A job card template exists to make the boring part happen. Nobody skips the fault description. Everybody skips the condition notes, and that is the section that decides who pays when something goes wrong.
Fix these once
- Your business name, address and phone.
- The condition prompts specific to what you work on.
- Your standard authorisation wording, with the figure blank.
- The signature block, switched on.
- Your standard terms about storage and uncollected items.
Leave these blank
The customer, the job number, the dates, the item details, the fault, the condition and the figures.
A template to copy
[Your business name]
[Address] · [phone]
JOB CARD No. JOB-____
Booked in: ____
Customer
[left blank]
[phone]
Item / equipment
Make ______ Model ______ Serial / reg ______
[Your condition prompts, e.g. Mileage ____ Fuel ____]
Reported fault (customer's words)
________________________________________________
Condition on arrival
________________________________________________
________________________________________________
Description Qty Rate Amount
____________________________ ___ ______ ______
Total ______
Authorised to spend up to ________ without further approval.
Booked in by ____________ Customer ____________
Collected by ____________ Date ____________Prompts beat blank space
A blank box labelled “Condition” gets one word. Prompts get filled in.
Compare what you get back:
- Blank box. “Some marks.”
- Prompted. Mileage, fuel level, screen condition, casing, missing accessories, existing damage.
Put the prompts your trade needs into the template as labels. It takes five minutes once.
Variants
Vehicle. Mileage, fuel, registration, spare wheel, tools, existing damage diagram reference.
Electronics. Serial number, screen condition, casing, accessories supplied, passcode held or not.
Callout. No item to book in, so the condition block becomes a site notes block instead, and the signature is at completion rather than handover.
Each is a saved file. Save as file writes it to your own disk and Open a saved file brings it back.
Columns
For most repair work, Qty and Rate for parts plus an Hours column for labour. Add Hours from the column bar and rename Rate as Hourly rate if that reads better on your card.
If you quote a fixed price for common jobs, remove the columns entirely and use a description and one figure.
Renaming labels
Rename Customer as Owner if that suits. Rename Notes as Work carried out, which is what the block usually holds by the time the job is done.
A barcode or code
If you tag items in, the sheet can carry a Code 39 barcode holding the job number, at the top or foot. That is useful when the card and the item are separated on a workshop bench.
A check before saving
- Are the condition prompts present and blank?
- Is the authorisation figure blank rather than left at the last one?
- Is the signature block on, with two columns?
- Are the customer fields empty?
The job card format
A job card’s format follows the life of the item: what came in, what was wrong, what was done, what it cost, who approved it. Customer and contact at the top, the item described exactly, the reported fault in the customer’s own words, the work and parts as they happen, and the signatures.
The reported fault matters more than it looks. “Makes a grinding noise on spin” is a contract about what you were asked to fix; “broken” is not. Some trades call this document a work order, and the title is a text box if yours does. See how to write a job card.
A worked job card example you can copy
A sample job card for a repair:
JOB CARD JOB-0064
Customer D. Otieno, 0700 000000
Item Washing machine, LG F4J6, s/n 811KWJH
Reported Grinding noise on spin; stops mid-cycle
Work done Replaced drum bearing and seal
Parts Bearing kit 6,500
Labour 2 hrs 4,000
Total 10,500
Approved by: ____________ Collected: ____________The serial number in the example is deliberate: it ties the card to one machine when three of the same model are on the bench. The approval line is the other half; extra work signed for at the counter never becomes an argument at collection. See approving extra work.
Next
For what belongs in each section, see how to write a job card. For work that goes beyond the agreed figure, see approving extra work. For how the job card fits the rest of a working week, see invoicing for tradespeople. Or open the job card generator.