "leads", "captured-requests", "client-hub", "customer-tracking", "contractor-directory", "invoicing", "for-you" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "With booking on, your public page offers real times. A customer picks one, and depending on your\nsetting it is either confirmed instantly or held for you to approve.\n\nIf they are outside your service area, they can still describe the work and it reaches you as a\nrequest — see [Requests and booking](/help/service-request-intake)." }, { "feature": "availability", "featureTitle": "Availability & Online Booking", "page": "Online booking and availability", "group": "Scheduling and the field", "section": "Let an existing client book, move or cancel", "anchor": "let-an-existing-client-book-move-or-cancel", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/availability#let-an-existing-client-book-move-or-cancel", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [ "availability", "bookable-services", "appointments", "calendar", "jobs", "leads", "captured-requests", "client-hub", "customer-tracking", "contractor-directory", "invoicing", "for-you" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "A client you already have gets their own link to the same booking. A request through it arrives\n**filed against their record** rather than creating a second copy of somebody you already know.\n\nThey can also **call off a visit** from the page that tracks it. That is the call that otherwise\nnever gets made — and the van goes anyway." }, { "feature": "availability", "featureTitle": "Availability & Online Booking", "page": "Online booking and availability", "group": "Scheduling and the field", "section": "Recognize a returning caller", "anchor": "recognize-a-returning-caller", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/availability#recognize-a-returning-caller", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [ "availability", "bookable-services", "appointments", "calendar", "jobs", "leads", "captured-requests", "client-hub", "customer-tracking", "contractor-directory", "invoicing", "for-you" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Where the phone add-on is active, **Recognize returning customers on the phone** lets a caller you\nalready know be identified from their number, so they are not asked for details you already hold." }, { "feature": "owner-on-the-roster", "featureTitle": "Owner on the Roster", "page": "Putting yourself on the roster", "group": "Scheduling and the field", "section": "Why a worker record is needed", "anchor": "why-a-worker-record-is-needed", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/owner-on-the-roster#why-a-worker-record-is-needed", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "workers", "teams", "onboarding" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Work is assigned to **workers** — the product's record of somebody the business pays. Your owner\naccount is how you sign in; it is not automatically somebody who does jobs.\n\nWithout a worker record linked to your account:\n\n- **My Day has nothing to show you**, because no work is assigned to anybody it knows as you.\n- Your own hours have nobody to belong to.\n- You do not appear on the day board." }, { "feature": "owner-on-the-roster", "featureTitle": "Owner on the Roster", "page": "Putting yourself on the roster", "group": "Scheduling and the field", "section": "Put yourself on it", "anchor": "put-yourself-on-it", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/owner-on-the-roster#put-yourself-on-it", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "workers", "teams", "onboarding" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Two places, and either takes a moment:\n\n- **Open My Day.** If you are not on the roster, the screen says so plainly and offers to put you on\n it. That is the wall turned into a door — it is the exact moment you have noticed the problem.\n- **From the Team page**, link any member to a worker record, and create the record from their\n account in one step.\n\nThe dashboard's setup checklist asks the question too, so a new business is prompted rather than\nfinding out the first time it opens My Day." }, { "feature": "owner-on-the-roster", "featureTitle": "Owner on the Roster", "page": "Putting yourself on the roster", "group": "Scheduling and the field", "section": "After you are on it", "anchor": "after-you-are-on-it", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/owner-on-the-roster#after-you-are-on-it", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "workers", "teams", "onboarding" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Nothing else changes about how you use the product. You are now a worker who can be assigned jobs,\nwhose hours cost money against a job, and who appears in a lane on the day board — which is exactly\nwhat an owner-operator is.\n\nSee [Assigning work and the day board](/help/work-assignment) and\n[The crew's phone](/help/field-experience)." }, { "feature": "route-planning", "featureTitle": "Route Planning & Optimization", "page": "Route planning", "group": "Scheduling and the field", "section": "Build the day’s route", "anchor": "build-the-days-route", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/route-planning#build-the-days-route", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [ "day-board", "my-day", "appointments", "jobs", "workers", "maps", "sms", "availability", "automations", "customer-tracking" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "A route is one person, one day, built from the stops already in their lane — the visits and the jobs\nthat carry an address.\n\nOpen the plan for that person and date and the stops are put in a sensible driving order, with a\nplanned arrival at each." }, { "feature": "route-planning", "featureTitle": "Route Planning & Optimization", "page": "Route planning", "group": "Scheduling and the field", "section": "Pin what cannot move", "anchor": "pin-what-cannot-move", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/route-planning#pin-what-cannot-move", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [ "day-board", "my-day", "appointments", "jobs", "workers", "maps", "sms", "availability", "automations", "customer-tracking" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Some stops are fixed: a window you promised, a customer who is only in at eight. **Pin** those and\nthey stay where they are while everything else is arranged around them.\n\nThat is what makes the plan usable rather than theoretical. A route optimizer that reorders the one\nappointment you committed to is worse than no optimizer." }, { "feature": "route-planning", "featureTitle": "Route Planning & Optimization", "page": "Route planning", "group": "Scheduling and the field", "section": "Read the arrival times", "anchor": "read-the-arrival-times", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/route-planning#read-the-arrival-times", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [ "day-board", "my-day", "appointments", "jobs", "workers", "maps", "sms", "availability", "automations", "customer-tracking" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Each stop shows when the crew should reach it, and the last one shows when the day ends.\n\nThat figure is what lets you answer a customer honestly on the phone — and what tells you a day has\none job too many in it before anybody sets off." }, { "feature": "route-planning", "featureTitle": "Route Planning & Optimization", "page": "Route planning", "group": "Scheduling and the field", "section": "Watch it against the real day", "anchor": "watch-it-against-the-real-day", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/route-planning#watch-it-against-the-real-day", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [ "day-board", "my-day", "appointments", "jobs", "workers", "maps", "sms", "availability", "automations", "customer-tracking" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "As the crew moves through the day — on their way, arrived, working, finished — the plan is measured\nagainst what is actually happening, so **running behind shows up on the board** rather than arriving\nas a phone call.\n\nSee [Assigning work and the day board](/help/work-assignment)." }, { "feature": "route-planning", "featureTitle": "Route Planning & Optimization", "page": "Route planning", "group": "Scheduling and the field", "section": "What the crew gets", "anchor": "what-the-crew-gets", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/route-planning#what-the-crew-gets", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [ "day-board", "my-day", "appointments", "jobs", "workers", "maps", "sms", "availability", "automations", "customer-tracking" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "The crew sees their stops in route order on their phone, with a map link for each. They do not plan\nthe route; they drive it. See [The crew's phone](/help/field-experience)." }, { "feature": "route-planning", "featureTitle": "Route Planning & Optimization", "page": "Route planning", "group": "Scheduling and the field", "section": "What it costs", "anchor": "what-it-costs", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/route-planning#what-it-costs", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [ "day-board", "my-day", "appointments", "jobs", "workers", "maps", "sms", "availability", "automations", "customer-tracking" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Route planning needs **Professional** with maps enabled, because working out the driving between\naddresses is a call to a mapping provider that costs per request.\n\nWithout it, the day board still shows who is going where — what you do not get is the order, the leg\ntimes and the arrival estimates." }, { "feature": "service-request-intake", "featureTitle": "Service Request Intake & Booking Foundation", "page": "Taking a request and booking the visit", "group": "Scheduling and the field", "section": "Take the request", "anchor": "take-the-request", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/service-request-intake#take-the-request", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "**Add Job** on the Jobs page is the one entry point, and it carries the intake fields:\n\n- **How they got in touch** — Phone, Text, Email, Walk-In, Public Page Lead, Referral, Existing\n Client or Other.\n- **The problem**, in a sentence.\n- **The service address.**\n- **When they want it**, how urgent it is, and any internal notes.\n- **Whether you are booking the visit now.**\n\nThe client is chosen through the same picker used everywhere else, searching by name, business,\nemail or phone — and a phone search matches the digits however the number was typed in, so a client\nsaved as `(555) 123-4567` is found by typing `5551234567`.\n\nA request that came from your public page keeps its link back to that lead, so the attribution is not\nlost the moment somebody converts it.\n\nSave and you land on the job's overview, with the intake summary and the schedule history beside the\nusual tabs. The Jobs list can tell a service-request job from an ordinary one." }, { "feature": "service-request-intake", "featureTitle": "Service Request Intake & Booking Foundation", "page": "Taking a request and booking the visit", "group": "Scheduling and the field", "section": "Check the address is somewhere you go", "anchor": "check-the-address-is-somewhere-you-go", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/service-request-intake#check-the-address-is-somewhere-you-go", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "The address field suggests real addresses as you type, and the chosen one is checked against the\n**service zones** you have drawn. The answer shows inline as you type it:\n\n- **In Area**\n- **Near Boundary**\n- **Out of Area**\n- **Unknown** — no zones drawn yet, in which case booking is unaffected\n\nAn out-of-area request cannot just be booked. You have to choose what to do with it: mark it **Out\nof Area**, record it as a **Referral** with notes, or **Manual Override** with a reason, which is\nrecorded so the decision is traceable later.\n\nAddress autocomplete and the coverage check need **Professional** with maps enabled. On Starter you\ntype the address yourself and see guidance rather than a broken control.\n\n### How far away is it\n\nWhere you have set a primary service area, suggestions show roughly how far the address is from your\nshop — *~14.2 mi from your shop*.\n\nThe tilde matters. It is a **straight-line distance**, not a drive: a river, a lake or a highway with\nno exit can make fourteen miles into forty. It is there to sort obvious yes from obvious no, not to\nplan a route. An address with no coordinates shows no distance rather than pretending it is zero\nmiles away." }, { "feature": "service-request-intake", "featureTitle": "Service Request Intake & Booking Foundation", "page": "Taking a request and booking the visit", "group": "Scheduling and the field", "section": "Draw your service zones", "anchor": "draw-your-service-zones", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/service-request-intake#draw-your-service-zones", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Under **Settings → Service Zones**, describe where you work in whichever way matches how you think\nabout it:\n\n- **ZIP codes**, one per line.\n- **Cities and states**, using the same lookup your public service areas use.\n- **Radius zones** anchored to a point." }, { "feature": "service-request-intake", "featureTitle": "Service Request Intake & Booking Foundation", "page": "Taking a request and booking the visit", "group": "Scheduling and the field", "section": "Quote it later if you need to", "anchor": "quote-it-later-if-you-need-to", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/service-request-intake#quote-it-later-if-you-need-to", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Proposal-first is still the better route for bid work. An intake job can **back-fill a draft\nproposal** when you decide a client-facing quote is wanted after all — and accepting that proposal\nlinks back to the job you already have rather than creating a second one." }, { "feature": "calendar", "featureTitle": "Calendar Integration", "page": "The calendar", "group": "Scheduling and the field", "section": "See everything with a date on it", "anchor": "see-everything-with-a-date-on-it", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/calendar#see-everything-with-a-date-on-it", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Seven kinds of thing appear on the calendar, and only the first is something you put there yourself:\n\n| What | When it appears |\n|---|---|\n| **Appointments** | Whenever you create one — see [Appointments](/help/appointment). |\n| **Milestones** | When a milestone has a due date. |\n| **Invoice due dates** | *Invoice Due — {client}*, when an invoice has a due date. |\n| **Proposal expiries** | *Proposal Expires — {client}*, for a sent proposal with a valid-until date. |\n| **Warranty follow-ups** | From the reminder date, or the earliest expiry. |\n| **Change orders** | When one is sent. |\n| **Quarterly tax payments** | On the IRS deadline. |" }, { "feature": "calendar", "featureTitle": "Calendar Integration", "page": "The calendar", "group": "Scheduling and the field", "section": "Understand why you cannot edit most of it", "anchor": "understand-why-you-cannot-edit-most-of-it", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/calendar#understand-why-you-cannot-edit-most-of-it", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "**The jobs, invoices and proposals are the record; the calendar is a reflection of them.** Change a\nmilestone's due date and the calendar follows. Void an invoice and its due date disappears. You never\nhave to remember to update two places, because there is only one place.\n\nThat is also why a system-generated entry offers **Edit at source** rather than an edit form: the date\nbelongs to the milestone or the invoice, and that is where it should be changed.\n\nOnly appointments are yours to edit directly, because only appointments are yours to begin with." }, { "feature": "calendar", "featureTitle": "Calendar Integration", "page": "The calendar", "group": "Scheduling and the field", "section": "Find what you are looking for", "anchor": "find-what-you-are-looking-for", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/calendar#find-what-you-are-looking-for", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Filter by the kind of entry, or by job, to cut the view down to what you actually want. Something\nwhose source was voided or canceled is hidden by default — it is not deleted, so the history is\nstill there if you go looking, but a canceled thing should not be competing for your attention on a\nTuesday morning." }, { "feature": "calendar", "featureTitle": "Calendar Integration", "page": "The calendar", "group": "Scheduling and the field", "section": "Get the day emailed to you", "anchor": "get-the-day-emailed-to-you", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/calendar#get-the-day-emailed-to-you", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "**My Day** and **My Week** are email digests of what is coming. They are on every plan.\n\nThey used to need Professional and no longer do: a digest is an email running on our own systems, and\nthe rule is that Starter gets everything that does." }, { "feature": "field-experience", "featureTitle": "Field Experience — The Crew's Phone", "page": "The crew's phone", "group": "Scheduling and the field", "section": "Open My Day", "anchor": "open-my-day", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/field-experience#open-my-day", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "jobs", "appointments", "time-tracking", "work-notes", "job-media", "workers", "teams" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "**My Day** is the whole thing: today's jobs, in order, one at a time. Tap one and you get what you\nneed for that job — the address, the client, what the work is, and the controls to say what\nhappened.\n\nTargets are sized for a thumb. Recording a fact takes three or four taps." }, { "feature": "field-experience", "featureTitle": "Field Experience — The Crew's Phone", "page": "The crew's phone", "group": "Scheduling and the field", "section": "Say where the work is", "anchor": "say-where-the-work-is", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/field-experience#say-where-the-work-is", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "jobs", "appointments", "time-tracking", "work-notes", "job-media", "workers", "teams" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Move the job along as you go — on your way, arrived, working, finished. The office sees it on the\nday board immediately, so nobody has to ring to ask.\n\nIf the job carries a checklist with required steps outstanding, **Completed is not offered**, and the\nreason is shown. A button that appears is a button that will work. See\n[Job checklists](/help/job-checklists)." }, { "feature": "field-experience", "featureTitle": "Field Experience — The Crew's Phone", "page": "The crew's phone", "group": "Scheduling and the field", "section": "Record what happened", "anchor": "record-what-happened", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/field-experience#record-what-happened", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "jobs", "appointments", "time-tracking", "work-notes", "job-media", "workers", "teams" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "From the job you can:\n\n- **Work the checklist** — tick, type, choose, judge, photograph, sign.\n- **Take a reading** on a unit or a piece of equipment — see [Measurements](/help/measurements).\n- **Log your hours.**\n- **Add a note**, including one that goes to the client.\n- **Take photos.**" }, { "feature": "field-experience", "featureTitle": "Field Experience — The Crew's Phone", "page": "The crew's phone", "group": "Scheduling and the field", "section": "See what is at the property", "anchor": "see-what-is-at-the-property", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/field-experience#see-what-is-at-the-property", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "jobs", "appointments", "time-tracking", "work-notes", "job-media", "workers", "teams" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "The job lists the **units** at that property with their model, serial, age and the last few things\ndone to them — so you know what is in the attic before you climb into it. See\n[Units at a client's property](/help/client-equipment)." }, { "feature": "field-experience", "featureTitle": "Field Experience — The Crew's Phone", "page": "The crew's phone", "group": "Scheduling and the field", "section": "What a field member cannot reach", "anchor": "what-a-field-member-cannot-reach", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/field-experience#what-a-field-member-cannot-reach", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "jobs", "appointments", "time-tracking", "work-notes", "job-media", "workers", "teams" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "A Field member is blocked from the console entirely, apart from their own profile. That is\ndeliberate rather than a limitation: the console answers questions about many jobs, and this answers\none.\n\nNothing about help is restricted, though. A field member reaches these pages exactly as the office\ndoes." }, { "feature": "field-experience", "featureTitle": "Field Experience — The Crew's Phone", "page": "The crew's phone", "group": "Scheduling and the field", "section": "If you are the owner and do the work", "anchor": "if-you-are-the-owner-and-do-the-work", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/field-experience#if-you-are-the-owner-and-do-the-work", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "jobs", "appointments", "time-tracking", "work-notes", "job-media", "workers", "teams" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "You need a worker record before My Day has anything to show you — see\n[Putting yourself on the roster](/help/owner-on-the-roster)." }, { "feature": "equipment-assignment", "featureTitle": "Equipment Assignment — Which Van, and What It Is Hauling", "page": "Who has which van today", "group": "Scheduling and the field", "section": "Catalog the gear worth tracking", "anchor": "catalog-the-gear-worth-tracking", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/equipment-assignment#catalog-the-gear-worth-tracking", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "equipment", "workers", "day-board", "jobs", "mileage" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Under **Equipment**, list the things whose location is worth knowing — vans, trucks, trailers, the\nbig machines. Not every hand tool; the test is whether you would ever ring somebody to ask where it\nis." }, { "feature": "equipment-assignment", "featureTitle": "Equipment Assignment — Which Van, and What It Is Hauling", "page": "Who has which van today", "group": "Scheduling and the field", "section": "Give it out for the day", "anchor": "give-it-out-for-the-day", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/equipment-assignment#give-it-out-for-the-day", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "equipment", "workers", "day-board", "jobs", "mileage" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Assign a piece of equipment to somebody for a day or part of one. It then shows **on the day board\nlane beside their work**, so who has what and who is where are one screen rather than two." }, { "feature": "equipment-assignment", "featureTitle": "Equipment Assignment — Which Van, and What It Is Hauling", "page": "Who has which van today", "group": "Scheduling and the field", "section": "Let the crew see what they have", "anchor": "let-the-crew-see-what-they-have", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/equipment-assignment#let-the-crew-see-what-they-have", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "equipment", "workers", "day-board", "jobs", "mileage" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "A crew member sees what they were given on their own phone, alongside their jobs. Nobody has to\nremember which van they were told to take at seven in the morning." }, { "feature": "equipment-assignment", "featureTitle": "Equipment Assignment — Which Van, and What It Is Hauling", "page": "Who has which van today", "group": "Scheduling and the field", "section": "Tie a trip to the vehicle that drove it", "anchor": "tie-a-trip-to-the-vehicle-that-drove-it", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/equipment-assignment#tie-a-trip-to-the-vehicle-that-drove-it", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "equipment", "workers", "day-board", "jobs", "mileage" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "A mileage trip can name the vehicle. That turns your mileage log from a list of distances into\nsomething you can read per vehicle — useful at tax time and more useful when you are deciding\nwhether a van is worth keeping. See [Mileage](/help/mileage-tracking)." }, { "feature": "equipment-assignment", "featureTitle": "Equipment Assignment — Which Van, and What It Is Hauling", "page": "Who has which van today", "group": "Scheduling and the field", "section": "What this is not", "anchor": "what-this-is-not", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/equipment-assignment#what-this-is-not", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "equipment", "workers", "day-board", "jobs", "mileage" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "This is your **own** equipment. The furnace at a customer's house is a **unit** and belongs to them —\nsee [Units at a client's property](/help/client-equipment).