Making the work order digital is the easy part.
There is no shortage of work order apps. A technician records what they did on their phone, the customer signs on the screen, and the paper disappears from the van. Up to that point the choice is mostly a matter of taste and price.
The difference is in what happens next. An order that arrives neatly in digital form but still gets retyped into invoicing has moved the work rather than removed it.
What a work order app solves well
- No more paper order sitting in a van until Friday evening.
- A customer signature on site, with the date and time attached.
- Photos of the situation before and after, on the right job.
- Hours worked and materials used recorded on the order itself.
For many companies that is already the biggest gain, and an existing package covers it comfortably. There is no reason to have anything built for that.
Where the order has to go next
This is where most companies get stuck, and it is also where the time is saved:
- Into invoicing, without anyone typing the order again.
- Into payroll, with the hours that are already on it.
- Into stock, so the materials used are written off.
- Into the record of the device that was installed or repaired.
That last point is rarely included. A work order is also the history of a device: who has been there, what was replaced, and what was already wrong last time. Treat those orders purely as invoice lines and that history is thrown away.
Buy a package, or build?
That depends less on the work order itself than on what surrounds it. Broadly there are three outcomes:
- A package is enough when the way you work sits close to the standard and the integrations you need are already built into that package.
- A package plus one integration is the most common outcome. The app handles the work order, and a small piece of software carries the result into invoicing or stock.
- Building it yourself is only worth it when your process genuinely differs, or when there is a device involved that no package accounts for.
In practice it is usually the middle one. Replacing an app that works and that your technicians know almost always costs more than connecting it to what is already there.
Why this is familiar ground
We are part-owners of Veton, a Belgian manufacturer of EV chargers. For a large fleet of devices we build and run the software on the device itself, the remote updates, the cloud platform and the integration with the ERP system behind it.
The installation companies that fit those chargers work with exactly the same orders, hours and records. So we see both sides: what belongs on the order, and what the system behind it has to be able to do with it.
Starting with the two days
The first step is 2 days on site: how the work order travels through your company today, where it gets retyped, and what connecting that would be worth. You get concrete advice, and the honest answer if an existing package is enough.
€1,300
2 days · excl. VAT
Frequently asked questions
Can we keep our current work order app?
Usually yes. If the app offers an integration option or an export, the result can travel from there into your invoicing, hours or stock. Switching is then unnecessary, and it saves your technicians a change they have only just got used to.
Does this still work when technicians have no signal?
A fair concern, because a basement or a plant room rarely has coverage. Common work order apps store the order locally and send it once there is a connection again. Where something is built to measure, that is a requirement set up front, not a detail found missing afterwards.
What if we are still on paper today?
Then an existing app is almost always the first step, and custom work is not. Start there, run it for a few months, and only then look at where the data needs to go. The other way round, you build integrations for a process that is still going to change.
What does it cost to connect a work order app to invoicing?
That depends on the two systems and on what they need to exchange. A first estimate is part of the two days (€1,300, excl. VAT): in 2 days it becomes clear what is going on, including one small working piece running on your own data.
Where does your work order get stuck?
Half an hour is enough to know whether connecting, building, or simply an existing app is the best route for you.