Handyman Work Order Template [Free Download - Easy to Use]

A handyman work order template is a document containing empty fields that supervisors and managers use to enter information about customers’ service requests and the steps for field technicians to complete them.

It helps to ensure technicians know the issue and address it just as the customer requested. It also fosters consistency across the company and serves as a valuable document to resolve conflicts about completed work or identify the guilty party for an error.

However, to be clear, templates still have their deficiencies. Companies that rely on them eventually encounter inefficiencies, especially as they scale and the number of work orders they create daily increases.

Employees will spend hours filing paperwork and entering the exact details repeatedly. And when they forget to carry the document to the job site, they’ll be forced to either return to the office or waste precious work hours on back-and-forth phone calls. 

For this reason, we’ll use the article’s first section to discuss how to use our work order template as a stop-gap measure. Then, toward the end, we’ll explore how handyman business owners use ServiceTitan to permanently erase inefficiencies when creating and managing work orders.

How Can I Use The Handyman Work Order Template?

Here’s an overview of our two-page work order template:

On the first page, you’ll find text boxes for the basic details a comprehensive work order contains, including:

• The name of the company and its contact details

• Details about the customer—their name, address, phone number, etc.

• Materials, tools, and equipment needed for the job

• Work scope description

• Estimated labor cost

• Additional fields for recurring maintenance work orders and jobs covered by warranties  

• Next step suggestions

Turning to the next page reveals fields for capturing the details needed to close the deal. These include the customer’s payment details, signature, warranty description, and the contract’s terms and conditions.

Giving this template to techs and staff simplifies the process of creating work orders that capture all key details. It also gives all your work orders a homogenous appearance, which supports brand consistency and reinforces your brand identity.

Conversely, templates present some challenges, particularly as you scale and service requests increase. Static documents don’t eliminate the error-prone manual entry process and the repetitive process of copying and pasting information from one platform to another.

What is a Handyman Work Order?

A handyman work order—sometimes called a service ticket or job order—is a document that captures an issue to be addressed (as described by the customer), the technician assigned to the job, and other details. 

On the other hand, a work order template is a skeleton document with text boxes handymen, and general contractors use to capture every detail about a job. It includes fields for the customer’s name, technician’s name, materials required, total costs, etc.

Before creating a work order, a project manager or someone in charge must have estimated the associated costs, captured the steps involved, and approved the project. The technician will then use the work order to understand the job scope, while the CSR will require a copy for record-keeping and to generate an invoice.

We advise handyman companies to create a work order for each project for these key reasons:

• It documents all details agreed between the handyman company and the customer.

• It can be used to monitor the status of a job.

• It can be used to resolve disputes by providing evidence of the scope of the problem you promised to fix.

• Customers use the information captured in work orders to confirm if the details the CSR recorded from the intake call are accurate.

What Does a Handyman Work Order Include?

Work orders contain the following components:

• Document title and project number: Work order is usually written in caps at the top alongside a number to identify the specific service request.

• Your company details: Your company name, address, phone number, and logo should be at the top. 

• Customer information: Includes the customer’s name, address, and phone number.

• Dates: Includes the date the service was requested, when it's expected to start, and when it should be finished.

• Service description: The description of the type of service being rendered and its associated unit costs.

• Estimated total cost: This is the total amount payable by the customer. It’s the sum of the costs of each service and tax and includes a text field for the customer’s signature.

• Additional notes: Supervisors and managers can write a note explaining extra details.

Those extra details could be the cost of materials used, warranties for the service offered, and a link to a customer satisfaction survey (if it's a digital work order).

How Do You Create a Handyman Work Order?

Take these steps to create a basic handiwork work order:

• Understand the request: leave no stone unturned to understand what needs to be addressed. You can speak with the customer or use the details recorded from the intake call.

• Determine the request type: Is the request a one-time job? Is it part of a recurring maintenance contract? Is it just an inspection? This will determine how the work order is scheduled and the start and end dates.

• Identify the required resources: Identify all the materials needed to fulfill the work order and confirm their availability and prices before proceeding to the next step.

• Input the relevant details into the work order: Fill up the template with the necessary information.

• Share it with the technician and customer: Give the work order to the technician and hand over a copy to the customer.

How Does ServiceTitan Help Streamline the Work Order Process?

As we mentioned earlier, Excel, MS Word, and PDF work order templates may serve handyman companies that are still in their infancy and have few customers. However, their deficiencies become apparent as companies scale and handle more projects daily.

Since they’re isolated from other business tools, employees will repeatedly enter the same data and waste work hours transferring information between handyman applications instead of focusing on helping customers. This increases the potential for errors, which may cause the company to charge the wrong amount for projects and erode customer trust.

ServiceTitan, our field service management software, integrates work order management with other applications handyman companies use to run their operations. 