\n\nFor what a piece of equipment costs you to run, what it is due for, and its readings, see\n[Equipment readings, service and cost](/help/equipment-enhancements)." }, { "feature": "equipment-enhancements", "featureTitle": "Equipment Enhancements — Readings, Service, Cost, Inspections and Tools", "page": "Equipment readings, service and cost", "group": "Doing the work", "section": "Record readings on a machine", "anchor": "record-readings-on-a-machine", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/equipment-enhancements#record-readings-on-a-machine", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "equipment", "mileage", "expenses", "jobs", "costing", "margin-intelligence", "day-board", "my-day", "reports", "dashboard", "proposals" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "A machine carries readings the same way a customer's unit does — hour meters, odometers, pressures,\nanything you track over time.\n\nTake a reading and it is kept against that machine, so *what did this read last time* is a question\nwith an answer. See [Measurements](/help/measurements) for how readings work." }, { "feature": "equipment-enhancements", "featureTitle": "Equipment Enhancements — Readings, Service, Cost, Inspections and Tools", "page": "Equipment readings, service and cost", "group": "Doing the work", "section": "Know what it is due for", "anchor": "know-what-it-is-due-for", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/equipment-enhancements#know-what-it-is-due-for", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "equipment", "mileage", "expenses", "jobs", "costing", "margin-intelligence", "day-board", "my-day", "reports", "dashboard", "proposals" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Set what a piece of equipment needs and when — by date or by usage — and the product tells you what\nis coming up rather than leaving you to notice.\n\nThat is the difference between servicing a machine and repairing one." }, { "feature": "equipment-enhancements", "featureTitle": "Equipment Enhancements — Readings, Service, Cost, Inspections and Tools", "page": "Equipment readings, service and cost", "group": "Doing the work", "section": "Inspect it before it goes out", "anchor": "inspect-it-before-it-goes-out", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/equipment-enhancements#inspect-it-before-it-goes-out", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "equipment", "mileage", "expenses", "jobs", "costing", "margin-intelligence", "day-board", "my-day", "reports", "dashboard", "proposals" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "An inspection is a template of lines, each answered **pass**, **fail** or **not applicable**, and a\nline can be marked critical.\n\nA **critical line that fails takes the machine out of service**, and the failure raises a defect that\ncarries photos. That consequence is the point: an inspection exists to judge whether a machine is fit\nto use, so finding a problem has to stop the machine.\n\nAn inspection also records one meter reading for the machine as a whole." }, { "feature": "equipment-enhancements", "featureTitle": "Equipment Enhancements — Readings, Service, Cost, Inspections and Tools", "page": "Equipment readings, service and cost", "group": "Doing the work", "section": "See what it costs a job", "anchor": "see-what-it-costs-a-job", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/equipment-enhancements#see-what-it-costs-a-job", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "equipment", "mileage", "expenses", "jobs", "costing", "margin-intelligence", "day-board", "my-day", "reports", "dashboard", "proposals" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Record a machine's usage against a job — hours or days — and it becomes a **real cost column** on\nthat job's margin, at the machine's own cost rate.\n\nBefore this, a job that used a machine for six hours showed a margin that quietly pretended the\nmachine was free. Equipment now sits beside labor and materials in the costing — see\n[Job costing and margins](/help/costing) — and appears on a job only when one side or the other\nactually has a figure.\n\nYou can also estimate equipment cost on a proposal line, typed as a figure or worked out from a\nmachine's hours or days at its cost rate." }, { "feature": "equipment-enhancements", "featureTitle": "Equipment Enhancements — Readings, Service, Cost, Inspections and Tools", "page": "Equipment readings, service and cost", "group": "Doing the work", "section": "See what it costs you overall", "anchor": "see-what-it-costs-you-overall", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/equipment-enhancements#see-what-it-costs-you-overall", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "equipment", "mileage", "expenses", "jobs", "costing", "margin-intelligence", "day-board", "my-day", "reports", "dashboard", "proposals" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Reports cover equipment cost and equipment utilization, which together answer whether a machine is\nearning its keep or sitting in a yard depreciating." }, { "feature": "equipment-enhancements", "featureTitle": "Equipment Enhancements — Readings, Service, Cost, Inspections and Tools", "page": "Equipment readings, service and cost", "group": "Doing the work", "section": "Who has it today", "anchor": "who-has-it-today", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/equipment-enhancements#who-has-it-today", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "equipment", "mileage", "expenses", "jobs", "costing", "margin-intelligence", "day-board", "my-day", "reports", "dashboard", "proposals" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Giving equipment out for the day, and seeing it on the day board, is\n[Who has which van today](/help/equipment-assignment)." }, { "feature": "compliance", "featureTitle": "Field Service Compliance", "page": "Field service compliance", "group": "Doing the work", "section": "Turn it on", "anchor": "turn-it-on", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/compliance#turn-it-on", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "An owner enables compliance for the business under the module settings. Once on, the compliance\nscreens appear through the console.\n\nTurning it off again **hides the screens and keeps every record**. Nothing you recorded is deleted by\nswitching a module off — which is the only safe behavior for something you may have to produce years\nlater." }, { "feature": "compliance", "featureTitle": "Field Service Compliance", "page": "Field service compliance", "group": "Doing the work", "section": "Decide what has to be recorded", "anchor": "decide-what-has-to-be-recorded", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/compliance#decide-what-has-to-be-recorded", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "**Compliance profiles** define what a particular kind of regulated work must capture — the fields\nthat are always required, plus the ones specific to that profile.\n\nProfiles are **fixed and versioned**. You do not edit them, and that is the point: a record written\nagainst a profile two years ago still means exactly what it meant then, which is what makes a set of\nrecords comparable at all.\n\nYou attach profiles to **kinds of work**, and from then on a new job of that kind carries them\nautomatically. You can also attach one to an individual job for an edge case, and detach one — unless\nentries have already been made against it, in which case detaching would orphan evidence." }, { "feature": "compliance", "featureTitle": "Field Service Compliance", "page": "Field service compliance", "group": "Doing the work", "section": "Keep a catalog of regulated materials", "anchor": "keep-a-catalog-of-regulated-materials", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/compliance#keep-a-catalog-of-regulated-materials", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "List the regulated materials you use — consumables, chemicals and refrigerants — with their\nregulatory identifiers, ingredient and signal information, default units and dilution defaults. You\ncan archive one you no longer carry and restore it later.\n\n**A compliance entry keeps a copy of the material's details as they were when it was recorded.** If\nyou later correct a product code in the catalog, last year's record still says what was actually true\nat the time. A record that silently updates itself is not evidence.\n\nPhysical equipment is not a material. Where a serial number has to be on the record — a piece of HVAC\nequipment, say — it is a field on the profile rather than a catalog entry." }, { "feature": "compliance", "featureTitle": "Field Service Compliance", "page": "Field service compliance", "group": "Doing the work", "section": "Track who is licensed to do the work", "anchor": "track-who-is-licensed-to-do-the-work", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/compliance#track-who-is-licensed-to-do-the-work", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Licenses belong to your **workers**. A worker with at least one active license is what the screens\ncall a technician — it is a description of their licenses rather than a job title you assign, so it\nis always current by definition.\n\nA worker can hold several licenses at once. Your **business's own licenses** are tracked separately\nand support operating across several states.\n\nA business license can be **published on your public page** as a trust signal, if you choose. Worker\nlicenses are never shown publicly." }, { "feature": "compliance", "featureTitle": "Field Service Compliance", "page": "Field service compliance", "group": "Doing the work", "section": "Be warned before a license lapses", "anchor": "be-warned-before-a-license-lapses", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/compliance#be-warned-before-a-license-lapses", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Expiry reminders run daily and warn you ahead of time, for both worker licenses and your business's\nown. Finding out a license expired last week from a regulator is the situation this exists to\nprevent." }, { "feature": "compliance", "featureTitle": "Field Service Compliance", "page": "Field service compliance", "group": "Doing the work", "section": "Capture the work in the field", "anchor": "capture-the-work-in-the-field", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/compliance#capture-the-work-in-the-field", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "On a job carrying a profile, the crew fills in the structured record that profile defines, rather\nthan a free-text note. Same fields, same order, same meaning, every time — which is what makes a year\nof records reportable instead of a year of prose." }, { "feature": "compliance", "featureTitle": "Field Service Compliance", "page": "Field service compliance", "group": "Doing the work", "section": "Lock what is finished", "anchor": "lock-what-is-finished", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/compliance#lock-what-is-finished", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "A finalized compliance record is protected. It is validated before it can be finalized, locked after,\nand any later change is kept as an **amendment with its history** rather than overwriting what was\nthere.\n\nThat is the difference between a record and a note. A note anybody can revise afterwards proves\nnothing; a locked record with a visible amendment trail is what holds up." }, { "feature": "compliance", "featureTitle": "Field Service Compliance", "page": "Field service compliance", "group": "Doing the work", "section": "Export what a regulator asks for", "anchor": "export-what-a-regulator-asks-for", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/compliance#export-what-a-regulator-asks-for", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Compliance reports export as CSV in a regulator-facing shape, and the console surfaces where your\ncompliance risk actually is — what is missing, what is expiring — rather than leaving you to find out\nduring an inspection." }, { "feature": "job-checklists", "featureTitle": "Job Checklists and Forms", "page": "Job checklists", "group": "Doing the work", "section": "Write a checklist for a kind of work", "anchor": "write-a-checklist-for-a-kind-of-work", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/job-checklists#write-a-checklist-for-a-kind-of-work", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [ "jobs", "field", "job-types", "files", "client-hub", "ai" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Go to **Settings → Checklists** and choose **New checklist**. A checklist needs a name, and can have\na description if the name is not enough on its own.\n\nThen add the steps, in the order the work is actually done. Each step has:\n\n- **The text** — what you want done. *Check the gas pressure*, *Photograph the panel before you\n close it*.\n- **What it asks for** — see [Choose what each step asks for](#choose-what-each-step-asks-for).\n- **Required**, if the job should not be marked done until it is answered.\n- **Internal**, if your customer should never read about it. An internal step is worked and required\n exactly like any other; what changes is that it is left off the copy your customer gets.\n- **A note to the crew**, if there is something useful to say — where the valve is, what to watch for.\n\nDrag a step by its handle to move it, the same way you reorder proposal line items.\n\nTick **Customers see the completed list** if you want the finished list on your customer's own page\nand available to send them. Leave it off and the list stays inside your business.\n\nA checklist has to have at least one step, every step needs text, and a *Choice* step needs at least\ntwo options. If something is missing, the refusal names the step it is about — you will not be left\nguessing which of twenty is wrong.\n\n### Retiring a checklist\n\nChecklists are archived, not deleted. Archiving stops a checklist being given to new jobs and changes\nnothing about jobs that already have it — their list stays exactly as it is, and so does everything\nalready answered on it. **Show archived** on the Checklists page brings them back into view." }, { "feature": "job-checklists", "featureTitle": "Job Checklists and Forms", "page": "Job checklists", "group": "Doing the work", "section": "Choose what each step asks for", "anchor": "choose-what-each-step-asks-for", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/job-checklists#choose-what-each-step-asks-for", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [ "jobs", "field", "job-types", "files", "client-hub", "ai" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Every step is one of eight kinds:\n\n| Kind | What the crew does |\n|---|---|\n| **Tick** | Marks it done. The plainest step, and what most lists are made of. |\n| **Measurement** | Takes a reading you track over time — see [Take a reading from a step](#take-a-reading-from-a-step). |\n| **Number** | Types a figure that is only about this visit. |\n| **Text** | Writes something down in words. |\n| **Choice** | Picks one of a list you wrote. |\n| **Condition** | Judges it pass, fail or not applicable. |\n| **Photo** | Takes a picture. |\n| **Signature** | Signs on the screen. |\n\n**A number and a measurement are both numbers, and the difference is whether the number has a life\nafter this job.** A measurement is something you track — a temperature, a pressure, a resistance —\nwith a unit, an expected range, and a history against the thing it was read off. A number is a figure\nabout this visit only: how many filters you left, what the customer's own meter said, how many feet of\ncable you pulled. If you would ever want to compare it with last time, make it a measurement.\n\nA **Signature** step is always required. There is no useful sense in which a checklist asks for a\nsignature optionally, so the box is set for you — if you do not want a signature, remove the step.\n\nA **Photo** step exists on every plan, and keeping the picture needs Professional. On Starter the step\nis still there and still required, and it says so on the screen: mark it done and say what you saw." }, { "feature": "job-checklists", "featureTitle": "Job Checklists and Forms", "page": "Job checklists", "group": "Doing the work", "section": "Attach a checklist to the kinds of work that use it", "anchor": "attach-a-checklist-to-the-kinds-of-work-that-use-it", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/job-checklists#attach-a-checklist-to-the-kinds-of-work-that-use-it", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [ "jobs", "field", "job-types", "files", "client-hub", "ai" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "A checklist reaches a job through the job's kind of work. On **Settings → Job Types**, open a job type\nand choose its checklists. A job type can carry any number of checklists, and a checklist can be on\nany number of job types.\n\nFrom then on, **a new job of that kind gets those checklists when it is created**, as a copy of each\none as it stood at that moment. Editing a checklist afterwards changes what new jobs get and leaves\njobs in progress alone, which is what you want — a list somebody is halfway through should not change\nunder them.\n\nTwo things follow from that, and both are deliberate:\n\n- A job created before you added a checklist to its job type does not get it, and is not held up by it.\n- Making a step required later does not go back and hold up jobs that already exist." }, { "feature": "job-checklists", "featureTitle": "Job Checklists and Forms", "page": "Job checklists", "group": "Doing the work", "section": "Work the list on a job", "anchor": "work-the-list-on-a-job", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/job-checklists#work-the-list-on-a-job", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [ "jobs", "field", "job-types", "files", "client-hub", "ai" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "The office sees the whole list on the job's page. The crew sees it on **My Day**, on the job they are\nworking, and their card shows how many required steps are still needed before they tap in.\n\nEach step is answered where it is: ticked, typed, chosen, judged, photographed or signed. **Any step\ntakes a note**, whether it asks for one or not, because the useful thing somebody has to say is\nusually not on the form.\n\nEvery answer records who gave it and when, and changing an answer records the change. Nothing is\noverwritten quietly.\n\n**Not applicable counts as answered** on any kind of step. If the step was required, you are asked to\nsay why — *not applicable* with no reason is the answer that means nothing.\n\nIf an answer fails to save — no signal in a basement, a dropped connection — you are told it did not\nsave and what you entered is kept.\n\nA job whose kind of work carries no checklist shows no list to the crew at all. The office sees one\nline saying the job carries none, with an offer to\n[suggest one for this visit](#let-the-product-draft-the-steps-for-you)." }, { "feature": "job-checklists", "featureTitle": "Job Checklists and Forms", "page": "Job checklists", "group": "Doing the work", "section": "Take a reading from a step", "anchor": "take-a-reading-from-a-step", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/job-checklists#take-a-reading-from-a-step", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [ "jobs", "field", "job-types", "files", "client-hub", "ai" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "A measurement step does not hold the number itself. It says *take this reading, here, in this order*,\nand the reading is kept against the thing it was read off — a unit at your customer's property, a\npiece of your own equipment, or the job. That way the history belongs to the thing measured, so\nremoving a checklist or archiving a template never loses a number.\n\nWhen somebody answers a measurement step they choose what it was read on, from what the job already\ntouches. A job that touches only itself asks nothing and shows no choice.\n\nThe step also shows **what that thing read last time, and when** — the figure the new number is\ncompared against — or says there is none.\n\nA reading outside its expected range is marked as outside. It is not an error and it does not hold\nanything up: finding a problem is why somebody looked.\n\nThe job's own **Measurements** section and a checklist's measurement step are the same number in two\nplaces. Record it in either one and the step reads as answered. The two sections load separately, so\nafter recording in one you may need to reload the page for the other to catch up — the record is\nright, the screen is a moment behind.\n\nA note on a measurement step goes on the reading, so one number has one note wherever you read it.\nEvery other kind of step keeps its note on the step." }, { "feature": "job-checklists", "featureTitle": "Job Checklists and Forms", "page": "Job checklists", "group": "Doing the work", "section": "What a required step stops", "anchor": "what-a-required-step-stops", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/job-checklists#what-a-required-step-stops", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [ "jobs", "field", "job-types", "files", "client-hub", "ai" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "**A job with an unanswered required step cannot be marked Completed.** That holds from every direction\n— the crew's control, the office's job form, and anything else that moves a job.\n\nThe refusal names what is left: up to three steps, then *and N more*. On a phone the crew's\n**Completed** option is not offered at all, with the reason shown, so a button never promises\nsomething the server will refuse.\n\nA required measurement step with no reading counts as unanswered. A reading that fell outside its\nexpected range counts as answered.\n\nRequired means **required to close**, and nothing else. No step of any kind stops a job being created,\nscheduled or worked. A job carrying no checklist is not held up at all.\n\nTo see what is being held up, the **Jobs** list has a **Waiting on a checklist** filter. It shows\nunfinished jobs only — a job finished over an override has left the queue, and its own page is where\nthat reason lives." }, { "feature": "job-checklists", "featureTitle": "Job Checklists and Forms", "page": "Job checklists", "group": "Doing the work", "section": "Finish a job anyway", "anchor": "finish-a-job-anyway", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/job-checklists#finish-a-job-anyway", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [ "jobs", "field", "job-types", "files", "client-hub", "ai" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Sometimes the work genuinely cannot be finished: the customer sent the crew away, the part did not\narrive, the unit was inaccessible.\n\nAn owner or manager can finish the job anyway from the job's page. Saving it as Completed brings up\n**Finish this job anyway?**, which asks why. The reason is required, up to 500 characters, and a blank\none is refused exactly as no reason would be.\n\nWhat happens then:\n\n- The job is marked Completed.\n- **The checklist is not ticked.** The unanswered steps stay unanswered and stay visible, because what\n was actually done is the point of having asked.\n- The job's page gains **Finished with the checklist unfinished**, showing the reason, who gave it,\n when, and which steps were outstanding at the time.\n\nThe crew have no override. Where their **Completed** option is missing, the page tells them the office\ncan close it — an owner or manager, with a reason.\n\n### Removing a checklist from a job\n\nAn owner or manager can remove a checklist from a job, and the reason is required. Removing it lifts\nthe hold. What was already answered stays answered, and any reading a step prompted stays on the job —\nwhat goes is the requirement." }, { "feature": "job-checklists", "featureTitle": "Job Checklists and Forms", "page": "Job checklists", "group": "Doing the work", "section": "Send the finished list to your client", "anchor": "send-the-finished-list-to-your-client", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/job-checklists#send-the-finished-list-to-your-client", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [ "jobs", "field", "job-types", "files", "client-hub", "ai" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "On the job's page, a checklist offers **Report**: the finished list as a PDF with your business's name\nand logo, the job, the date, who did the work, every step with its answer and note, and the photos.\nIt is the first document in SMG Tools to carry a photograph.\n\nWhere you marked the checklist **Customers see the completed list**, two more options appear:\n\n- **Customer's copy** — the same document with your internal steps left out. It downloads so you can\n read what your customer will get before you send it.\n- **Send to client** — emails the customer's copy as an attachment, with an optional message. The send\n is recorded on that client's communication history like any other.\n\nThe customer's copy drops internal steps silently: no gap, no count, no line saying something was\nleft out.\n\nBoth options are on the job's page and are for the office only. The crew are offered neither, because\nwhat a customer is told about a visit is not a decision for a driveway.\n\nA measurement step reads on the report as the measurement's name, its value and unit, the range it was\njudged against, and a mark if it fell outside — all four taken from the reading as it stood when it\nwas recorded, so a report reprinted next year says what was true at the time.\n\nA step nobody answered still appears, saying so. A half-finished visit should not read as a complete\none.\n\nA few things the report will not do:\n\n- A list nobody has answered is refused rather than produced empty: *Nothing on this checklist has\n been answered yet, so there is no report to send.*\n- A list where everything answered is internal is refused in its own words: *Everything answered on\n this checklist is marked internal, so the customer's copy would be empty.* The work was done and the\n record exists — it is all the part you keep to yourself.\n- A picture that cannot be fetched is left out rather than failing the report. The words are the part\n that matters.