How a small plumbing or trade shop can keep invoices and job costs straight without a second job
Photo each receipt to the job it belongs to, see profit per job, and send invoices from your phone without fighting accounting software.
SuperCat
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I run a small plumbing business with one partner and no office person. I want one simple phone tool for jobs, receipts and invoices, so the business side stops being a second job. I'll keep my accountant and my bank.
Build one tool: Jobs with customer, address, status (quoted, in progress, done, invoiced, paid) and notes. Each job has a materials and labor list and shows cost so far, amount invoiced and profit.
Receipts: I take a photo of a receipt at the supply house, pick the job it belongs to, and enter supplier and total. If I don't pick a job, it goes on a "needs a job" list so nothing ends up on the wrong job by accident. Receipts can be split across two jobs.
Invoices: make an invoice from a job in a couple of taps, including partial invoices for jobs billed in stages, as an invoice page and PDF that I share myself, with my payment instructions printed on it. Mark paid with the date and method.
Reports: jobs that are done but not fully invoiced, money owed to me, and profit per job and per month. Export jobs, receipts and invoices as CSV for my accountant.
Two logins, one for each of us, so we both see everything. Big buttons, works on a phone in the truck.
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What you get
- Jobs with materials, labor, amount invoiced and profit in one place.
- Receipt photos tied to the right job, with a list of receipts that still need one.
- Invoices from a job in a few taps, including partial invoices.
- A list of finished jobs not yet fully invoiced and of money still owed.
- CSV exports for the accountant, and a login for each partner.
What usually gets in the way
- Receipts pile up from several suppliers over a busy week and are matched to jobs from memory, if at all.
- Materials get charged to the wrong job when it is rushed, so nobody knows which jobs actually made money.
- Some jobs are only partly invoiced, so money is left uncollected until someone notices.
- General accounting software feels like fighting the tool, and a spreadsheet has no good phone side.
- There is no office person, so every bit of admin lands on the people doing the work.
The longer story
For a trade shop, the work is rarely the problem. The week ends with receipts from three suppliers, a few jobs invoiced halfway and no clear idea which jobs paid off. Full accounting packages are built for bookkeepers, so they feel like a second job to people who spend the day on site, and a spreadsheet breaks down as soon as the work moves to a phone in a truck.
What helps is attaching each cost to a job at the moment it happens. A receipt photographed at the supply house and assigned to a job on the spot is much easier than reconstructing the week on Friday, and a list of receipts without a job turns a quiet mistake into something visible.
The accountant and the bank can stay as they are. The tool only needs to answer a few questions well: what did this job cost, what have I invoiced, what am I still owed, and what did I make this month.
Send it as it is, or change anything first
SuperCat asks a question or two, then builds it.
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