Paper to paperless/electronic

[Tradie]

Any tips on moving from writting everything in books to going electronic? Software programs, apps etc.

If you use programs like servcraft or job site specific apps let us know, which work for you and which dont.

Since day one and still to this day, everything is wrtten down in books, sketches drawings etc, all done on paper.

I have a job book which records job numbers, dates and I even still use a highligther to mark when customers pay.

I have all the electronics required to go paperless, tablets, smart phones, smart watch, laptops, etc, but I still write everything down in soft cover brown books, I have draws full of document, drawings.

[Tradie]

It is time to start the upgrade,

Staring with the old job book, just going to copy everything from the book to an XL spread sheeet, making it easier for the accounts people.

Each line will have Date/job no./custome rname/ job description/ invoice no./date invoiced/ Payment date/ vat amount/invoice amount.

When the customer pays you highlight the invoice amount, this works great because you see outstanding payments as you open the job book. For example I have 5 outstanding payments going back to 2023, they stand out like asire thumb. It reminds me on a daily basis I dont do work them anymore. It is sad because, one had been a customer more than 20 years, I let it slide for 8 months then decided it was time to drop them. They stil lhavent settled the outstanding balance, but still call trying to get me to do work for them, because nobody else can repair the old star delta machines.

Free advice: Dont let outstanding balances drag out longer than 3 months, cut ties, I have learnt from years of doing this, if they havent settled within 3 months or made a payment arrangement it is best to move on, Dont be fooled by the "we have a big project coming up" it is the oldest trick in the book.

[Tradie]

By the way, if you are starting out, dont rush out and buy tons of "stuff" , make do with what you have, then upgrade as you grow (if you dont have a tax problem, dont waste money).

Cash flow will make or break you, overheads for vehicles will break you, you dont need a double cab 4x4 unless you are working in remote locations with hectic roads, then you better make sure you include the addtiinal overheads.

I have a pile of electronics which will be reviewed and upgraded to suit the reuirements

The office laptop has been upgrade from windows 10 to windows 11 lite, much faster, ram increased to 8 gig, an SSD installed and the fan replaced because that whining sounds drove me nuts.

Site laptop to upgrade to a lenova thinkpad, I5 10 th gen with a 512 Gig SSD and 16 gig ram, whhich wil lbe fast enough to run all the software I current use.

An ipad 10 (about 2 years old) works fine.

Phone to upgrade from an old iphone SE to an iphone SE 3rd gen 2020, cheap and small enough to fir in my pocket.

An external router with a sm card for site internet and for testing systems, it must have ports to plug in cable for the CCTV project setups, if you cant use the site internet.

[Derlyn]

I'm still on windows 7.

[Tradie]

I'm still on windows 7.

I still use XP on a netbook, specifically for test equipment.