\n\nThe report records what a person answered and what a person wrote down. It does not certify anything,\nand a reading inside its range is not a finding that anything is serviceable.\n\n### On your customer's own page\n\nWhere the checklist is marked customers see it, the finished list also appears on that client's page,\nunder **What was done** — what was asked, what was answered, the numbers with the range each was\njudged against, and the pictures.\n\n**Turning a checklist's visibility off means today**, including for work that finished last year. The\npage reads the setting as it stands, so a customer who had a link to a visit stops seeing it once you\nturn it off." }, { "feature": "job-checklists", "featureTitle": "Job Checklists and Forms", "page": "Job checklists", "group": "Doing the work", "section": "Let the product draft the steps for you", "anchor": "let-the-product-draft-the-steps-for-you", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/job-checklists#let-the-product-draft-the-steps-for-you", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [ "jobs", "field", "job-types", "files", "client-hub", "ai" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Rather than writing twenty steps from a blank page, describe the kind of work in a sentence and let\nthe product propose the list.\n\nOn **Settings → Checklists**, choose to suggest a checklist and describe the work — *a seasonal\nfurnace tune-up on a residential gas system*. What comes back is ordered steps with a kind and a\nsuggested required flag on each, which you then edit, reorder, remove from and save through the\nordinary editor.\n\n**Nothing is saved until you save it.** A suggestion is a draft and the panel says so. There is no\npath that creates a checklist you have not seen.\n\nWhere a suggested step wants a measurement you already have, it names it. Where it wants one you do\nnot, it proposes one — a name, a quantity, a unit and sometimes an expected range — and creates it\nonly when you press **Create** on it. A suggested range is a proposal and is labeled as one; the\nproduct does not hold itself out as knowing what a correct reading is for your trade.\n\nA suggestion will never mark a step internal. That flag decides whether your customer reads about work\nthey paid for, so you tick it or it stays off.\n\nYou can also ask for one on a job that carries no checklist, from that job's own description and kind\nof work, and accept it **onto that job alone**. It holds up that job, reaches no other, and no\ncustomer sees it — because nobody has decided one may. If you want it every time, the panel says where\nto save it as a checklist.\n\nSuggesting steps needs **Professional**, because it spends against your monthly AI allowance. The\nremaining allowance is shown before you ask, and asking spends it whether or not you keep the answer.\nOn Starter the panel says so and offers nothing that would fail — writing the steps yourself produces\na checklist that behaves identically." }, { "feature": "job-checklists", "featureTitle": "Job Checklists and Forms", "page": "Job checklists", "group": "Doing the work", "section": "Who can do what", "anchor": "who-can-do-what", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/job-checklists#who-can-do-what", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [ "jobs", "field", "job-types", "files", "client-hub", "ai" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "| | Owner | Manager | Field member |\n|---|---|---|---|\n| Write and edit checklists | Yes | Yes | No |\n| Attach them to job types | Yes | Yes | No |\n| Answer steps on a job | Yes | Yes | On a job assigned to them |\n| Download or send the report | Yes | Yes | No |\n| Finish a job over an unfinished list | Yes | Yes | No |\n| Remove a checklist from a job | Yes | Yes | No |\n\nA field member who asks for the Checklists page is refused, and so is one who tries to answer steps on\na job that is not theirs." }, { "feature": "job-checklists", "featureTitle": "Job Checklists and Forms", "page": "Job checklists", "group": "Doing the work", "section": "What each plan includes", "anchor": "what-each-plan-includes", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/job-checklists#what-each-plan-includes", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [ "jobs", "field", "job-types", "files", "client-hub", "ai" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Checklists themselves are on **every plan** — writing them, attaching them, working them, the gate, the\noverride, the report and your customer's page. None of that is metered and none of it is gated.\n\nTwo parts need a paid plan, and both say so where you meet them:\n\n- **Keeping a photo** needs **Professional**. On Starter a photo step still exists and is still\n required; the picture is not stored.\n- **Suggesting the steps** needs **Professional**, because it spends your AI allowance.\n\nOne part needs **Crew**: the crew's own view of the list on My Day, because inviting field members at\nall is a Crew capability. On Starter and Professional the list is worked from the job's page." }, { "feature": "job-management", "featureTitle": "Job Management & Job Types", "page": "Jobs", "group": "Doing the work", "section": "Create a job", "anchor": "create-a-job", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/job-management#create-a-job", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Open **Jobs** and add one. Two things are required and the rest can be filled in as you learn it:\n\n- **Title** — what the work is, up to 200 characters.\n- **Client** — who it is for. You can add a new client without leaving the form.\n- **Kind of work** — see [Sort jobs by the kind of work](#sort-jobs-by-the-kind-of-work). You can add\n a new one inline if none fits.\n\nOptionally: a start date and a target completion date, an estimated value, the scope of work, the\naddress if it is not the client's usual one, a priority of Low, Medium, High or Urgent, and internal\nnotes your client never sees.\n\nEvery job gets a **job number** in the form `JOB-20260921-001`, generated for you. You can type your\nown instead as long as it is not already in use." }, { "feature": "job-management", "featureTitle": "Job Management & Job Types", "page": "Jobs", "group": "Doing the work", "section": "Move a job through its stages", "anchor": "move-a-job-through-its-stages", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/job-management#move-a-job-through-its-stages", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "A job has six stages, and the status is how everybody knows where it stands:\n\n| Stage | What it means |\n|---|---|\n| **Planning** | You are scoping the work or preparing a proposal. |\n| **Approved** | The client has accepted. |\n| **In Progress** | The work is happening. |\n| **On Hold** | Paused for now. |\n| **Completed** | The work is finished; payment or closeout may still be outstanding. |\n| **Closed** | Finished and fully paid. |\n\nYou can change the status from the job's page without opening the edit form. Moving a job to\n**Completed** or **Closed** asks for the date the work actually finished, because that date is what\nthe reports use and *today* is usually not it.\n\nIf the kind of work carries a checklist, the job will not move to Completed until the required steps\nare answered — see [Job checklists](/help/job-checklists)." }, { "feature": "job-management", "featureTitle": "Job Management & Job Types", "page": "Jobs", "group": "Doing the work", "section": "Find the job you are looking for", "anchor": "find-the-job-you-are-looking-for", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/job-management#find-the-job-you-are-looking-for", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "The Jobs page searches as you type, and filters to:\n\n- **Active** — the default, everything not archived.\n- **Waiting on a checklist** — jobs that cannot be finished until somebody answers the remaining\n required steps.\n- **Archived**.\n- **All**." }, { "feature": "job-management", "featureTitle": "Job Management & Job Types", "page": "Jobs", "group": "Doing the work", "section": "Sort jobs by the kind of work", "anchor": "sort-jobs-by-the-kind-of-work", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/job-management#sort-jobs-by-the-kind-of-work", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Every job carries one **job type** — Plumbing, HVAC, Roofing, whatever your trade actually does.\nIt is required, and it is what makes the reporting worth reading: without it, *which kinds of work\nmake money* is a question nothing can answer.\n\nManage them under **Settings → Job Types**, where you can add, rename, reorder by dragging, archive\nand set the one that should be picked by default. A new business starts with a single type,\n**General Work**, so writing the handful that match your trade is one of the first things worth\ndoing — it is what makes the reporting worth reading later.\n\nA job type that jobs are already using cannot be deleted, only archived, so no job is ever left\npointing at nothing.\n\nWhen a proposal is accepted and becomes a job, the kind of work comes across with it." }, { "feature": "job-management", "featureTitle": "Job Management & Job Types", "page": "Jobs", "group": "Doing the work", "section": "Write down what happened on the job", "anchor": "write-down-what-happened-on-the-job", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/job-management#write-down-what-happened-on-the-job", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "The **Notes** on a job are the running record of the work. Each note has a type — General, Work\nPerformed, Client Communication, Issue or Decision — so you can tell at a glance whether you are\nreading a decision somebody made or a problem they hit.\n\n**Notes cannot be edited or deleted.** A correction is another note. That is deliberate: the value of\na work record is that it says what was actually thought at the time, and a record anybody can quietly\nrevise afterwards is worth very little in a dispute.\n\nTwo things a note can also do:\n\n- **Mention a teammate** with `@`, if they can see the job, so it reaches them.\n- **Go to the client**, and their reply comes back into the same thread as a note from them." }, { "feature": "job-management", "featureTitle": "Job Management & Job Types", "page": "Jobs", "group": "Doing the work", "section": "Attach photos and files", "anchor": "attach-photos-and-files", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/job-management#attach-photos-and-files", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "A job holds photos and documents — before and after shots, a picture of the damage, the signed change\norder, the permit. They are labeled by what they are, and they appear anywhere the job's photos are\nshown, including on a checklist report your client receives.\n\nStoring files needs **Professional**. On Starter everything else about a job works exactly the same;\nwhat you do not get is somewhere to keep the picture." }, { "feature": "job-management", "featureTitle": "Job Management & Job Types", "page": "Jobs", "group": "Doing the work", "section": "Archive a job you are finished with", "anchor": "archive-a-job-you-are-finished-with", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/job-management#archive-a-job-you-are-finished-with", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Jobs are archived, never deleted. Archiving takes the job out of the active list and keeps everything\nattached to it — the time, the expenses, the invoices, the notes, the photos. **Show archived** on\nthe Jobs page brings them back into view, and you can unarchive at any time.\n\nNothing in this product hard-deletes a job, because the one time somebody needs a three-year-old job\nrecord is the one time it would be gone." }, { "feature": "measurements", "featureTitle": "Measurements and Readings", "page": "Measurements and readings", "group": "Doing the work", "section": "Say what your business measures", "anchor": "say-what-your-business-measures", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/measurements#say-what-your-business-measures", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "jobs", "job-types", "client-units", "equipment", "field" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Under **Settings → Measurements**, define each thing you measure. A measurement carries:\n\n- **A name** — Supply air temp, Static pressure.\n- **A quantity and a unit** — temperature in °F, pressure in inches of water column. The units come\n from the product's own table, so a quantity and a unit can never be mismatched.\n- **An expected range**, where there is a sensible one — *68–76 °F*, *at least 5 MΩ*.\n\nYou define these once. Everything that asks for a reading refers to one of them." }, { "feature": "measurements", "featureTitle": "Measurements and Readings", "page": "Measurements and readings", "group": "Doing the work", "section": "Take a reading", "anchor": "take-a-reading", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/measurements#take-a-reading", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "jobs", "job-types", "client-units", "equipment", "field" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "A reading names four things: **the measurement**, **the subject** it was taken on, **the value**, and\n**the unit**.\n\nThe subject is what makes it useful — a unit at a customer's property, a piece of your own equipment,\nor the job itself. Recording it against the thing measured rather than against the paperwork is the\nwhole design: **a checklist deleted, a template archived or an inspection superseded, and the reading\nstill stands.**\n\nYou can record one from the job's own Measurements section, from a checklist step, or from the crew's\nphone. All three write the same record." }, { "feature": "measurements", "featureTitle": "Measurements and Readings", "page": "Measurements and readings", "group": "Doing the work", "section": "See what it read last time", "anchor": "see-what-it-read-last-time", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/measurements#see-what-it-read-last-time", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "jobs", "job-types", "client-units", "equipment", "field" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Wherever you are taking a reading, the product shows **what that subject read last time, and when**,\nor says there is none.\n\nThat is the figure the new number means something against. A supply air temperature of 112 °F is\njust a number; 112 °F against 104 °F last winter is a finding." }, { "feature": "measurements", "featureTitle": "Measurements and Readings", "page": "Measurements and readings", "group": "Doing the work", "section": "Understand the range and the mark", "anchor": "understand-the-range-and-the-mark", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/measurements#understand-the-range-and-the-mark", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "jobs", "job-types", "client-units", "equipment", "field" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "A reading outside its expected range is **marked as outside** — and that is all it is. It is not an\nerror and it does not hold anything up.\n\nWhether a reading is in range is worked out from **the range the reading was judged against**, kept\nwith the reading itself. So a report reprinted next year says what was true when the number was\ntaken, even if you have since changed what you expect.\n\nTwo things that look the same and are not: what the crew sees while recording is the range **now**;\nwhat a report shows is the range it was **judged against**. Both are right — one is the instruction,\nthe other is the record." }, { "feature": "measurements", "featureTitle": "Measurements and Readings", "page": "Measurements and readings", "group": "Doing the work", "section": "When a reading is taken again", "anchor": "when-a-reading-is-taken-again", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/measurements#when-a-reading-is-taken-again", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "jobs", "job-types", "client-units", "equipment", "field" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Re-recording supersedes what it replaced **on that subject**, and the earlier one stays visible as\nhistory. One reading stands per measurement per subject per job.\n\nA job that touched two furnaces has two readings of one measurement, and both are real." }, { "feature": "measurements", "featureTitle": "Measurements and Readings", "page": "Measurements and readings", "group": "Doing the work", "section": "Where readings get asked for", "anchor": "where-readings-get-asked-for", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/measurements#where-readings-get-asked-for", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "jobs", "job-types", "client-units", "equipment", "field" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "- **A checklist step** can say *take this reading, here, in this order* — see\n [Job checklists](/help/job-checklists).\n- **A job type** can name the measurements its work always takes.\n- **An equipment inspection** line can ask for a number — see\n [Equipment readings, service and cost](/help/equipment-enhancements).\n\nIn every case the reading itself lives against the thing measured, not against the form that asked." }, { "feature": "team-notes", "featureTitle": "Team Notes — Mentions and Seen-By", "page": "Mentioning a teammate in a note", "group": "Doing the work", "section": "Mention somebody", "anchor": "mention-somebody", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/team-notes#mention-somebody", "plan": "Crew", "entitlement": "crew", "modules": [ "jobs", "work-notes", "team", "email", "profile" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Type `@` in a note and you are offered the people who can see that job. Choose one and their name\ngoes into the note.\n\nWhen you save it, **they are told** — by email, with the job, the note and a link straight to it." }, { "feature": "team-notes", "featureTitle": "Team Notes — Mentions and Seen-By", "page": "Mentioning a teammate in a note", "group": "Doing the work", "section": "See who has read it", "anchor": "see-who-has-read-it", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/team-notes#see-who-has-read-it", "plan": "Crew", "entitlement": "crew", "modules": [ "jobs", "work-notes", "team", "email", "profile" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "When somebody mentioned opens the job's notes, the note records that they saw it. The author can see\nwho has and who has not.\n\nThat is the part that turns the notes tab from a log into a conversation. *\"I told him\"* and *\"he\nread it\"* are different facts, and on a job that went wrong the difference matters." }, { "feature": "team-notes", "featureTitle": "Team Notes — Mentions and Seen-By", "page": "Mentioning a teammate in a note", "group": "Doing the work", "section": "Who can be mentioned", "anchor": "who-can-be-mentioned", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/team-notes#who-can-be-mentioned", "plan": "Crew", "entitlement": "crew", "modules": [ "jobs", "work-notes", "team", "email", "profile" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Only people who can already see that job. A mention never grants access to anything — it reaches\nsomebody who could have found it themselves, faster." }, { "feature": "team-notes", "featureTitle": "Team Notes — Mentions and Seen-By", "page": "Mentioning a teammate in a note", "group": "Doing the work", "section": "What a note still is", "anchor": "what-a-note-still-is", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/team-notes#what-a-note-still-is", "plan": "Crew", "entitlement": "crew", "modules": [ "jobs", "work-notes", "team", "email", "profile" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Everything else about notes is unchanged. They are **append-only**: no edit, no delete, and a\ncorrection is another note. See [Jobs](/help/job-management).\n\nA mention does not make a note private, and it does not hide it from anybody else on the job. It\nadds a recipient, not a wall." }, { "feature": "team-notes", "featureTitle": "Team Notes — Mentions and Seen-By", "page": "Mentioning a teammate in a note", "group": "Doing the work", "section": "What it costs", "anchor": "what-it-costs", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/team-notes#what-it-costs", "plan": "Crew", "entitlement": "crew", "modules": [ "jobs", "work-notes", "team", "email", "profile" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Mentions need the **Crew** plan, because they only mean anything once there is more than one person\nin the business. See [Plans and billing](/help/subscription)." }, { "feature": "voice-assistant", "featureTitle": "Voice & Agentic Actions", "page": "The voice assistant", "group": "Doing the work", "section": "How it works", "anchor": "how-it-works", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/voice-assistant#how-it-works", "plan": "Professional", "entitlement": "professional", "modules": [ "proposals", "invoices", "jobs", "clients", "mileage", "expenses", "time-tracking" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "The product writes down what you said, works out which action you meant, finds the records your words\nnamed, and fills in the form.\n\n**For anything that writes, it shows you the filled-in form and waits.** Nothing is saved because you\nsaid it. You look at what it understood, correct it if it got something wrong, and press save\nyourself." }, { "feature": "voice-assistant", "featureTitle": "Voice & Agentic Actions", "page": "The voice assistant", "group": "Doing the work", "section": "Nothing you say is wasted", "anchor": "nothing-you-say-is-wasted", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/voice-assistant#nothing-you-say-is-wasted", "plan": "Professional", "entitlement": "professional", "modules": [ "proposals", "invoices", "jobs", "clients", "mileage", "expenses", "time-tracking" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "If it cannot work out an action from what you said, the words still go somewhere: onto a job as a\nnote, or copied out for you to paste.\n\nThat is a deliberate rule. An assistant that answers *sorry, I didn't understand* and throws away\nthirty seconds of a person describing a leak is an assistant nobody uses twice." }, { "feature": "voice-assistant", "featureTitle": "Voice & Agentic Actions", "page": "The voice assistant", "group": "Doing the work", "section": "What it will and will not do", "anchor": "what-it-will-and-will-not-do", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/voice-assistant#what-it-will-and-will-not-do", "plan": "Professional", "entitlement": "professional", "modules": [ "proposals", "invoices", "jobs", "clients", "mileage", "expenses", "time-tracking" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Four rules shape the whole thing, and they are worth knowing because they explain its limits:\n\n- **It never sees an identifier.** It hears \"Charlie\" and the server does the searching. It cannot\n name a record by its internal id, so it cannot act on one by accident.\n- **It never writes.** It proposes an action; a separate step, triggered by you, carries it out.\n- **Nothing is saved without you seeing it.**\n- **The catalog is small and curated.** It can do a specific list of things, and it will tell you when\n what you asked for is not on that list rather than doing something approximate.\n\nNothing that sends, charges or deletes is available to it. Those stay actions a person takes\ndeliberately, on a screen." }, { "feature": "voice-assistant", "featureTitle": "Voice & Agentic Actions", "page": "The voice assistant", "group": "Doing the work", "section": "What it costs", "anchor": "what-it-costs", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/voice-assistant#what-it-costs", "plan": "Professional", "entitlement": "professional", "modules": [ "proposals", "invoices", "jobs", "clients", "mileage", "expenses", "time-tracking" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "The assistant needs **Professional**, because transcribing speech and interpreting it spends against\nyour monthly AI allowance.\n\nThe remaining allowance is shown before you use it, and asking spends it whether or not you keep what\ncomes back." }, { "feature": "payment-adoption", "featureTitle": "Activation & Payment Adoption", "page": "Getting set up to take payment", "group": "Billing and getting paid", "section": "Decide whether you want online payment", "anchor": "decide-whether-you-want-online-payment", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/payment-adoption#decide-whether-you-want-online-payment", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "invoicing", "payments", "dashboard", "onboarding" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "The setup wizard asks how you handle the money, and offers to start payment onboarding there and\nthen. Unlike the toggles beside it, saying yes is the start of a real setup rather than a switch\nbeing flipped — connecting an account takes a few details about your business.\n\nYou can also start it later from the checklist on your dashboard, which leads with it, or from your\norganization's payment settings." }, { "feature": "payment-adoption", "featureTitle": "Activation & Payment Adoption", "page": "Getting set up to take payment", "group": "Billing and getting paid", "section": "Nothing here is a gate", "anchor": "nothing-here-is-a-gate", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/payment-adoption#nothing-here-is-a-gate", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "invoicing", "payments", "dashboard", "onboarding" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "A business that takes cash and checks is a real business. Payment setup never stops you sending an\ninvoice, creating a job or finishing setup.