Logging job notes and issues
Notes are team-visible and stick to the customer's history forever. Write what you'd want to know if you showed up cold next week.
A note you take today is a memory the whole team has next month. Notes attach to the job, show up on the customer's service history, and are visible to every owner, admin, and crew on your team. They also become your evidence if a customer complains weeks later. This guide covers when to write notes, when to add photos, and how to phrase things so they're useful instead of noise.
Where notes live and who sees them
You can add a note in two places:
- On the completion sheet, when you tap Complete on a job. This is the most common spot.
- From the job card any time it's open, via the three-dot menu. Useful for adding context to a scheduled or in-progress job.
Once saved, the note shows up in three places: on the job card itself, on the customer's profile under service history, and in any report the office pulls for that customer. Notes are visible to your whole team. They are not visible to the customer.
When to write a note
Four situations where a note pays for itself many times over.
1. Property-specific instructions. Gate code, where the spigot is, which side of the driveway to park on, the dog's name. Anything the next crew on this property shouldn't have to guess. Write these once and they ride along with every future job.
2. Exceptions during today's service. Couldn't access the back yard because sprinklers were running. Skipped the side gate because a fence post was loose. Customer asked you to leave the leaves this week. These are the notes that save fights later. The customer remembers the exception, but you'll forget by Friday if you didn't log it.
3. Upsell opportunities. Saw a fallen tree branch. Noticed the mulch beds need refreshing. Lawn has bare patches that would benefit from overseeding. Drop a note and the office can follow up with an estimate without you having to remember to mention it later.
4. Damage or issues you discover. Broken sprinkler head, fence panel coming loose, dead spot you didn't cause. Document it the day you see it so it's clearly pre-existing if anyone ever raises it.
Writing notes that are actually useful
A few habits separate notes that save you time from notes that just clutter the history.
- Lead with the fact. "Sprinklers running, skipped back yard" is better than "Hey just wanted to let everyone know that when I got there the sprinklers were going and I had to skip the back."
- Be specific about location. "North-side fence panel loose" beats "fence is messed up."
- Note who you talked to. "Customer (Karen) asked us to skip edging this week" beats "customer asked us to skip edging."
- Don't put complaints about the customer in writing. Notes are team-visible forever, and the vibe carries. Stick to facts.
When to take photos
Photos beat written notes for anything visual. The completion sheet lets you attach multiple. Three high-value uses:
- Before and after. A 30-second visual proof of the work. Wins arguments about quality and doubles as marketing material.
- Damage documentation. If you find a broken sprinkler head or a torn screen, photograph it before you touch anything. Date-stamped photo on the job record protects you if blame gets thrown around later.
- Upsell evidence. A photo of the overgrown beds or the mulch you're recommending makes the office's follow-up estimate land much harder than a sentence in a note.
Pro tip
How notes save you weeks later
The most common customer complaint is some version of "you didn't do X." When that call comes in three weeks after the fact, the office opens the customer's service history and reads exactly what happened that day. Before-and-after photos. A note saying the customer asked you to skip the back. A photo of the gate that was locked.
Five seconds of typing on site turns into a five-minute resolution instead of a five-hour argument. The crews that log well almost never lose disputes.