We’ll now explain how the software accomplishes this.

CSRs can capture all essential job details

ServiceTitan’s Call Booking software uses a workflow to guide CSRs in recording every piece of information needed to create a work order. To ensure they capture accurate data, the software facilitates the process by providing drop-down menus and text boxes on the call booking screen with the following:

• Job summary

• A call bubble for associating the call to the source marketing campaign

• Job type

• Business unit

• Start date and time for the job

• Special tags

• Priority—normal, high, or urgent

• Customer details—name, zip code, address, and phone number

After the call, all data captured by the CSR is automatically uploaded and saved to the cloud. Using this data, ServiceTitan auto-populates every work order created in the platform, so employees don’t have to enter details manually.

Field technicians can use our mobile application to access the same data and listen to call recordings to confirm the accuracy of every work order handed to them. They can also use the application to access job-related documents such as estimates, proposals, and contracts, which are auto-filled with information obtained from the intake call.

With ServiceTitan, contractors and their employees can avoid manual data entry or transfer, which lessens the potential for human error.

Work-order creation is incorporated into the scheduling and dispatching process

Once CSRs have captured all the necessary information on the call booking screen, ServiceTitan will redirect them to the Service Scheduling software. The software has a display interface containing open appointment slots based on the job type and priority selected on the call booking screen. You can use ServiceTitan’s Adjustable Capacity Planning to increase or reduce the available time slots based on various factors to prevent under- and over-booking.

After landing on the Service Scheduling interface, CSRs can select a date and time the customer agrees with, assign a technician fit to handle the issue using the right-click or drag-and-drop functionality, and click the Book Job button.

Once the button is clicked, customers receive a text or email notification containing the work order that summarizes the call. If the work order is accurate, the customer will confirm the appointment, automatically changing the dispatch board's job status from “scheduled” to “confirmed.”

The board also displays dispatched and unassigned jobs, plus assigned jobs and their respective statuses: Arrived, Paused, and Completed. It also enables the tracking of technicians’ real-time locations, communication with employees and customers, and optimization of routes to reduce travel time between job sites.

This makes it easy for dispatchers to track the job status in real time and deliver precise updates to customers.

Techs build estimates and proposals from work-order information

With ServiceTitan’s Mobile Application, technicians can build accurate proposals from the ground up. That’s because of the Pricebook Pro integration, which sources up-to-date price information from reputable manufacturers and lets business owners change material prices from one place.

The application’s integration with the pricebook also provides high-resolution photos and videos from manufacturers’ and suppliers’ catalogs. Technicians can use the visuals delivered via the integration to demonstrate the importance of a material or part when showing customers the results of an inspection and explaining why a repair is needed.

They can also use visuals to build, present, and sell sleek-looking good-better-best estimates, with price points tailored to various budgets.

This extra information can convince customers to sign an upsell work order or proposal, boosting the amount generated per service visit.

Check out our estimate template for creating professional-looking estimates in the field.

You get paid quickly with integrated invoices and payments

Before technicians leave a job site, they can use our invoice generator to create professional-standard invoices, which customers can sign and pay immediately. They do not need to call the office as everything they need is on the tablet: the customer’s details, service description, images, and videos to enhance the invoice and also a template design based on the company’s standards.

Office employees can also use the platform to create and deliver invoices by mail, email, fax, and text. If the invoice is accurate, customers can pay immediately via a customized portal and view their entire service history. This same process applies to all job-related documents, such as purchase orders, proposals, estimates, etc.

This makes it easy to collect customer payments, stabilizing your cash flow. 

ServiceTitan is an all-in-one app that helps handyman companies streamline their entire operations, from project management to field services. With ServiceTitan, you can streamline operations, automate work order management, boost profitability, and attract more customers.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

We’ve identified some common questions handyman business owners have when creating work orders. This section seeks to answer these questions.

Who writes a work order?

The person responsible for writing a work order depends mainly on the company's size. Service managers and dispatchers are in charge of creating work orders for large companies. But if it’s a small or single-man operation, that responsibility falls on technicians or supervisors.

Is a work order a binding contract?

Yes, it is. By signing the work order, customers show they consent to the details in the agreement and give you the go-ahead to start the job. It also means you’re bound to fulfill all that’s promised in the work order.

Can a work order be used as an invoice?

Although both documents are somewhat different, it’s not uncommon for handyman businesses to issue work orders as invoices. That works as long as the work order contains all the information found in a standard invoice.

What’s the difference between a work order and a work request?

A work request is typically created by someone outside the maintenance team who notices an issue with a handyman tool or equipment. For example, a CSR who discovers the personal computer is not working properly can create a work request and send it to the maintenance department.

On the other hand, work orders authorize technicians to perform a task—inspect an electrical installation, fix a broken faucet, decongest a drain, etc.