\n\nSkipping it is a decision you make once, not a row you never scrolled to." }, { "feature": "payment-adoption", "featureTitle": "Activation & Payment Adoption", "page": "Getting set up to take payment", "group": "Billing and getting paid", "section": "Know whether you are actually set up", "anchor": "know-whether-you-are-actually-set-up", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/payment-adoption#know-whether-you-are-actually-set-up", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "invoicing", "payments", "dashboard", "onboarding" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "This is the part worth trusting. **One rule decides whether you can take a payment, and everything\nasks that same rule**: your client's invoice, the notice you read before sending it, the checkout\npage, the setup wizard and the dashboard checklist.\n\nYou are set up to take payment when, and only when, **money would actually move** — an account that\ncan genuinely accept a charge, not merely a form that was started.\n\nBefore you send an invoice, you are told what your client's copy will offer them. If you are not\nconnected yet, you find that out while you can still do something about it, rather than from a\nclient asking where the pay button is." }, { "feature": "payment-adoption", "featureTitle": "Activation & Payment Adoption", "page": "Getting set up to take payment", "group": "Billing and getting paid", "section": "What it costs", "anchor": "what-it-costs", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/payment-adoption#what-it-costs", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "invoicing", "payments", "dashboard", "onboarding" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "The platform takes **0.25%** of what flows through it. That fee is deducted from your side of the\npayment — your client is charged the invoice amount and nothing more.\n\nCard processing is separate and also comes out of your side, as it does with any card payment\nanywhere." }, { "feature": "invoice", "featureTitle": "Invoice & Payments - Documentation", "page": "Invoices and getting paid", "group": "Billing and getting paid", "section": "Build an invoice", "anchor": "build-an-invoice", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/invoice#build-an-invoice", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Open **Invoices** and add one, or start from the job so the client and the work come with it.\n\nEach line can be one of three shapes, and picking the right one saves you doing arithmetic:\n\n- **A fixed amount** — a flat price for the thing.\n- **Quantity × unit price** — 12 fixtures at $45.\n- **Hours × hourly rate** — 6.5 hours at $95.\n\nDrag lines to reorder them. The subtotal, tax and total add themselves up as you go." }, { "feature": "invoice", "featureTitle": "Invoice & Payments - Documentation", "page": "Invoices and getting paid", "group": "Billing and getting paid", "section": "Follow an invoice through to paid", "anchor": "follow-an-invoice-through-to-paid", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/invoice#follow-an-invoice-through-to-paid", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "| Status | What it means |\n|---|---|\n| **Draft** | Yours to edit freely. Nobody has seen it. |\n| **Sent** | Emailed to your client. |\n| **Viewed** | Your client has opened the link. |\n| **Partially paid** | Some money has come in, with a balance still owed. |\n| **Paid** | The balance is zero. |\n| **Void** | Canceled. The record stays. |\n\nA draft is fully editable. Once an invoice has been sent, what you can change is limited — an\ninvoice somebody is looking at should not move under them." }, { "feature": "invoice", "featureTitle": "Invoice & Payments - Documentation", "page": "Invoices and getting paid", "group": "Billing and getting paid", "section": "Send it to your client", "anchor": "send-it-to-your-client", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/invoice#send-it-to-your-client", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "The **Send to client** panel at the top of an invoice holds everything about getting it out, beside\nthe state of the link itself:\n\n- **Email to client** — sends the invoice with a pay button.\n- **Mark as sent** — for when you handed it over some other way.\n- **Send again** — resends, and updates when it was sent.\n- **Revoke link** — kills the link if it went to the wrong place.\n\nThe payment reminder for something overdue sits in the invoice header, separate from the send panel,\nbecause chasing is a different act from sending.\n\nYour client opens the link with no account and no password, sees the invoice and its payment\nhistory, and can pay from there." }, { "feature": "invoice", "featureTitle": "Invoice & Payments - Documentation", "page": "Invoices and getting paid", "group": "Billing and getting paid", "section": "Take payment by card", "anchor": "take-payment-by-card", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/invoice#take-payment-by-card", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Your client presses Pay and is taken to a secure checkout. When the payment succeeds it is recorded\nagainst the invoice automatically — you do not reconcile anything.\n\nTwo things worth knowing about how the money moves:\n\n- **Your business is the merchant.** The charge settles to your connected account, and your client's\n card statement reads your business's name rather than ours.\n- **Fees come out of your side, never added to your client's bill.** Your client is charged the\n invoice amount. The platform fee and card processing are deducted from what reaches you.\n\nThe one thing that can make the charge larger than the invoice is a **tip your customer chose to\nadd** — see [Tips](/help/tips). It rides along on the same payment, carries no platform fee, and\nnever touches the invoice's balance.\n\nPartial payments are fine. An invoice can take several payments until the balance reaches zero." }, { "feature": "invoice", "featureTitle": "Invoice & Payments - Documentation", "page": "Invoices and getting paid", "group": "Billing and getting paid", "section": "Record a payment that came in some other way", "anchor": "record-a-payment-that-came-in-some-other-way", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/invoice#record-a-payment-that-came-in-some-other-way", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Cash, a check, a bank transfer — record it against the invoice and it counts exactly like a card\npayment. The amount cannot be more than the balance owed, which catches the common typo before it\nbecomes a reconciliation problem.\n\nA payment recorded by mistake is **voided with a reason** rather than deleted, so the invoice's\nhistory still explains itself." }, { "feature": "invoice", "featureTitle": "Invoice & Payments - Documentation", "page": "Invoices and getting paid", "group": "Billing and getting paid", "section": "Handle a chargeback", "anchor": "handle-a-chargeback", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/invoice#handle-a-chargeback", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "If a client's bank disputes a card payment, the disputed amount is taken back from your balance while\nthe bank decides. The product does four things at that point:\n\n- Marks the payment **Disputed**, with the bank's stated reason.\n- Shows you the deadline for sending evidence.\n- Tells you what evidence to send.\n- **Leaves the invoice reading as paid** while it is being decided, because it is not yet unpaid.\n\nIf you win, the money comes back and the payment stands. If you lose, the payment is voided and the\ninvoice shows the balance owed again." }, { "feature": "invoice", "featureTitle": "Invoice & Payments - Documentation", "page": "Invoices and getting paid", "group": "Billing and getting paid", "section": "Send a PDF instead", "anchor": "send-a-pdf-instead", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/invoice#send-a-pdf-instead", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Every invoice downloads as a PDF with your logo, the line items and the totals, laid out for paper.\nSome clients want a document for their records or their accountant, and the link is not always the\nanswer." }, { "feature": "invoice", "featureTitle": "Invoice & Payments - Documentation", "page": "Invoices and getting paid", "group": "Billing and getting paid", "section": "Void an invoice", "anchor": "void-an-invoice", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/invoice#void-an-invoice", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Voiding is a soft delete — the invoice is canceled and the record stays, which is what you need when\nsomebody asks six months later what happened to invoice 41. Voiding can be undone." }, { "feature": "batch-invoicing", "featureTitle": "Batch Invoicing", "page": "Invoicing several jobs at once", "group": "Billing and getting paid", "section": "Find the jobs nobody has billed", "anchor": "find-the-jobs-nobody-has-billed", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/batch-invoicing#find-the-jobs-nobody-has-billed", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "invoices", "jobs", "automations" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "The **Jobs** list has a **Needs invoicing** filter: completed jobs with nothing billed against them.\nThat is the list, and it is usually shorter and more alarming than people expect.\n\nIf you have the automated reminder turned on, its email opens this list for you with the jobs already\nfiltered and already selected, so the nudge and the fix are one click apart rather than one email and\neleven forms." }, { "feature": "batch-invoicing", "featureTitle": "Batch Invoicing", "page": "Invoicing several jobs at once", "group": "Billing and getting paid", "section": "Create the invoices", "anchor": "create-the-invoices", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/batch-invoicing#create-the-invoices", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "invoices", "jobs", "automations" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Select the jobs you want and choose **Create invoices**. You get one **draft** invoice per job,\ncarrying exactly the lines the single New Invoice page would have preselected for that job:\n\n- its milestones not yet invoiced, and\n- its approved change orders not yet invoiced,\n\nwith the same due date and tax that form would have applied. Nothing is guessed differently just\nbecause it was done in bulk.\n\nA job with nothing billable on it is **skipped and named**, never given an empty invoice. You end on\na page listing what was created and what was skipped and why, with every draft one click away for\nwhoever wants to look before anything goes out.\n\nThey are drafts. Nothing has reached a client yet." }, { "feature": "batch-invoicing", "featureTitle": "Batch Invoicing", "page": "Invoicing several jobs at once", "group": "Billing and getting paid", "section": "Send them together", "anchor": "send-them-together", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/batch-invoicing#send-them-together", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "invoices", "jobs", "automations" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "**Send all** sends each draft the way pressing Send on a single invoice does — the same email, the\nsame payment link, the same record on the invoice and in that client's history.\n\nThey go **one at a time**, deliberately. If one fails — a client with no email address on file, say —\nthat is one invoice's problem and the others are unaffected. You are told which one, and the rest have\nalready gone." }, { "feature": "batch-invoicing", "featureTitle": "Batch Invoicing", "page": "Invoicing several jobs at once", "group": "Billing and getting paid", "section": "What is deliberately not included", "anchor": "what-is-deliberately-not-included", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/batch-invoicing#what-is-deliberately-not-included", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "invoices", "jobs", "automations" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "**Logged hours and expenses are not added.** Whether a job's hours get billed, and at what rate, is a\njudgment the New Invoice page leaves to a person — and batching it would make that judgment for you\neleven times without asking.\n\nIf you bill time and materials, open the job and invoice it there. Batch invoicing is for the jobs\nwhere the milestones and change orders already say what is owed." }, { "feature": "milestone", "featureTitle": "Milestone Tracking - Documentation", "page": "Milestones", "group": "Billing and getting paid", "section": "Add milestones to a job", "anchor": "add-milestones-to-a-job", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/milestone#add-milestones-to-a-job", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Milestones live on the job's page. Add one with:\n\n- **Title** — the stage, up to 200 characters.\n- **Description** — what it covers, if the title is not enough.\n- **Amount** — what this stage is worth. Optional: a milestone can be a stage of work with no money\n attached.\n- **Due date** — when you expect it done.\n\nNew milestones go on the end of the list, and you drag them into the order the work actually\nhappens." }, { "feature": "milestone", "featureTitle": "Milestone Tracking - Documentation", "page": "Milestones", "group": "Billing and getting paid", "section": "Track where the work is", "anchor": "track-where-the-work-is", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/milestone#track-where-the-work-is", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Each milestone is **Not started**, **In progress** or **Completed**, changed from the milestone's\ncard or in its edit form. When you mark one completed, the time it was completed is recorded for\nyou.\n\nThe job shows the summary — *3 of 5 milestones completed* — which is the one line that answers \"how\nis that job going\" without anybody opening anything." }, { "feature": "milestone", "featureTitle": "Milestone Tracking - Documentation", "page": "Milestones", "group": "Billing and getting paid", "section": "Bill by stage rather than at the end", "anchor": "bill-by-stage-rather-than-at-the-end", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/milestone#bill-by-stage-rather-than-at-the-end", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Giving a milestone an amount is what turns it into a billing stage. On a job with four milestones at\n25% each you can invoice as each one is finished, rather than carrying the whole job and asking for\neverything at the end.\n\nWhen a proposal is accepted, **its milestones come across onto the job as they were quoted**, so the\nstages your client agreed to are the stages you bill against. See [Proposals](/help/proposal)." }, { "feature": "milestone", "featureTitle": "Milestone Tracking - Documentation", "page": "Milestones", "group": "Billing and getting paid", "section": "Void a milestone you no longer need", "anchor": "void-a-milestone-you-no-longer-need", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/milestone#void-a-milestone-you-no-longer-need", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Milestones are voided rather than deleted, and voiding can be undone. If a stage drops out of the\nwork — the client canceled the tiling, the inspection turned out not to be required — voiding keeps\nthe history of what was originally planned, which is usually the thing in dispute later." }, { "feature": "tips", "featureTitle": "Tips on Online Payment", "page": "Tips", "group": "Billing and getting paid", "section": "Turn the tip prompt on", "anchor": "turn-the-tip-prompt-on", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/tips#turn-the-tip-prompt-on", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "invoices", "payments", "income", "reports", "tax-reporting" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "It is **off by default**, and it should be. A tip prompt under a $4,000 invoice reads as\npresumptuous, and the businesses that want tips already know they do.\n\nThe switch is on your organization's payment settings. With it you set:\n\n- **Three percentages** your customers see as buttons.\n- **A short line** explaining the ask, in your own words." }, { "feature": "tips", "featureTitle": "Tips on Online Payment", "page": "Tips", "group": "Billing and getting paid", "section": "What your customer sees", "anchor": "what-your-customer-sees", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/tips#what-your-customer-sees", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "invoices", "payments", "income", "reports", "tax-reporting" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "One question on the invoice page, before the card page:\n\n> Add a tip for {your business}?\n\nThree percentage buttons, **Other** for an amount they choose, and **No thanks**. That is the whole\ninteraction. Their choice travels with the payment, the card is charged **once** for both, and their\nreceipt shows what they paid and what they added, separately." }, { "feature": "tips", "featureTitle": "Tips on Online Payment", "page": "Tips", "group": "Billing and getting paid", "section": "Where a tip goes", "anchor": "where-a-tip-goes", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/tips#where-a-tip-goes", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "invoices", "payments", "income", "reports", "tax-reporting" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "**A tip is your income, not the job's revenue.** This is the part worth understanding, because it is\nwhat stops your reporting quietly lying to you.\n\n- The invoice is **paid in full by the invoice portion**, and shows the tip beside it —\n *Paid $150 + $20 tip*.\n- The tip lands as **income of its own category**, linked to the job and the client. It shows up in\n your income list, on your tax summary and in your accounting export as what it is.\n- It **never inflates the job's revenue or its margin.** A tip is what the customer thought of your\n crew, not the price of the work — and a job that looks 13% more profitable because somebody was\n generous is a job you would go on to quote wrong." }, { "feature": "tips", "featureTitle": "Tips on Online Payment", "page": "Tips", "group": "Billing and getting paid", "section": "What it costs you", "anchor": "what-it-costs-you", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/tips#what-it-costs-you", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "invoices", "payments", "income", "reports", "tax-reporting" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "**No platform fee is taken on a tip.** Our fee is a percentage of what you billed, and a customer's\nthank-you is not billing.\n\nCard processing still applies to the whole charge, as it does on any payment, and comes out of your\nside rather than being added to your customer's total." }, { "feature": "tips", "featureTitle": "Tips on Online Payment", "page": "Tips", "group": "Billing and getting paid", "section": "Tips taken at the door", "anchor": "tips-taken-at-the-door", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/tips#tips-taken-at-the-door", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "invoices", "payments", "income", "reports", "tax-reporting" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "This page is about paying online. A tip left on a card reader in person is the reader's own prompt,\nand it records exactly the same way when it arrives: as your income, against the job and the client,\noutside the job's margin." }, { "feature": "timesheet-approval", "featureTitle": "Timesheet Approval and Payroll Export", "page": "Approving hours and sending them to payroll", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Set your pay period", "anchor": "set-your-pay-period", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/timesheet-approval#set-your-pay-period", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "time-tracking", "team", "organization", "reports", "import-export" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Your business chooses how it pays, under your settings:\n\n- **Weekly**, from a given weekday.\n- **Every two weeks**, from a date.\n- **Twice a month.**\n- **Monthly.**\n\nEverything else on this page follows from that choice." }, { "feature": "timesheet-approval", "featureTitle": "Timesheet Approval and Payroll Export", "page": "Approving hours and sending them to payroll", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Review a period", "anchor": "review-a-period", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/timesheet-approval#review-a-period", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "time-tracking", "team", "organization", "reports", "import-export" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "**Timesheets** shows one period at a time: each person with hours in it, their total, and the entries\nbehind it.\n\nOpen somebody's total and you see what it is made of — which jobs, which days, what was billable. If\nsomething looks wrong, it is one click to the entry rather than a conversation." }, { "feature": "timesheet-approval", "featureTitle": "Timesheet Approval and Payroll Export", "page": "Approving hours and sending them to payroll", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Approve it", "anchor": "approve-it", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/timesheet-approval#approve-it", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "time-tracking", "team", "organization", "reports", "import-export" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Approving a person's timesheet marks that period reviewed. It is the record that somebody looked\nbefore the money went out, which is the whole point of an approval step." }, { "feature": "timesheet-approval", "featureTitle": "Timesheet Approval and Payroll Export", "page": "Approving hours and sending them to payroll", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Export for payroll", "anchor": "export-for-payroll", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/timesheet-approval#export-for-payroll", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "time-tracking", "team", "organization", "reports", "import-export" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Export the approved period as a file your payroll provider can take, so the last step is an upload\nrather than a calculator and a keyboard." }, { "feature": "timesheet-approval", "featureTitle": "Timesheet Approval and Payroll Export", "page": "Approving hours and sending them to payroll", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "What approval does not change", "anchor": "what-approval-does-not-change", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/timesheet-approval#what-approval-does-not-change", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "time-tracking", "team", "organization", "reports", "import-export" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Approving hours does not change what they cost a job. The costing has been using them all along, at\nthe rate each entry carried when it was logged — see [Time tracking](/help/time-tracking).\n\nApproval is about paying people. The job costing was already true." }, { "feature": "projected-vs-actual", "featureTitle": "Projected vs Actual Dashboard", "page": "Comparing jobs against their estimates", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Find it", "anchor": "find-it", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/projected-vs-actual#find-it", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "It lives under **Reports → Job costing**. There are shortcuts to it from the **At-risk jobs** widget\non your dashboard and from the toolbar on the Jobs list, which are the two places you are most likely\nto be when the question occurs to you." }, { "feature": "projected-vs-actual", "featureTitle": "Projected vs Actual Dashboard", "page": "Comparing jobs against their estimates", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Read it across jobs", "anchor": "read-it-across-jobs", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/projected-vs-actual#read-it-across-jobs", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Each row is a job with its estimated figures, its actual figures and the gap between them. Active\njobs are the default, and you can include completed ones when you are reviewing a period rather than\nmanaging today.\n\nThe value is in the comparison. A single job 12% over is a conversation; four jobs of the same kind\nall 12% over is a pricing problem, and only a view across jobs shows you that." }, { "feature": "projected-vs-actual", "featureTitle": "Projected vs Actual Dashboard", "page": "Comparing jobs against their estimates", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Understand the columns", "anchor": "understand-the-columns", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/projected-vs-actual#understand-the-columns", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "The estimate comes from the job's frozen baseline — what it was quoted at — and the actuals come from\nthe hours logged, the expenses recorded and the equipment used, each at the rate it carried at the\ntime.\n\nWhile a job is still running there is a **projected** figure as well: what has been spent so far plus\nwhat is left of the estimate. That is the column that tells you a job is going wrong while there is\nstill time to do something.\n\nFor what each of those numbers is built from, see\n[Job costing and margins](/help/costing)." }, { "feature": "bank-integration", "featureTitle": "Bank Account Integration & Transaction Reconciliation", "page": "Connecting a bank account", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Connect an account", "anchor": "connect-an-account", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/bank-integration#connect-an-account", "plan": "Professional", "entitlement": "professional", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Under **Settings → Bank Accounts**, connect a bank or credit card account through Plaid, which is the\nservice your bank recognizes and which never hands us your banking password.