What should a job sheet record about the hours?
A job sheet is the shared record between technician, office and customer of what happened. For the hours, what matters is that someone who wasn't there can later see exactly what was done and how long it took.
Materials belong on the job sheet too, but this article leaves them aside. It's about time, which is where most of the leakage happens.
- Customer and location, plus the project or work order for larger customers.
- Date, start and end time, or the duration of the job.
- What you did, in a sentence the customer understands: ‘Fixed boiler breakdown, replaced ignition electrode’.
- Extra work on its own line: anything the customer asked for on the spot that wasn't in the order.
- Travel time and kilometres, separate from work time.
‘Could you look at the water heater too?’ That half hour isn't on the work order. Write it down straight away as its own line, or it never reaches the invoice.
How do you keep travel time and work time apart?
In installation work, travel is a large part of the day. Whether it counts as working time and how you pay your own staff for it depends on the collective agreement and employment contract. How you charge it to the customer is a separate agreement, and it can differ per customer.
So log the drive and the work as two things. Then you can choose per customer how to charge for the travel afterwards, without touching the work hours.
| Agreement with the customer | When it fits | What you need to log |
|---|---|---|
| Fixed call-out fee per drive | Households and small breakdowns | The number of drives to the customer |
| Amount per kilometre | Customers spread over a wide area | Kilometres per drive |
| Travel time at part of the hourly rate | Regular maintenance customers | Travel time per drive |
| Nothing separate, built into the rate | Fixed-price agreements | Work time only |
How do you log urgent call-outs that weren't planned?
Urgent work is the hardest to capture, because it comes in between other jobs and often at the end of the day. That's exactly when the office calls the next morning to ask how long you were there.
Log a call-out before you get back in the van. Two minutes on your phone is enough when customer, time and description are already known.
- Create a separate activity for urgent or breakdown work, with its own hourly rate if you charge a surcharge.
- Log the job against the customer, with start and end time as they were that day.
- Put what the fault was and what you did in the description.
- Log the drive there separately, so the call-out fee or travel time is charged too.
What do you need to record for van drives?
Drives are recorded per vehicle, because tax rules differ per vehicle and per country. In the Netherlands, for example, an employee can get a ‘statement of exclusively business use’ for a van that's only used for business; it's valid indefinitely but not retroactively.
Where a full trip log is kept, the Dutch Tax Administration expects make, model, licence plate and period of use, and per drive the date, start and end odometer readings, departure and arrival address, the route if it's not the usual one, and whether the drive was business or private. More in Mileage logs.
If a technician uses their own car, in the Netherlands you may reimburse up to €0.25 per business kilometre tax-free in 2026. Whether they're entitled to it depends on the contract, collective agreement or your own policy.
Why approve hours before invoicing?
The planner knows what was scheduled that week and spots problems faster than the office: a job logged twice, extra work without a description, a drive without a customer.
Approving first and invoicing after means only checked hours reach the customer. That saves credit notes and arguments. How to set it up without it becoming a weekly chore is in Approving hours. Which hours are billable and which aren't is in Billable hours.
Approve weekly, not monthly. A technician still remembers Tuesday a week later; after a month they don't.
How Half5 does it
In the Half5 app on iPhone and Android you log hours per customer, project and activity. An activity can have its own hourly rate, for example for urgent work. With automatic ride detection the app prepares your drives for review, optionally with a Bluetooth beacon in the vehicle. You set the purpose of each drive (business, private or commute) and confirm the week. Unconfirmed drives are visible only to you. Per vehicle you choose a tax regime, which decides the fields the drive form asks for.
Per customer you set how drives are charged: a fixed amount per drive, an amount per kilometre, or travel time at part of the hourly rate. Those amounts show up in reports; drives don't become lines on the draft invoice. With ‘Approve hours before invoicing’ switched on, the planner approves or declines hours (with a reason), and only approved hours go into ‘Create draft invoices from report’.
Frequently asked questions
Does a technician's travel time have to be paid as working time?
That depends on your collective agreement and employment contract. Either way, log travel separately from work time so you can apply whatever your agreements say.
How do I stop extra work from going unbilled?
Have technicians log extra work as its own line with its own description, while still at the customer. The planner then sees it separately during approval and the office can put it on the invoice.
Can I charge call-out costs differently per customer?
Yes, as long as drives and work are logged separately. Then you choose per customer a fixed amount per drive, an amount per kilometre, or travel time at part of the hourly rate.
What goes into a Dutch trip log?
According to the Dutch Tax Administration: make, model, licence plate and period of use of the car, and per drive the date, odometer readings, departure and arrival address, any deviating route and business or private.
Is a digital job sheet on a phone enough?
For the hours, yes, if customer, date, time and description are on it and someone checks them. How you record materials or a customer signature is part of your own job sheet process.