\n\nOnce connected, transactions import automatically." }, { "feature": "bank-integration", "featureTitle": "Bank Account Integration & Transaction Reconciliation", "page": "Connecting a bank account", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Sort each transaction", "anchor": "sort-each-transaction", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/bank-integration#sort-each-transaction", "plan": "Professional", "entitlement": "professional", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Every imported transaction ends up in exactly one state. You decide which:\n\n- **An expense** — money out, matched to an expense record.\n- **An invoice payment** — money in against an invoice you raised.\n- **Other income** — money in that is not against an invoice.\n- **Ignored** — a transfer between your own accounts, or something that is just not business.\n\n**The product suggests; you decide.** Nothing is ever classified without you confirming it. An\nautomated guess that silently attaches a $2,000 payment to the wrong invoice is worse than no\nautomation at all." }, { "feature": "bank-integration", "featureTitle": "Bank Account Integration & Transaction Reconciliation", "page": "Connecting a bank account", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Understand two rules that keep the books honest", "anchor": "understand-two-rules-that-keep-the-books-honest", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/bank-integration#understand-two-rules-that-keep-the-books-honest", "plan": "Professional", "entitlement": "professional", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "These trip people up, and both are deliberate:\n\n- **An invoice payment is not income.** It reduces what you are owed; it does not create revenue.\n The revenue was recognized when you raised the invoice. Counting both would double your income.\n- **A transaction matches at most one business record.** No splitting one bank line across two\n expenses, because a one-to-one match is the only kind that can be reconciled with confidence\n later." }, { "feature": "bank-integration", "featureTitle": "Bank Account Integration & Transaction Reconciliation", "page": "Connecting a bank account", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Know what a bank transaction is and is not", "anchor": "know-what-a-bank-transaction-is-and-is-not", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/bank-integration#know-what-a-bank-transaction-is-and-is-not", "plan": "Professional", "entitlement": "professional", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "**Imported transactions are never modified or deleted.** They are the record of what your bank said,\nand they stay exactly as they arrived. What changes is the business record you attached to them.\n\nJobs are business context, not bank context. You do not assign a bank transaction to a job — you\nassign the **expense** to the job, and the transaction is matched to that expense. The bank does not\nknow what a job is, and pretending it does is how reconciliations stop reconciling." }, { "feature": "expense", "featureTitle": "Expense Tracking - Documentation", "page": "Expenses", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Record an expense", "anchor": "record-an-expense", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/expense#record-an-expense", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Open **Expenses** and add one, or add it from the job so the job is filled in for you and you land\nback on the job afterwards.\n\nCategories follow **IRS Schedule C**, which is not an arbitrary choice — it means your expense\nrecords already line up with the form your accountant is going to fill in." }, { "feature": "expense", "featureTitle": "Expense Tracking - Documentation", "page": "Expenses", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Decide whether it belongs to a job", "anchor": "decide-whether-it-belongs-to-a-job", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/expense#decide-whether-it-belongs-to-a-job", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "- **Against a job** — materials, a subcontractor, a permit. These are direct costs and they come off\n that job's margin.\n- **Against nothing** — tools, fuel, office supplies, insurance. These are operating costs of the\n business.\n\nGetting this right is what makes job costing honest. Assign the whole month's fuel to one job and\nthat job looks terrible while nine others look better than they are.\n\nYou can add, change or remove the job on an expense later if you filed it wrong the first time." }, { "feature": "expense", "featureTitle": "Expense Tracking - Documentation", "page": "Expenses", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Scan the receipt instead of typing it", "anchor": "scan-the-receipt-instead-of-typing-it", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/expense#scan-the-receipt-instead-of-typing-it", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Upload a photo or a PDF of the receipt — PNG, JPG or PDF, up to 10 MB — and the vendor, date and\namount are read off it and used to fill in the form. You confirm or correct what it read, save, and\nthe receipt is attached to the expense.\n\nThis needs **Professional**, for two reasons that are both real costs: reading the receipt spends\nagainst a monthly scanning allowance, and keeping the image spends on file storage.\n\nOn Starter you type the three fields yourself, which takes about fifteen seconds, and everything else\nabout expenses works identically." }, { "feature": "expense", "featureTitle": "Expense Tracking - Documentation", "page": "Expenses", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Void an expense rather than deleting it", "anchor": "void-an-expense-rather-than-deleting-it", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/expense#void-an-expense-rather-than-deleting-it", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Voiding takes the expense out of every report and calculation and keeps the record. A voided expense\nstops affecting a job's margin immediately, and can be unvoided if it was voided in error.\n\nNothing here hard-deletes, so the question \"what happened to that $900 we recorded in March\" always\nhas an answer." }, { "feature": "accounting-export", "featureTitle": "Accounting Export (QuickBooks)", "page": "Exporting to QuickBooks", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Get the three files", "anchor": "get-the-three-files", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/accounting-export#get-the-three-files", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "reports", "invoices", "expenses", "income", "clients" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Under **Your data**, pick a period and export:\n\n| File | What is in it |\n|---|---|\n| **Customers** | Your client directory — name, company, email, phone, address. |\n| **Invoices** | Every invoice raised in the period, one row per line item, with the number, customer, dates, description, quantity, rate, amount and tax. |\n| **Expenses** | What you spent in the period, in its categories. |" }, { "feature": "accounting-export", "featureTitle": "Accounting Export (QuickBooks)", "page": "Exporting to QuickBooks", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Import them in that order", "anchor": "import-them-in-that-order", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/accounting-export#import-them-in-that-order", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "reports", "invoices", "expenses", "income", "clients" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "**Customers first, always.** QuickBooks matches invoices to customers **by name**. Import invoices\nreferencing customers QuickBooks has never heard of and it will either refuse the file or quietly\ncreate a second copy of every client you have — which is a worse outcome than a failure, because\nnobody notices for a month." }, { "feature": "accounting-export", "featureTitle": "Accounting Export (QuickBooks)", "page": "Exporting to QuickBooks", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Why it is files rather than a live connection", "anchor": "why-it-is-files-rather-than-a-live-connection", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/accounting-export#why-it-is-files-rather-than-a-live-connection", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "reports", "invoices", "expenses", "income", "clients" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "This is not new data. It is the same information the Reports page exports, arranged the way the\nreceiving system demands: **QuickBooks' own column names**, one row per invoice line, and dates in a\nformat that cannot be read as the wrong day.\n\nA file you can look at before you import it is also a file your bookkeeper can check, correct and\nre-run. A live sync that silently pushes the wrong thing is considerably harder to undo." }, { "feature": "accounting-export", "featureTitle": "Accounting Export (QuickBooks)", "page": "Exporting to QuickBooks", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "What it costs", "anchor": "what-it-costs", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/accounting-export#what-it-costs", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "reports", "invoices", "expenses", "income", "clients" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "It is on every plan. Your records are yours, and getting them into the system your accountant uses is\nnot something to charge for." }, { "feature": "planned-vs-actual-labor", "featureTitle": "Planned vs Actual Labor", "page": "Hours against the estimate", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Did this job take the hours it was sold at", "anchor": "did-this-job-take-the-hours-it-was-sold-at", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/planned-vs-actual-labor#did-this-job-take-the-hours-it-was-sold-at", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "jobs", "workers", "time-tracking", "reports", "costing" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "The job shows its estimated hours against its actual hours, **while the job is still open**.\n\nThat timing is the whole value. After the job is finished the number is history; during it, it is a\nreason to send a second person tomorrow or to raise a change order today." }, { "feature": "planned-vs-actual-labor", "featureTitle": "Planned vs Actual Labor", "page": "Hours against the estimate", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Which jobs are bleeding hours right now", "anchor": "which-jobs-are-bleeding-hours-right-now", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/planned-vs-actual-labor#which-jobs-are-bleeding-hours-right-now", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "jobs", "workers", "time-tracking", "reports", "costing" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "One list, worst first, under **Reports → Labor overrun**.\n\n**Hours overrun before margin does**, which is why this list exists separately from the margin\nreports. By the time the margin has moved, the hours went first — and hours are the thing you can\nstill act on." }, { "feature": "planned-vs-actual-labor", "featureTitle": "Planned vs Actual Labor", "page": "Hours against the estimate", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Who logged what", "anchor": "who-logged-what", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/planned-vs-actual-labor#who-logged-what", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "jobs", "workers", "time-tracking", "reports", "costing" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "The hours behind a job break down by person, so an overrun is a fact about a job rather than an\naccusation about somebody.\n\nMost overruns are estimating problems, not people problems, and seeing the same kind of work run\nover across several people is how you find that out." }, { "feature": "planned-vs-actual-labor", "featureTitle": "Planned vs Actual Labor", "page": "Hours against the estimate", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Where the estimate comes from", "anchor": "where-the-estimate-comes-from", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/planned-vs-actual-labor#where-the-estimate-comes-from", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "jobs", "workers", "time-tracking", "reports", "costing" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "The estimated hours come from the job's frozen baseline — the line items as they were when the\nproposal was accepted. Changing your rates or your templates afterwards does not move the estimate\nthis is measured against. See [Job costing and margins](/help/costing)." }, { "feature": "costing", "featureTitle": "Cost Modeling & Job Costing", "page": "Job costing and margins", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Set your labor rates", "anchor": "set-your-labor-rates", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/costing#set-your-labor-rates", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Under **Settings → Labor Rates**, write down each kind of labor you sell — Owner, Skilled Labor,\nHelper, whatever your crew actually looks like. Each one carries two numbers:\n\n- **Cost rate** — what that hour costs you.\n- **Billable rate** — what you charge for it.\n\nThe gap between those two is where your margin comes from, which is why the product asks for both\nrather than one rate with a markup bolted on. If your operation is simple, the two can be the same\nnumber.\n\nMark one profile as the default and it is picked for you on new line items.\n\n**Rate profiles are kinds of labor, not people.** One \"Skilled Labor\" rate covers everyone doing\nthat work.\n\n### Changing a rate never changes the past\n\nRaise your rates and every proposal you have already written, and every hour already logged, keeps\nthe rate it was priced at. The old job stays true to what it was quoted at, and your history does not\nsilently rewrite itself when you put your prices up." }, { "feature": "costing", "featureTitle": "Cost Modeling & Job Costing", "page": "Job costing and margins", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Build estimates out of line items", "anchor": "build-estimates-out-of-line-items", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/costing#build-estimates-out-of-line-items", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "A proposal is priced with line items, and each one carries:\n\n- **Estimated hours** at a chosen labor rate.\n- **Materials cost.**\n- **Equipment cost** — typed as a figure, or worked out from a machine's hours or days at its cost\n rate using the helper beside the field.\n- **A markup percentage** applied on top of all three.\n\nFrom those, the product works out the cost, the revenue and the margin for that line and for the\nproposal as a whole — so you see what you are making before you send it, not after the job is done." }, { "feature": "costing", "featureTitle": "Cost Modeling & Job Costing", "page": "Job costing and margins", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Save the work you quote over and over", "anchor": "save-the-work-you-quote-over-and-over", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/costing#save-the-work-you-quote-over-and-over", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Under **Settings → Cost Templates**, build a template for anything you price repeatedly — a water\nheater swap, a standard bathroom, a service call. A template is one or more line items with their\nhours, rates, materials, equipment and markup already filled in.\n\nApplying a template to a proposal expands it into ordinary line items you can then edit. You can\napply it with a **quantity multiplier** — three of the same unit, say — and the materials and\nequipment scale with it.\n\n**A template is a starting point, not a link.** Once expanded, the line items are the proposal's own;\nediting the template later does not reach back into proposals already written, and editing a proposal\ndoes not change your template." }, { "feature": "costing", "featureTitle": "Cost Modeling & Job Costing", "page": "Job costing and margins", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Watch a running job against its estimate", "anchor": "watch-a-running-job-against-its-estimate", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/costing#watch-a-running-job-against-its-estimate", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "When a proposal is accepted, its line items transfer onto the job as a **baseline** that never\nchanges. That frozen estimate is what everything is then compared against.\n\nThe job's financials show three columns:\n\n- **Estimated** — from the baseline.\n- **Actual** — hours logged at the rate they were logged at, non-void expenses linked to the job, and\n equipment usage at its recorded rate.\n- **Variance** — actual minus estimated. A positive cost variance means you are over budget.\n\nWhile a job is still in progress there is also a **projected** figure: what you have spent so far plus\nwhat is left of the estimate. That is the number that tells you a job is going wrong while you can\nstill do something about it.\n\nEquipment appears as its own cost column, and only where one side or the other actually has a figure." }, { "feature": "costing", "featureTitle": "Cost Modeling & Job Costing", "page": "Job costing and margins", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Know what “revenue” means here", "anchor": "know-what-revenue-means-here", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/costing#know-what-revenue-means-here", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Two definitions in this product are worth being precise about, because they are the ones people\nassume wrongly:\n\n- **Revenue is cash collected** — invoice payments plus income records. Not what you invoiced, and not\n what the milestones add up to. A job is not profitable because you sent a bill.\n- **Job cost is only what is tied to that job.** No overhead is spread across jobs. When this screen\n says a job cost you $4,200, that is $4,200 of labor, materials and equipment on that job and\n nothing allocated to it from somewhere else.\n\nBoth are deliberate. A margin figure mixed with allocated overhead cannot be traced back to anything\nyou can act on." }, { "feature": "margin-intelligence", "featureTitle": "Margin Intelligence & Change Control", "page": "Margin alerts", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "See the dollars first", "anchor": "see-the-dollars-first", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/margin-intelligence#see-the-dollars-first", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Every alert leads with **the dollar impact**, with the percentage as context.\n\nThat ordering is deliberate. Eight percent sounds survivable until you learn it is $3,400; forty\npercent sounds catastrophic until you learn it is $190 on a service call. The dollar figure is the\none that tells you whether to act." }, { "feature": "margin-intelligence", "featureTitle": "Margin Intelligence & Change Control", "page": "Margin alerts", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Avoid being told about nothing", "anchor": "avoid-being-told-about-nothing", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/margin-intelligence#avoid-being-told-about-nothing", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "An alert has to cross **both** a percentage threshold **and** a dollar minimum before you hear about\nit.\n\nEither one alone produces noise. A percentage on its own fires constantly on small jobs; a dollar\nfigure on its own misses a large job quietly bleeding. Requiring both is what keeps the alerts worth\nreading — and an alerting system people learn to ignore protects nothing." }, { "feature": "margin-intelligence", "featureTitle": "Margin Intelligence & Change Control", "page": "Margin alerts", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Understand what you are being compared against", "anchor": "understand-what-you-are-being-compared-against", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/margin-intelligence#understand-what-you-are-being-compared-against", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Alerts measure against the **frozen baseline** — what the job was quoted at when the proposal was\naccepted. That figure never recalculates from anything that has changed since.\n\nIf the baseline moved every time a cost did, the job would always look on target and the whole\nthing would be pointless.\n\nProgress is also **explicit rather than inferred**. The product does not guess how complete a job is\nfrom how much of the money has come in; invoicing early does not make a job look finished." }, { "feature": "margin-intelligence", "featureTitle": "Margin Intelligence & Change Control", "page": "Margin alerts", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Know what to do about it", "anchor": "know-what-to-do-about-it", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/margin-intelligence#know-what-to-do-about-it", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "An alert always says **why** it fired and **what to do**, not just that something is wrong.\n\nLabor running over, expenses above the estimate, change orders that were never billed: each is a\ndifferent problem with a different answer, and a warning that does not distinguish them is a warning\nthat gets dismissed." }, { "feature": "margin-intelligence", "featureTitle": "Margin Intelligence & Change Control", "page": "Margin alerts", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Keep it out of the way until it matters", "anchor": "keep-it-out-of-the-way-until-it-matters", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/margin-intelligence#keep-it-out-of-the-way-until-it-matters", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Sections are collapsed by default and open themselves only when something has actually drifted. On a\njob that is going fine, this takes up almost no room.\n\nIf your work does not need any of it, there is a **master switch** in your organization settings that\nhides the whole suite. A business doing flat-rate service calls does not need labor forecasting, and\nshould not have to look at it." }, { "feature": "margin-intelligence", "featureTitle": "Margin Intelligence & Change Control", "page": "Margin alerts", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "What it costs", "anchor": "what-it-costs", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/margin-intelligence#what-it-costs", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "**It is on every plan.** Margin alerts are a calculation over data you already hold on our own\nsystems, and the rule in this product is that Starter gets everything that runs there." }, { "feature": "mileage-tracking", "featureTitle": "Mileage Tracking", "page": "Mileage", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Log a trip", "anchor": "log-a-trip", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/mileage-tracking#log-a-trip", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Add a trip from **Mileage**, or from the job's own mileage tab. You need:\n\n- **Date** — today by default.\n- **Purpose** — what the trip was for, up to 200 characters.\n- **Distance** — to one decimal place.\n- **One-way or round trip** — one-way by default.\n\nOptionally attach it to a **job**. A trip with no job is general business mileage, exactly the way an\nunassigned expense is a general business cost." }, { "feature": "mileage-tracking", "featureTitle": "Mileage Tracking", "page": "Mileage", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Let the addresses work out the distance", "anchor": "let-the-addresses-work-out-the-distance", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/mileage-tracking#let-the-addresses-work-out-the-distance", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "On **Professional** with maps enabled, the trip form takes a **starting address** and a\n**destination**, both with autocomplete, and **Calculate Distance** fills the distance in for you.\nThe starting address defaults to your business's own address, which is where most trips begin.\n\nOn Starter you type the distance yourself and the address fields are not shown — not shown broken,\nnot shown greyed out, just absent. Everything else about mileage works the same.\n\nThe same autocomplete, where you have it, also applies to your organization, client and job address\nfields." }, { "feature": "mileage-tracking", "featureTitle": "Mileage Tracking", "page": "Mileage", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Choose miles or kilometers", "anchor": "choose-miles-or-kilometers", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/mileage-tracking#choose-miles-or-kilometers", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Your organization picks its unit, and every screen and export uses it.\n\nValues are stored **as you entered them** and are not converted if you change the setting later — so\nchanging the unit does not silently rewrite five years of trips into numbers you never typed." }, { "feature": "mileage-tracking", "featureTitle": "Mileage Tracking", "page": "Mileage", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Find and review trips", "anchor": "find-and-review-trips", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/mileage-tracking#find-and-review-trips", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "The list shows the date, the purpose, from and to, whether it was a round trip, the distance with its\nunit, and the job or *General*. Sort by date, distance or job, and filter by a date range or a\nparticular job." }, { "feature": "mileage-tracking", "featureTitle": "Mileage Tracking", "page": "Mileage", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Export it for tax time", "anchor": "export-it-for-tax-time", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/mileage-tracking#export-it-for-tax-time", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Mileage exports as CSV, which is the format your accountant or your tax software will want.\n\n**The product does not work out your deduction, on purpose.** There is more than one method — the\nstandard mileage rate, actual expenses, and rules that differ by jurisdiction — and which one is\nright for you is a question for your tax professional. What this gives them is the accurate,\ncontemporaneous record that any method needs." }, { "feature": "mileage-tracking", "featureTitle": "Mileage Tracking", "page": "Mileage", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Void a trip", "anchor": "void-a-trip", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/mileage-tracking#void-a-trip", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Trips are voided rather than deleted, and a voided trip is left out of every total and every export." }, { "feature": "target-margins", "featureTitle": "Target Margins", "page": "Target margins", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Set the business target", "anchor": "set-the-business-target", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/target-margins#set-the-business-target", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "reports", "jobs", "job-types", "margin-intelligence", "dashboard" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Your organization has one target margin, and it always has: the percentage the proposal costing uses\nto color line items. It starts at **25%** until you change it.\n\nYou will find it on the Margin Intelligence settings beside the alert thresholds, and on your\norganization's details." }, { "feature": "target-margins", "featureTitle": "Target Margins", "page": "Target margins", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Override it per kind of work", "anchor": "override-it-per-kind-of-work", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/target-margins#override-it-per-kind-of-work", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "reports", "jobs", "job-types", "margin-intelligence", "dashboard" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Any job type may set its own target.\n\nThis is where it earns its keep, because a business rarely has one honest number. Service calls, new\ninstalls and warranty work are different propositions, and holding them to one figure means two of\nthe three are being judged by a standard that was never meant for them.\n\nA kind of work with no target of its own uses the business target." }, { "feature": "target-margins", "featureTitle": "Target Margins", "page": "Target margins", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Where the target then shows up", "anchor": "where-the-target-then-shows-up", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/target-margins#where-the-target-then-shows-up", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "reports", "jobs", "job-types", "margin-intelligence", "dashboard" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Once set, every place a margin is shown can say whether it is ahead or behind — the proposal you are\npricing, the job you are running, and the report you read at the end of the quarter.\n\nThat is the difference between a dashboard of numbers and a dashboard that tells you something." }, { "feature": "target-margins", "featureTitle": "Target Margins", "page": "Target margins", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Pick a number you would actually act on", "anchor": "pick-a-number-you-would-actually-act-on", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/target-margins#pick-a-number-you-would-actually-act-on", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "reports", "jobs", "job-types", "margin-intelligence", "dashboard" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "A target is a decision, not an aspiration. The useful one is the margin below which you would\nchange something — reprice the work, scope it differently, or stop taking it.\n\nA target nobody would act on turns every page amber and teaches you to ignore the color." }, { "feature": "tax-reporting", "featureTitle": "Tax Reporting - Documentation", "page": "Tax reporting", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Get the tax summary", "anchor": "get-the-tax-summary", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/tax-reporting#get-the-tax-summary", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "**Reports → Tax summary** arranges your income and expenses into **Schedule C categories**, which is\nthe form a sole proprietor files. Because expenses are categorized that way when you record them,\nnothing is reclassified at the end of the year.\n\nIt exports as CSV for your accountant or your tax software." }, { "feature": "tax-reporting", "featureTitle": "Tax Reporting - Documentation", "page": "Tax reporting", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Put money aside for quarterly payments", "anchor": "put-money-aside-for-quarterly-payments", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/tax-reporting#put-money-aside-for-quarterly-payments", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "The set-aside figure estimates what you should be holding back for estimated tax, based on what you\nhave actually made.\n\nYou also get **quarterly reminders** on the IRS deadlines, which appear on your calendar like\nanything else with a date." }, { "feature": "tax-reporting", "featureTitle": "Tax Reporting - Documentation", "page": "Tax reporting", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Get 1099 totals for your subcontractors", "anchor": "get-1099-totals-for-your-subcontractors", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/tax-reporting#get-1099-totals-for-your-subcontractors", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Where you use subcontractors, the product tracks what you paid each of them across the year and shows\nwho has crossed the **1099-NEC reporting threshold**.\n\nThe threshold is judged by the year the payments were made — **$600 through 2025, and $2,000 from\n2026** — and the tax summary, its CSV and each worker's year-to-date figures all name the threshold\nthey were judged by, so a number is never ambiguous about which rule produced it.\n\nA worker is an **employee** or a **subcontractor**; that is a property of the person's engagement\nrather than a permission level, and it is what decides whether they appear here at all." }, { "feature": "tax-reporting", "featureTitle": "Tax Reporting - Documentation", "page": "Tax reporting", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Know what is deliberately not stored", "anchor": "know-what-is-deliberately-not-stored", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/tax-reporting#know-what-is-deliberately-not-stored", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "**Tax IDs are not kept.** No SSN, no EIN, anywhere in this product.\n\nThat is a deliberate decision rather than an omission. Holding those numbers would create a security\nand compliance burden out of all proportion to the convenience, and the amounts are what the 1099\nprocess actually needs from this system. The identifiers belong with whoever files the form." }, { "feature": "tax-reporting", "featureTitle": "Tax Reporting - Documentation", "page": "Tax reporting", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Treat it as preparation, not advice", "anchor": "treat-it-as-preparation-not-advice", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/tax-reporting#treat-it-as-preparation-not-advice", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Everything here is informational. It does not replace tax software or an accountant, and the product\ndoes not work out your liability or your deductions — those depend on circumstances and methods this\nsystem does not know about.\n\nWhat it gives you is an accurate, categorized, exportable record, which is what any of those people\nor products needs from you first." }, { "feature": "tax-reporting", "featureTitle": "Tax Reporting - Documentation", "page": "Tax reporting", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "What it costs", "anchor": "what-it-costs", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/tax-reporting#what-it-costs", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "**All of it is on every plan.** A tax export is a query over records you already hold on our own\nsystems, and nothing here spends on anybody's meter." }, { "feature": "time-tracking", "featureTitle": "Time Tracking", "page": "Time tracking", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Log time against a job", "anchor": "log-time-against-a-job", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/time-tracking#log-time-against-a-job", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Open **Timesheets**, or the job itself, and add an entry. Time is recorded in **quarter-hour steps**,\nwith a quarter of an hour the smallest you can log.\n\nEvery entry belongs to a job. There is no such thing as a floating time entry here, because an hour\nthat is not against a job is an hour that cannot be billed, costed or reported on." }, { "feature": "time-tracking", "featureTitle": "Time Tracking", "page": "Time tracking", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Mark what is billable", "anchor": "mark-what-is-billable", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/time-tracking#mark-what-is-billable", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Each entry is **billable** or not. Billable time can be put on an invoice; non-billable time cannot.\n\nBoth are still recorded, and that matters. Non-billable hours are the ones that quietly eat a job's\nmargin — the return trip for a part, the hour waiting for an inspector — and a system that only\ntracks what you can charge for will tell you every job was profitable." }, { "feature": "time-tracking", "featureTitle": "Time Tracking", "page": "Time tracking", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Understand where the rate comes from", "anchor": "understand-where-the-rate-comes-from", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/time-tracking#understand-where-the-rate-comes-from", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "A billable rate cascades down and then stops moving:\n\n1. **Your organization's default rate**, set in your settings.\n2. **The job's rate**, filled in from the organization's when the job is created, and overridable per\n job.\n3. **The entry's rate**, filled in from the job's when the entry is created, and **stored on the\n entry permanently**.\n\nThat last step is the important one. **Raise your rates and every hour already logged keeps what it\nwas worth at the time.** Last year's job does not silently become more profitable because you put\nyour prices up, and a client querying an old invoice gets the number they were actually charged." }, { "feature": "time-tracking", "featureTitle": "Time Tracking", "page": "Time tracking", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Turn hours into an invoice", "anchor": "turn-hours-into-an-invoice", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/time-tracking#turn-hours-into-an-invoice", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Billable time on a job can be pulled onto an invoice as lines. Once time has been invoiced it becomes\n**read-only** — you cannot quietly edit an hour somebody has already been billed for.\n\nIf something was genuinely wrong, the invoice is the thing to correct." }, { "feature": "time-tracking", "featureTitle": "Time Tracking", "page": "Time tracking", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Void an entry rather than deleting it", "anchor": "void-an-entry-rather-than-deleting-it", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/time-tracking#void-an-entry-rather-than-deleting-it", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Time entries are voided, never deleted. A voided entry drops out of the totals and stays in the\nrecord, so a timesheet that changed still explains why." }, { "feature": "time-tracking", "featureTitle": "Time Tracking", "page": "Time tracking", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "See what it cost you", "anchor": "see-what-it-cost-you", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/time-tracking#see-what-it-cost-you", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Logged hours feed the job's costing at the **cost rate** for that kind of labor, separately from what\nyou charged. That is what makes the margin on a job real rather than an estimate — see\n[Job costing and margins](/help/costing)." }, { "feature": "subcontractor-pay", "featureTitle": "Subcontractor Pay", "page": "What you owe each subcontractor", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Read the view", "anchor": "read-the-view", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/subcontractor-pay#read-the-view", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "timesheets", "workers", "expenses", "tax-reporting", "my-day" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "**Subcontractor pay** on the Timesheets page shows, for a pay period, each subcontractor with:\n\n- **Earned** — their approved hours and what those come to at the cost rate recorded on each entry.\n- **Paid** — the expenses recorded against them in the period.\n- **Balance** — the difference, carried across periods." }, { "feature": "subcontractor-pay", "featureTitle": "Subcontractor Pay", "page": "What you owe each subcontractor", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Know what counts as earned", "anchor": "know-what-counts-as-earned", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/subcontractor-pay#know-what-counts-as-earned", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "timesheets", "workers", "expenses", "tax-reporting", "my-day" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "**Only approved hours count.** Hours not yet approved are shown as pending and are not in the figure.\n\nThat is deliberate: the number is what a manager signed off, not what somebody typed in. An amount\nyou are about to pay somebody should not move because a time entry was edited overnight.\n\nThe rate is the one **each entry carried when it was logged** — so changing a subcontractor's rate\ntoday does not silently revalue three weeks of work you already agreed. See\n[Time tracking](/help/time-tracking)." }, { "feature": "subcontractor-pay", "featureTitle": "Subcontractor Pay", "page": "What you owe each subcontractor", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Record a payment", "anchor": "record-a-payment", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/subcontractor-pay#record-a-payment", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "timesheets", "workers", "expenses", "tax-reporting", "my-day" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "**Record payment** creates the expense against that subcontractor, which is the same record the tax\nsummary reads. One action, and the balance, the job costing and the 1099 totals all move together.\n\nThere is no second ledger to keep in step, because there is no second ledger." }, { "feature": "subcontractor-pay", "featureTitle": "Subcontractor Pay", "page": "What you owe each subcontractor", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Understand the balance carrying forward", "anchor": "understand-the-balance-carrying-forward", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/subcontractor-pay#understand-the-balance-carrying-forward", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "timesheets", "workers", "expenses", "tax-reporting", "my-day" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "An unpaid week is **still owed next month**. The balance runs across periods rather than resetting,\nwhich is the only behavior that matches how these arrangements actually work." }, { "feature": "subcontractor-pay", "featureTitle": "Subcontractor Pay", "page": "What you owe each subcontractor", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "At tax time", "anchor": "at-tax-time", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/subcontractor-pay#at-tax-time", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "timesheets", "workers", "expenses", "tax-reporting", "my-day" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "What you paid each subcontractor across the year, and whether they crossed the 1099 reporting\nthreshold, is on [Tax reporting](/help/tax-reporting).\n\nTax IDs are deliberately not stored anywhere in this product." }, { "feature": "margin-by-job-type", "featureTitle": "Margin by Job Type", "page": "Which kinds of work make money", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Read the report", "anchor": "read-the-report", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/margin-by-job-type#read-the-report", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "reports", "jobs", "costing", "margin-intelligence" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "**Reports → Margin by job type**, for a period. One row per kind of work with:\n\n- **How many jobs** of that kind.\n- **Revenue.**\n- **Cost**, broken into labor, materials, expenses and equipment.\n- **The margin** in dollars and as a percentage.\n\nThe breakdown matters as much as the total. Two kinds of work at the same margin, one heavy on labor\nand one heavy on materials, are completely different businesses to run." }, { "feature": "margin-by-job-type", "featureTitle": "Margin by Job Type", "page": "Which kinds of work make money", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Act on it", "anchor": "act-on-it", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/margin-by-job-type#act-on-it", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "reports", "jobs", "costing", "margin-intelligence" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "The point of the report is that it changes what you say yes to. A kind of work that consistently\nloses money is either mispriced, mis-scoped, or not worth doing — and you cannot tell which without\nthe cost breakdown beside it." }, { "feature": "margin-by-job-type", "featureTitle": "Margin by Job Type", "page": "Which kinds of work make money", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Make sure it can tell you anything", "anchor": "make-sure-it-can-tell-you-anything", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/margin-by-job-type#make-sure-it-can-tell-you-anything", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "reports", "jobs", "costing", "margin-intelligence" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "This report is only as good as your **job types**. Everything filed as *Uncategorized* is a row that\nsays nothing.\n\nIt is worth spending ten minutes under **Settings → Job Types** making the list match your trade\nrather than living with the ten the product started you off with. See [Jobs](/help/job-management)." }, { "feature": "margin-by-job-type", "featureTitle": "Margin by Job Type", "page": "Which kinds of work make money", "group": "Costs and profit", "section": "Know whether a number is good", "anchor": "know-whether-a-number-is-good", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/margin-by-job-type#know-whether-a-number-is-good", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "reports", "jobs", "costing", "margin-intelligence" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "A margin figure on its own does not tell you whether to be pleased. Setting a target for the business\nand per kind of work is [Target margins](/help/target-margins) — that is what turns *41%* into\n*ahead* or *behind*." }, { "feature": "referrals", "featureTitle": "Referrals & Attribution", "page": "Client referrals and where your leads come from", "group": "Your business online", "section": "Give every client a link to pass on", "anchor": "give-every-client-a-link-to-pass-on", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/referrals#give-every-client-a-link-to-pass-on", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Each client on your books carries their own link to your public page. When a job wraps up, the same\nfollow-up message that asks for a review invites them to pass that link on.\n\nNothing about it looks like a tracking code to the person receiving it; it is a link to your\nbusiness." }, { "feature": "referrals", "featureTitle": "Referrals & Attribution", "page": "Client referrals and where your leads come from", "group": "Your business online", "section": "Get the credit thirty days later", "anchor": "get-the-credit-thirty-days-later", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/referrals#get-the-credit-thirty-days-later", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Anybody who arrives through a client's link is **remembered for thirty days**. If they fill in your\nquote form a fortnight after first looking, it is still credited to the client who sent them.\n\nThat window matters more than it sounds. Almost nobody hires a contractor in the same session they\nfirst hear about one, and a referral system that only credits same-visit conversions reports that\nword of mouth does not work." }, { "feature": "referrals", "featureTitle": "Referrals & Attribution", "page": "Client referrals and where your leads come from", "group": "Your business online", "section": "See what is actually bringing you work", "anchor": "see-what-is-actually-bringing-you-work", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/referrals#see-what-is-actually-bringing-you-work", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Your **Leads** page shows:\n\n- **Which sources bring work** — where your leads are actually coming from.\n- **Which past clients bring the most of it** — the handful of people quietly building your business.\n- **How much of it turned into money received**, not just leads counted.\n\nThat last one is the column that changes decisions. A source producing twenty leads that never book\nis worse than one producing three that all do, and only revenue tells you which is which." }, { "feature": "referrals", "featureTitle": "Referrals & Attribution", "page": "Client referrals and where your leads come from", "group": "Your business online", "section": "Say what you do and where you work", "anchor": "say-what-you-do-and-where-you-work", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/referrals#say-what-you-do-and-where-you-work", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Two things on your business profile drive this and are used well beyond it:\n\n- **Service categories** — what your business does.\n- **Service areas** — where you work, validated against real places rather than typed freehand.\n\nThey shape your public page, they decide whether a stranger can book online, and they are what the\ncontractor directory lists you under." }, { "feature": "client-self-scheduling", "featureTitle": "Client Self-Scheduling", "page": "Letting clients ask for a visit", "group": "Your business online", "section": "Take a request from your public page", "anchor": "take-a-request-from-your-public-page", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/client-self-scheduling#take-a-request-from-your-public-page", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "client-self-scheduling", "captured-requests", "appointments", "leads" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Your public page has a form that takes:\n\n- Their **name** and how to **contact** them.\n- A **description** of the work.\n- A **preferred date**.\n- A **preferred time window** — a morning, an afternoon, a day that suits them.\n\nIt arrives as a lead, and the screen where you convert that lead into a job shows the preference\nright there, so whoever books it can book something that actually works for the customer." }, { "feature": "client-self-scheduling", "featureTitle": "Client Self-Scheduling", "page": "Letting clients ask for a visit", "group": "Your business online", "section": "Give an existing client their own link", "anchor": "give-an-existing-client-their-own-link", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/client-self-scheduling#give-an-existing-client-their-own-link", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "client-self-scheduling", "captured-requests", "appointments", "leads" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "A client you already have gets their own link to the same form. A request through that link arrives\n**filed against their record** rather than creating a second copy of somebody you already know —\nwhich is the small thing that stops your client list quietly splitting into duplicates over a year." }, { "feature": "client-self-scheduling", "featureTitle": "Client Self-Scheduling", "page": "Letting clients ask for a visit", "group": "Your business online", "section": "Let a client call off a visit", "anchor": "let-a-client-call-off-a-visit", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/client-self-scheduling#let-a-client-call-off-a-visit", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "client-self-scheduling", "captured-requests", "appointments", "leads" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "A client who cannot keep an appointment can cancel it from the page that tracks it.\n\nThis is the call that otherwise does not get made. Without it, the customer who has to go out feels\nawkward about ringing, says nothing, and the van goes anyway." }, { "feature": "client-self-scheduling", "featureTitle": "Client Self-Scheduling", "page": "Letting clients ask for a visit", "group": "Your business online", "section": "Where a preference becomes a booking", "anchor": "where-a-preference-becomes-a-booking", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/client-self-scheduling#where-a-preference-becomes-a-booking", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "client-self-scheduling", "captured-requests", "appointments", "leads" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "A preferred window is a request, and somebody in your office confirms an actual time. That was the\nwhole of this feature when it shipped, and it is still the right shape when you would rather decide\neach visit yourself.\n\nIf you would like customers to pick a genuine slot instead — one computed from your hours, your crew,\nyour travel time and your area — that is [Online booking and availability](/help/availability),\nand it uses this same form for anybody outside your service zones." }, { "feature": "customer-tracking", "featureTitle": "Customer Tracking — The Page the Customer Opens", "page": "Telling your customer somebody is on the way", "group": "Your business online", "section": "What your customer gets", "anchor": "what-your-customer-gets", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/customer-tracking#what-your-customer-gets", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [ "appointments", "jobs", "workers", "sms", "equipment" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "When somebody sets off, your customer gets a **text** saying who is on the way, with a link to a page\nshowing:\n\n- **Their name and photograph.**\n- **What they specialize in.**\n- **The appointment window.**\n- **The service address.**\n- **The van to look for.**\n\nThat turns an unknown vehicle in the drive into a person somebody is expecting." }, { "feature": "customer-tracking", "featureTitle": "Customer Tracking — The Page the Customer Opens", "page": "Telling your customer somebody is on the way", "group": "Your business online", "section": "What happens when the crew arrives", "anchor": "what-happens-when-the-crew-arrives", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/customer-tracking#what-happens-when-the-crew-arrives", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [ "appointments", "jobs", "workers", "sms", "equipment" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "The page stops describing a journey and becomes a **confirmation** — they are here." }, { "feature": "customer-tracking", "featureTitle": "Customer Tracking — The Page the Customer Opens", "page": "Telling your customer somebody is on the way", "group": "Your business online", "section": "When the link stops working", "anchor": "when-the-link-stops-working", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/customer-tracking#when-the-link-stops-working", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [ "appointments", "jobs", "workers", "sms", "equipment" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "A week after the job is finished, the link stops working. It described one visit, and a link that\noutlives its purpose is a link somebody forwarded to a stranger.\n\nSee [The links you send clients](/help/secure-links)." }, { "feature": "customer-tracking", "featureTitle": "Customer Tracking — The Page the Customer Opens", "page": "Telling your customer somebody is on the way", "group": "Your business online", "section": "Control what is shown about your people", "anchor": "control-what-is-shown-about-your-people", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/customer-tracking#control-what-is-shown-about-your-people", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [ "appointments", "jobs", "workers", "sms", "equipment" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "The name, photo and specialty come from what you chose to publish on that worker's profile — see\n[What your client sees about your people](/help/client-visibility).\n\nNothing else from a worker's record is ever shown. A worker with nothing published is not described." }, { "feature": "customer-tracking", "featureTitle": "Customer Tracking — The Page the Customer Opens", "page": "Telling your customer somebody is on the way", "group": "Your business online", "section": "What it costs", "anchor": "what-it-costs", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/customer-tracking#what-it-costs", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [ "appointments", "jobs", "workers", "sms", "equipment" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "The tracking page itself is on every plan. **Sending the text needs Professional**, because a message\ncosts per send — see [Text messages and consent](/help/sms-notifications).\n\nYour customer has to have agreed to service texts before one is sent, which is a rule the product\napplies rather than something you have to remember." }, { "feature": "client-hub-warranties", "featureTitle": "Warranties on the Client Hub", "page": "Warranties on your client's page", "group": "Your business online", "section": "What your client sees", "anchor": "what-your-client-sees", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/client-hub-warranties#what-your-client-sees", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "client-hub", "warranties", "client-units", "leads" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "A **Warranties** section on their page, one line per warranty on their jobs:\n\n- **Which job** it came from.\n- **What it covers.**\n- **Labor through a date**, and **materials through a date** — often different, and worth showing\n separately.\n- **Whether it is active, expiring soon, or expired.**\n- **The exclusions** the warranty named.\n\nEach unit at their property also shows its **manufacturer's warranty** end date, where that is\nrecorded." }, { "feature": "client-hub-warranties", "featureTitle": "Warranties on the Client Hub", "page": "Warranties on your client's page", "group": "Your business online", "section": "Where warranties come from", "anchor": "where-warranties-come-from", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/client-hub-warranties#where-warranties-come-from", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "client-hub", "warranties", "client-units", "leads" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Every accepted proposal with a warranty block creates a warranty record on the job. You do not\nrecord them separately — they are a consequence of what your client agreed to.\n\nThe dates, the coverage and the exclusions are what the proposal said, which is what makes the page\nsafe to show them: it is quoting their own contract back rather than a summary somebody typed." }, { "feature": "client-hub-warranties", "featureTitle": "Warranties on the Client Hub", "page": "Warranties on your client's page", "group": "Your business online", "section": "Why it saves you the call", "anchor": "why-it-saves-you-the-call", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/client-hub-warranties#why-it-saves-you-the-call", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "client-hub", "warranties", "client-units", "leads" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "*Am I still covered?* is a phone call that costs you five minutes and gets an answer somebody has to\nlook up. Showing it turns that into something the customer checks themselves — and a customer who can\nsee the cover is a customer more likely to ring you for the work when it runs out." }, { "feature": "client-hub-warranties", "featureTitle": "Warranties on the Client Hub", "page": "Warranties on your client's page", "group": "Your business online", "section": "Reminders", "anchor": "reminders", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/client-hub-warranties#reminders", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "client-hub", "warranties", "client-units", "leads" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "The product already emails about warranties approaching their end. This is the same information where\nyour customer can reach it, rather than only in your inbox." }, { "feature": "client-hub", "featureTitle": "Client Hub", "page": "Your client's own page", "group": "Your business online", "section": "What your client sees", "anchor": "what-your-client-sees", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/client-hub#what-your-client-sees", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "clients", "invoicing", "proposals", "service-agreements", "appointments" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "One page showing:\n\n- **What needs their attention** — something unsigned, something unpaid.\n- **When you are next coming.**\n- **Every document they hold with you** — quotes, agreements, invoices, change orders.\n- **Their warranties**, where they have any.\n- **What was done** on recent visits, if you publish your checklists — see\n [Job checklists](/help/job-checklists).\n\nEach row opens that document's own page, where that document's own rules apply. The hub does not\nreproduce a proposal; it takes them to it." }, { "feature": "client-hub", "featureTitle": "Client Hub", "page": "Your client's own page", "group": "Your business online", "section": "It is not an account", "anchor": "it-is-not-an-account", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/client-hub#it-is-not-an-account", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "clients", "invoicing", "proposals", "service-agreements", "appointments" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "**Nobody registers and nobody chooses a password.** The hub is reached from a link you send, and\nnothing is created by them visiting it.\n\nThat is deliberate. A client portal that asks a customer to invent another password is a portal\ncustomers do not use, and it would make you responsible for a set of credentials you do not want." }, { "feature": "client-hub", "featureTitle": "Client Hub", "page": "Your client's own page", "group": "Your business online", "section": "Send a client their link", "anchor": "send-a-client-their-link", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/client-hub#send-a-client-their-link", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "clients", "invoicing", "proposals", "service-agreements", "appointments" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "The link is on the client's page in your console, as **Open Public Page**. Send it however you\nnormally talk to them.\n\nLike every client-facing link in this product, it is short, it expires, and it can be revoked — see\n[The links you send clients](/help/secure-links)." }, { "feature": "client-hub", "featureTitle": "Client Hub", "page": "Your client's own page", "group": "Your business online", "section": "Let them ask for something", "anchor": "let-them-ask-for-something", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/client-hub#let-them-ask-for-something", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "clients", "invoicing", "proposals", "service-agreements", "appointments" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Where you have the request form turned on, the hub gives your client a way to ask for warranty service\nor another visit without ringing. If the form is off, they see your phone number instead — never a\ndead end." }, { "feature": "client-hub", "featureTitle": "Client Hub", "page": "Your client's own page", "group": "Your business online", "section": "Control what they see", "anchor": "control-what-they-see", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/client-hub#control-what-they-see", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "clients", "invoicing", "proposals", "service-agreements", "appointments" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "The hub shows documents they already hold. Beyond that, what appears is up to you:\n\n- A **checklist** appears only where you marked its template so, and turning that off means today —\n including for work that finished last year.\n- Internal steps never appear on their copy." }, { "feature": "public-page", "featureTitle": "Public Business Page & Lead Capture", "page": "Your public page", "group": "Your business online", "section": "What is on it", "anchor": "what-is-on-it", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/public-page#what-is-on-it", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "- Your **business name and logo**.\n- Your **phone, email and address**.\n- Your **hours**.\n- A **Request a Quote** form.\n- A **photo gallery**, if you want one.\n\nThe address is worked out from your business name and you can change it. Changing it is worth\nthinking about once — an address you have already handed out stops working when you change it, so you\nare warned before you do.\n\nThere is a *Powered by SMG Tools* line in the footer, on every page, always." }, { "feature": "public-page", "featureTitle": "Public Business Page & Lead Capture", "page": "Your public page", "group": "Your business online", "section": "Take a request", "anchor": "take-a-request", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/public-page#take-a-request", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "The **Request a Quote** form takes a name, a contact, a description of the work and — if they want to\nsay — a preferred date and time window.\n\nWhat arrives is a **lead**, which is a lightweight record of somebody who is not yet a client. You\nconvert it to a client when you are ready, so an inquiry that goes nowhere does not clutter your\nclient list.\n\nThe preference they gave shows on the screen where you convert the lead, so whoever books the work\ncan book something that suits them. See\n[Letting clients ask for a visit](/help/client-self-scheduling)." }, { "feature": "public-page", "featureTitle": "Public Business Page & Lead Capture", "page": "Your public page", "group": "Your business online", "section": "Offer real times instead of preferences", "anchor": "offer-real-times-instead-of-preferences", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/public-page#offer-real-times-instead-of-preferences", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "A preferred window is advisory — you confirm an actual time. If you would rather customers picked a\ngenuine slot, computed from your hours, your crew and your travel time, turn on online booking; see\n[Online booking and availability](/help/availability)." }, { "feature": "public-page", "featureTitle": "Public Business Page & Lead Capture", "page": "Your public page", "group": "Your business online", "section": "Show the licenses you hold", "anchor": "show-the-licenses-you-hold", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/public-page#show-the-licenses-you-hold", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Where you track business licenses, you can choose to publish the active ones on this page as a trust\nsignal. Worker licenses are never published — see [Field service compliance](/help/compliance)." }, { "feature": "public-page", "featureTitle": "Public Business Page & Lead Capture", "page": "Your public page", "group": "Your business online", "section": "What it costs", "anchor": "what-it-costs", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/public-page#what-it-costs", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "**Everything here is on every plan** — the page, the form, the leads it produces. Distribution should\nnot be a paid feature.\n\nThe one exception is the **photo gallery**, which needs Professional, because storing a photograph\ncosts us per file." }, { "feature": "import-export", "featureTitle": "Import & Export — Switching in an Afternoon", "page": "Importing and exporting your data", "group": "Your account and your data", "section": "Import in three steps", "anchor": "import-in-three-steps", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/import-export#import-in-three-steps", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "your-data", "clients", "client-equipment", "equipment", "materials", "jobs", "invoicing", "service-agreements", "workspace-setup" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Every import has the same shape, so learning one teaches you all of them:\n\n1. **Download the template** and fill it in. The columns are named and in order, so there is no\n guessing what the file should look like.\n2. **Upload it.** The whole file is checked before anything is created, and if something is wrong you\n are told **the row and the reason** — not \"import failed\".\n3. **Preview, then commit.** You see what is about to be created before it is.\n\nNothing is created until you say so, and a file that is half right is never half imported." }, { "feature": "import-export", "featureTitle": "Import & Export — Switching in an Afternoon", "page": "Importing and exporting your data", "group": "Your account and your data", "section": "What you can bring in", "anchor": "what-you-can-bring-in", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/import-export#what-you-can-bring-in", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "your-data", "clients", "client-equipment", "equipment", "materials", "jobs", "invoicing", "service-agreements", "workspace-setup" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "- **Clients** — the list itself, which is usually the thing worth switching for.\n- **Units** — the equipment at your clients' properties, with their serial numbers and histories.\n- **Equipment** — your own vans and machines.\n- **Materials** — your price book.\n- **Job types** — the kinds of work you do.\n- **Bookable services** — what customers can book online." }, { "feature": "import-export", "featureTitle": "Import & Export — Switching in an Afternoon", "page": "Importing and exporting your data", "group": "Your account and your data", "section": "What deliberately cannot be imported", "anchor": "what-deliberately-cannot-be-imported", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/import-export#what-deliberately-cannot-be-imported", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "your-data", "clients", "client-equipment", "equipment", "materials", "jobs", "invoicing", "service-agreements", "workspace-setup" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "**What comes in is what exists, not what happened.** Clients, units, equipment, materials, job types\nand services are things your business *has*. Jobs, invoices, payments and logged hours from another\nsystem are things that *happened* — and importing those would fabricate a history this product would\nthen treat as real, with margins, tax summaries and reports built on top of it.\n\nYour old system's records stay where they are, as the history. This one starts from the day you\nswitched, and everything it tells you afterwards is something it actually saw." }, { "feature": "import-export", "featureTitle": "Import & Export — Switching in an Afternoon", "page": "Importing and exporting your data", "group": "Your account and your data", "section": "Get your data back out", "anchor": "get-your-data-back-out", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/import-export#get-your-data-back-out", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "your-data", "clients", "client-equipment", "equipment", "materials", "jobs", "invoicing", "service-agreements", "workspace-setup" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Every list exports in **the same columns its import template uses**, so a round trip works: export,\nedit in a spreadsheet, import back.\n\nBeyond the lists, **Your data** also holds the whole-account archive and your accounting exports.\nGetting everything out is not a support request — it is a page.\n\n**Your data is yours.** It is on the pricing page and in the privacy policy, and this page is what\nmakes it a fact rather than a claim." }, { "feature": "import-export", "featureTitle": "Import & Export — Switching in an Afternoon", "page": "Importing and exporting your data", "group": "Your account and your data", "section": "Where to start", "anchor": "where-to-start", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/import-export#where-to-start", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "your-data", "clients", "client-equipment", "equipment", "materials", "jobs", "invoicing", "service-agreements", "workspace-setup" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "*Bring your client list* is on the Get Started checklist, which is the right first move for a\nbusiness setting itself up without talking to anybody. Import the clients, and everything else you do\nafterwards has something real to attach to." }, { "feature": "sign-in-security", "featureTitle": "Sign-In Security — Signed-In Devices, New-Device Alerts and an Org-Wide Requirement", "page": "Keeping the account secure", "group": "Your account and your data", "section": "See where you are signed in", "anchor": "see-where-you-are-signed-in", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/sign-in-security#see-where-you-are-signed-in", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "auth", "profile", "team", "organization" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Your **Security** page lists every device holding a session — the office computer, your phone, the\ntablet left in the van — with when each was last used.\n\nSign out one of them, or sign out everything else at once.\n\n**A lost phone is a row to remove, not a password to change.** That is the point of this list: the\nnarrow, immediate fix, without disrupting everybody else." }, { "feature": "sign-in-security", "featureTitle": "Sign-In Security — Signed-In Devices, New-Device Alerts and an Org-Wide Requirement", "page": "Keeping the account secure", "group": "Your account and your data", "section": "Get told when a new device signs in", "anchor": "get-told-when-a-new-device-signs-in", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/sign-in-security#get-told-when-a-new-device-signs-in", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "auth", "profile", "team", "organization" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "The moment your account signs in from a device it has not seen before, you get an email: when it\nhappened, roughly where from, on what, and what to do if it was not you.\n\n**There is nothing to configure.** It is on, for every account, always — because it is the one\nwarning a compromised account gets while there is still time to act on it." }, { "feature": "sign-in-security", "featureTitle": "Sign-In Security — Signed-In Devices, New-Device Alerts and an Org-Wide Requirement", "page": "Keeping the account secure", "group": "Your account and your data", "section": "Require a second factor across the business", "anchor": "require-a-second-factor-across-the-business", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/sign-in-security#require-a-second-factor-across-the-business", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "auth", "profile", "team", "organization" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "An owner can require that **everyone in this business signs in with a second factor**, or the\nstronger version: **with an authenticator app or a passkey**.\n\nSomebody who has not met the requirement signs in and reaches a wall that opens their Security page\nand nothing else, until they have set one up. They are not locked out; they are pointed at the one\nthing they need to do.\n\nThe owner can see who has met the requirement and who has not, so it is a list to work through rather\nthan a policy you hope took effect." }, { "feature": "sign-in-security", "featureTitle": "Sign-In Security — Signed-In Devices, New-Device Alerts and an Org-Wide Requirement", "page": "Keeping the account secure", "group": "Your account and your data", "section": "What to do if something looks wrong", "anchor": "what-to-do-if-something-looks-wrong", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/sign-in-security#what-to-do-if-something-looks-wrong", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "auth", "profile", "team", "organization" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "If you get a new-device email you do not recognize:\n\n1. **Sign out everything else** from your Security page.\n2. **Change your password.**\n3. **Turn on a second factor** if you had not already — see [Signing in](/help/authentication).\n\nIn that order. Signing the other sessions out first stops whoever it was from continuing while you\ndo the rest." }, { "feature": "passkey", "featureTitle": "Passkey Authentication", "page": "Passkeys", "group": "Your account and your data", "section": "Add a passkey", "anchor": "add-a-passkey", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/passkey#add-a-passkey", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "auth", "profile", "team", "billing", "your-data" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "On your **Security** page, add a passkey. Your device asks you to confirm with whatever it normally\nuses, and that is the setup.\n\nYou can add more than one — a phone and a laptop, say — so losing one device does not lock you out." }, { "feature": "passkey", "featureTitle": "Passkey Authentication", "page": "Passkeys", "group": "Your account and your data", "section": "Where it earns its keep", "anchor": "where-it-earns-its-keep", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/passkey#where-it-earns-its-keep", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "auth", "profile", "team", "billing", "your-data" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "**On the crew's phone.** A technician standing on a driveway signs in with their face rather than\ntyping a password and then reading a code out of an email with cold hands.\n\nThat is also why somebody invited to join a business can finish joining **with a passkey and never\nset a password at all**. The office created the account, and a password nobody chose is a password\nsomebody writes on a sticky note." }, { "feature": "passkey", "featureTitle": "Passkey Authentication", "page": "Passkeys", "group": "Your account and your data", "section": "Why it cannot be phished", "anchor": "why-it-cannot-be-phished", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/passkey#why-it-cannot-be-phished", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "auth", "profile", "team", "billing", "your-data" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "A passkey is bound to this website. Presented with a convincing look-alike domain, your device will\n**not offer the passkey**, because the address does not match the one it was created for.\n\nA password can be typed into anything. That is the entire difference, and it is why a passkey is\nstronger than a password and a code together." }, { "feature": "passkey", "featureTitle": "Passkey Authentication", "page": "Passkeys", "group": "Your account and your data", "section": "Where your fingerprint goes", "anchor": "where-your-fingerprint-goes", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/passkey#where-your-fingerprint-goes", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "auth", "profile", "team", "billing", "your-data" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "**Nowhere.** A passkey is a key pair, and the private half never leaves your device.\n\nYour fingerprint and your face never reach us, never travel over the network, and are not something\nthis product could hand over if it were asked. What we hold is the public half, which is useless on\nits own." }, { "feature": "passkey", "featureTitle": "Passkey Authentication", "page": "Passkeys", "group": "Your account and your data", "section": "If you lose the device", "anchor": "if-you-lose-the-device", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/passkey#if-you-lose-the-device", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "auth", "profile", "team", "billing", "your-data" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Sign in with your password and your second factor, then remove the lost device's passkey from your\nSecurity page — and check [Keeping the account secure](/help/sign-in-security), where you can also\nsign that device out of everything." }, { "feature": "subscription", "featureTitle": "Subscription & Entitlements - Documentation", "page": "Plans and billing", "group": "Your account and your data", "section": "Understand what each plan includes", "anchor": "understand-what-each-plan-includes", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/subscription#understand-what-each-plan-includes", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "| Plan | Transaction fee | What it includes |\n|---|---|---|\n| **Starter** | 0.25% + card fees, with a $1 minimum | Everything that runs on our database — clients, jobs, proposals, invoices, payments, costing, checklists, reporting, your public page |\n| **Professional** | 0.25% + card fees, no minimum | Everything on Starter, plus the things that cost us per use: AI drafting, receipt scanning, file and photo storage, text messages, maps and bank connections |\n| **Crew** | 0.25% + card fees, no minimum | Professional, plus office seats and unlimited field workers |\n\nThat rule is worth knowing, because it predicts the answer without you having to look anything up. A\ncalculation over your own records is on Starter. Anything that spends on a model, a carrier, a\nstorage bill or a bank API is not." }, { "feature": "subscription", "featureTitle": "Subscription & Entitlements - Documentation", "page": "Plans and billing", "group": "Your account and your data", "section": "Know how the transaction fee works", "anchor": "know-how-the-transaction-fee-works", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/subscription#know-how-the-transaction-fee-works", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "**The fee is deducted from the payment, never added to what your client is charged.**\n\nA $150 invoice is a $150 charge to your client. On Starter, $144.35 reaches you after our 0.25% and\nthe card processing.\n\nThe **$1 minimum on Starter** is what Professional removes. On small tickets that is the whole\nargument for upgrading: on a $40 service call, $1 is 2.5%." }, { "feature": "subscription", "featureTitle": "Subscription & Entitlements - Documentation", "page": "Plans and billing", "group": "Your account and your data", "section": "Change your plan", "anchor": "change-your-plan", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/subscription#change-your-plan", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Upgrade or cancel from your **Billing** page. Payment details, receipts and recurring charges are\nhandled by Stripe rather than by us — we never see or store your card.\n\nA change takes effect on your account immediately, and the features it gates follow." }, { "feature": "subscription", "featureTitle": "Subscription & Entitlements - Documentation", "page": "Plans and billing", "group": "Your account and your data", "section": "Know what happens if you downgrade", "anchor": "know-what-happens-if-you-downgrade", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/subscription#know-what-happens-if-you-downgrade", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "**Nothing you recorded is deleted by changing plans.** What changes is what you can do next.\n\nWhere a feature stored something — a receipt image, a job photo — the record stays and the stored\nfile is what becomes unavailable. A checklist report you already generated stays yours; a plan change\nis never what stops a customer being told what was done." }, { "feature": "subscription", "featureTitle": "Subscription & Entitlements - Documentation", "page": "Plans and billing", "group": "Your account and your data", "section": "Get credit for referring somebody", "anchor": "get-credit-for-referring-somebody", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/subscription#get-credit-for-referring-somebody", "plan": "Every plan, with some parts on Professional or Crew", "entitlement": "mixed", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "If you invite another business and they subscribe, you earn credit against your own bill. See\n[Referring another business](/help/referral-program)." }, { "feature": "referral-program", "featureTitle": "Referral Program", "page": "Referring another business", "group": "Your account and your data", "section": "Send an invitation", "anchor": "send-an-invitation", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/referral-program#send-an-invitation", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Open **Referrals** and enter the email address of the business you want to invite. They get an\ninvitation to try the product.\n\nTwo limits:\n\n- **An email address can only be referred once**, across the whole platform. Whoever got there first\n gets the credit.\n- **Up to 100 referrals** per person, which is well past anybody's real address book and exists to\n stop the feature being used as a mailing list." }, { "feature": "referral-program", "featureTitle": "Referral Program", "page": "Referring another business", "group": "Your account and your data", "section": "Earn credit when they subscribe", "anchor": "earn-credit-when-they-subscribe", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/referral-program#earn-credit-when-they-subscribe", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "When somebody you referred becomes a **paying subscriber**, you earn **$5 in credit**, applied to\nyour account automatically. You do not claim it or ask for it.\n\nThe credit arrives when they subscribe, not when they sign up — a trial that never converts earns\nnothing, which is the honest way round." }, { "feature": "referral-program", "featureTitle": "Referral Program", "page": "Referring another business", "group": "Your account and your data", "section": "Who can send and who can earn", "anchor": "who-can-send-and-who-can-earn", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/referral-program#who-can-send-and-who-can-earn", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "**Anyone can send a referral**, including somebody on a free trial. **Only paying subscribers receive\ncredits**, because a credit against a bill you are not paying has nothing to apply to.\n\nIf you refer somebody while on a trial and subscribe later, it is worth checking your referrals page\nrather than assuming." }, { "feature": "authentication", "featureTitle": "Authentication", "page": "Signing in", "group": "Your account and your data", "section": "Create an account", "anchor": "create-an-account", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/authentication#create-an-account", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Sign up with an email address and a password, and you create a business at the same time — your\naccount is tied to that business from the start.\n\n**You have to confirm your email address** before you get full access. That is what stops somebody\nsigning up with an address they do not own and receiving mail meant for whoever does." }, { "feature": "authentication", "featureTitle": "Authentication", "page": "Signing in", "group": "Your account and your data", "section": "Sign in the way that suits you", "anchor": "sign-in-the-way-that-suits-you", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/authentication#sign-in-the-way-that-suits-you", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Three ways in, all equally valid:\n\n- **Email and password.**\n- **Google or Microsoft** — if your business already runs on one of those, this is one fewer password\n to keep.\n- **A passkey** — your face or your fingerprint. See [Passkeys](/help/passkey)." }, { "feature": "authentication", "featureTitle": "Authentication", "page": "Signing in", "group": "Your account and your data", "section": "Add a second factor", "anchor": "add-a-second-factor", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/authentication#add-a-second-factor", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Turn on two-factor authentication from your **Security** page and sign-in asks for a code from your\nauthenticator app as well as your password.\n\nIt is worth doing. The records behind this login include your clients' addresses, your pricing and\nyour bank connections, and a password on its own is one leak away from all of it.\n\nAn owner can also **require** it across the business — see\n[Keeping the account secure](/help/sign-in-security)." }, { "feature": "authentication", "featureTitle": "Authentication", "page": "Signing in", "group": "Your account and your data", "section": "Reset a password you have forgotten", "anchor": "reset-a-password-you-have-forgotten", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/authentication#reset-a-password-you-have-forgotten", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "**Forgot password** on the sign-in page sends a reset link to your email address. The link works\nonce and expires.\n\nIf you signed up with Google or Microsoft you have no password here to reset — sign in the same way\nyou did before." }, { "feature": "authentication", "featureTitle": "Authentication", "page": "Signing in", "group": "Your account and your data", "section": "What happens to your password", "anchor": "what-happens-to-your-password", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/authentication#what-happens-to-your-password", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Passwords are stored **hashed**, using a slow, salted algorithm designed for the purpose. Nobody at\nSMG Tools can read your password, and a copy of the database does not hand anybody your login." }, { "feature": "secure-links", "featureTitle": "Secure Links & Client Verification", "page": "The links you send clients", "group": "Your account and your data", "section": "Why the links are short", "anchor": "why-the-links-are-short", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/secure-links#why-the-links-are-short", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "proposals", "invoices", "referrals", "clients" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Every client-facing link is issued by one short-link service. Short is not cosmetic: a referral link\nused to be 166 characters, which pushed every share-prompt text into a **second billed segment**.\nShortening them halved that cost.\n\nIt also means expiry, revocation and usage are **properties of a record** rather than facts baked\ninto the link itself — which is what makes the rest of this page possible." }, { "feature": "secure-links", "featureTitle": "Secure Links & Client Verification", "page": "The links you send clients", "group": "Your account and your data", "section": "Each link is protected for what it can do", "anchor": "each-link-is-protected-for-what-it-can-do", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/secure-links#each-link-is-protected-for-what-it-can-do", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "proposals", "invoices", "referrals", "clients" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "The security level is decided per link, according to what holding it actually lets somebody do:\n\n- **A referral link** grants nothing and is designed to be shared. It is not hardened, because\n hardening a link meant for a public post would break the thing it is for.\n- **An invoice link** shows a bill and offers payment.\n- **A proposal link** can sign a contract. It is the most protected, and signing it requires a\n [verification code](/help/e-signatures) sent to the contact already on the client's record.\n\nThe important half is that the link meant to be shared is not locked down, **and the one that signs\ncontracts is not under-protected**." }, { "feature": "secure-links", "featureTitle": "Secure Links & Client Verification", "page": "The links you send clients", "group": "Your account and your data", "section": "Links expire", "anchor": "links-expire", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/secure-links#links-expire", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "proposals", "invoices", "referrals", "clients" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Previously a proposal link expired only if somebody had happened to set a validity date on that\nparticular proposal. Otherwise it could sign contracts indefinitely — through a forwarded email, a\nshared laptop, or the browser history on a phone that was later sold.\n\nNow expiry is a property of every link, so a link that has outlived its purpose stops working\nwhether or not anybody remembered to think about it." }, { "feature": "secure-links", "featureTitle": "Secure Links & Client Verification", "page": "The links you send clients", "group": "Your account and your data", "section": "Revoke a link", "anchor": "revoke-a-link", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/secure-links#revoke-a-link", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "proposals", "invoices", "referrals", "clients" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "A link that went to the wrong person can be **revoked**, which stops it immediately. On an invoice\nthat is the **Revoke link** button in the send panel — see [Invoices](/help/invoice).\n\nRevoking does not affect the invoice or the proposal itself. It stops that particular link, and you\ncan send a fresh one." }, { "feature": "open-platform", "featureTitle": "Open Platform — Webhooks and the Inbound Lead Door", "page": "Webhooks and an inbound lead address", "group": "Your account and your data", "section": "Have other software told what happened", "anchor": "have-other-software-told-what-happened", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/open-platform#have-other-software-told-what-happened", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "integrations", "leads", "automations", "organization" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "A **webhook** is a web address you give us. When something happens that you subscribed to, we send\nthe details there.\n\nSet one up under **Integrations**. Point it at a Slack channel, a Zapier or Make account that ties\nyour other software together, a spreadsheet, or anything else that accepts a web request.\n\nThe value is that you stop having to be the integration. A job finishing can update the whiteboard\napp your office already watches without anybody retyping it." }, { "feature": "open-platform", "featureTitle": "Open Platform — Webhooks and the Inbound Lead Door", "page": "Webhooks and an inbound lead address", "group": "Your account and your data", "section": "Get leads in from elsewhere", "anchor": "get-leads-in-from-elsewhere", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/open-platform#get-leads-in-from-elsewhere", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "integrations", "leads", "automations", "organization" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Your business gets an **inbound lead address** — an email address that turns what arrives into a lead\nhere.\n\nPoint a form on a website somebody else built at it, or forward the lead emails a marketplace sends\nyou, and those leads arrive in the same place as the ones from your own public page. They are then\nattributed, converted and reported on exactly like any other — see\n[Client referrals and where your leads come from](/help/referrals).\n\nBefore this existed, the only ways a lead could get in were the doors the product owns: your public\npage's form, the directory, the booking page, the phone agent, and typing." }, { "feature": "open-platform", "featureTitle": "Open Platform — Webhooks and the Inbound Lead Door", "page": "Webhooks and an inbound lead address", "group": "Your account and your data", "section": "Why it matters", "anchor": "why-it-matters", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/open-platform#why-it-matters", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "integrations", "leads", "automations", "organization" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Most small businesses run on more than one piece of software, and the gaps between them are filled by\na person copying things across. Every one of those hand-offs is a place work gets lost.\n\nThis does not make SMG Tools your only system. It makes it one that can be told things and can tell\nother things — which is the difference between software you build a business around and software you\nwork around." }, { "feature": "data-rights", "featureTitle": "Data Rights & Transparency", "page": "Your data and your rights", "group": "Your account and your data", "section": "Download everything", "anchor": "download-everything", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/data-rights#download-everything", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "organization", "legal", "marketing" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "**Your data** holds a whole-account archive: an export of what your account contains, assembled and\nhanded to you.\n\nAlongside it are the per-list exports and the accounting files — see\n[Importing and exporting your data](/help/import-export). The archive is the everything-at-once\nversion; the lists are what you want for a round trip.\n\n**Your data is yours.** It is on the pricing page and in the privacy policy, and this is the page\nthat makes it a fact rather than a claim." }, { "feature": "data-rights", "featureTitle": "Data Rights & Transparency", "page": "Your data and your rights", "group": "Your account and your data", "section": "Delete your personal data", "anchor": "delete-your-personal-data", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/data-rights#delete-your-personal-data", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "organization", "legal", "marketing" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "You can request deletion of your personal data, and there is a real code path behind it that deletes\nthings.\n\nThis is worth stating plainly because for a while it was not true: the policy offered deletion with\nnothing implementing it. That is the kind of gap this feature existed to close." }, { "feature": "data-rights", "featureTitle": "Data Rights & Transparency", "page": "Your data and your rights", "group": "Your account and your data", "section": "Control cookies", "anchor": "control-cookies", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/data-rights#control-cookies", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "organization", "legal", "marketing" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "The cookie banner asks before anything analytics-related loads — not after, and not on the\nassumption that you would have said yes.\n\n**Cookie Preferences** is available on every page, so changing your mind later does not mean hunting\nfor a setting. Declining after having accepted clears what can be cleared and reloads the page, since\na tag that has already run cannot be unloaded.\n\nCookies needed to sign you in and keep the service secure are always on. The service does not work\nwithout them, and they are not something you are being asked about." }, { "feature": "data-rights", "featureTitle": "Data Rights & Transparency", "page": "Your data and your rights", "group": "Your account and your data", "section": "See who else touches your data", "anchor": "see-who-else-touches-your-data", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/data-rights#see-who-else-touches-your-data", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "organization", "legal", "marketing" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "The **subprocessors** page lists every third-party service involved in running the platform, what\neach one receives and why.\n\nIt is published rather than available on request, because it is the first thing anybody doing\ndiligence on a supplier asks for, and \"email us and we'll tell you\" is not an answer." }, { "feature": "data-rights", "featureTitle": "Data Rights & Transparency", "page": "Your data and your rights", "group": "Your account and your data", "section": "Know what happens in a breach", "anchor": "know-what-happens-in-a-breach", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/data-rights#know-what-happens-in-a-breach", "plan": "Every plan", "entitlement": "free", "modules": [ "organization", "legal", "marketing" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Our breach response is published too — what we would do, in what order, and when you would hear from\nus.\n\nPublishing it in advance is the only version worth anything. A plan that appears for the first time\nduring an incident is a plan nobody has tested." }, { "feature": "teams", "featureTitle": "Teams & Roles", "page": "Your team and what each person can do", "group": "Your account and your data", "section": "Invite somebody", "anchor": "invite-somebody", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/teams#invite-somebody", "plan": "Crew", "entitlement": "crew", "modules": [ "organization", "auth", "billing", "workers" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Open **Team**, enter their email address and pick their role. They get an invitation, set up their\nown sign-in, and they are in.\n\nThey can finish joining **with a passkey and never set a password at all** — see\n[Passkeys](/help/passkey). A password nobody chose is a password somebody writes on a sticky note." }, { "feature": "teams", "featureTitle": "Teams & Roles", "page": "Your team and what each person can do", "group": "Your account and your data", "section": "Choose the right role", "anchor": "choose-the-right-role", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/teams#choose-the-right-role", "plan": "Crew", "entitlement": "crew", "modules": [ "organization", "auth", "billing", "workers" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "| Role | What they get |\n|---|---|\n| **Owner** | Everything, including the things that make the business yours: the subscription, the bank accounts and payment setup, the business identity, the team itself, and the right to export or delete everything. |\n| **Manager** | Runs the day — clients, jobs, proposals, invoices, the money, the reports, and the operational settings that decide how work is done. |\n| **Field** | The crew's own view of their day. A Field member cannot reach the console at all beyond their profile. |\n\nThe Owner-only list is short and deliberate: it is the set of things that decide who owns the\nbusiness and where its money goes." }, { "feature": "teams", "featureTitle": "Teams & Roles", "page": "Your team and what each person can do", "group": "Your account and your data", "section": "Understand what a Field member sees", "anchor": "understand-what-a-field-member-sees", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/teams#understand-what-a-field-member-sees", "plan": "Crew", "entitlement": "crew", "modules": [ "organization", "auth", "billing", "workers" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "A Field member does not get a smaller console. They get [a different product](/help/field-experience)\n— one day at a time, sized for a thumb, three or four taps to record a fact.\n\nThat is why they are blocked from console routes rather than shown a cut-down version. An office\nuser sits at a desk answering questions about many jobs; a field member is standing in a yard with\none hand free and one question." }, { "feature": "teams", "featureTitle": "Teams & Roles", "page": "Your team and what each person can do", "group": "Your account and your data", "section": "Know the difference between a member and a worker", "anchor": "know-the-difference-between-a-member-and-a-worker", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/teams#know-the-difference-between-a-member-and-a-worker", "plan": "Crew", "entitlement": "crew", "modules": [ "organization", "auth", "billing", "workers" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Two records, and the distinction matters once you start assigning work:\n\n- **A member** is somebody who signs in.\n- **A worker** is somebody the business pays — employee or subcontractor.\n\nMost people are both. A subcontractor who will never log in is a worker without a member, and you can\nstill assign work to them and record their hours. See\n[Assigning work and the day board](/help/work-assignment).\n\nIf you do the work yourself, you need a worker record too — see\n[Putting yourself on the roster](/help/owner-on-the-roster)." }, { "feature": "teams", "featureTitle": "Teams & Roles", "page": "Your team and what each person can do", "group": "Your account and your data", "section": "What it costs", "anchor": "what-it-costs", "url": "https://smgtools.com/help/teams#what-it-costs", "plan": "Crew", "entitlement": "crew", "modules": [ "organization", "auth", "billing", "workers" ], "updated": "2026-09-21", "text": "Inviting people needs the **Crew** plan, which includes office seats and unlimited field workers.\n\nSee [Plans and billing](/help/subscription) for what each plan includes." } ] }