JUSTBILLITT GUIDE

The work report, from the job to the invoice.

The hours worked, the material fitted, the client's signature on site: that is what makes a time-and-material invoice hard to dispute. Here is what a work report must contain, when to have it signed, and how to do it on a phone instead of a carbon-copy pad.

What is a work report?

A work report records what was actually done, when you bill hours and material rather than a fixed price. The technician fills it in at the end of the job, the client signs it, and that signature says one thing: the hours and material listed match what was done.

It is the carbon-copy pad of emergency callout firms, plumbers, electricians and heating engineers. Its value doesn't show on the day — it shows three weeks later, when the client finds the invoice high and the hours have to be proven. Without a signed report, it comes down to whose memory is better.

What a work report must contain

• Who — the name and address of the company, the client's name and the site address.
• When — the date of the job, and start and end times if time is billed.
• What — a description of the work, line by line, in words the client can understand.
• How much — hours per person, the hourly rate, material fitted with quantities.
• Travel — flat fee, kilometres or travel time, depending on what was agreed.
• The total, or the absence of one — a work report may carry no amount: the figures are then settled on the invoice.
• The client's signature — with their name in plain text, the date and the time.
• A number — so the report can be found when the invoice is challenged.

Work authorisation or work report?

Both are signed, but not at the same moment and not for the same reason. Confusing the two is the most common mistake.

On an emergency callout both have their place: a work authorisation before taking anything apart, a work report once the job is finished.

Have it signed on the phone, not on a pad

The carbon-copy pad has two flaws: the sheet gets lost, and everything has to be retyped to invoice it. With JustBillItt the report is created from WhatsApp and signed on your screen, with a finger.

From signed report to invoice

A signed report is useless if it ends up in a shoebox. The invoice picks up the report's lines, and the signed report is attached as page 2 of the PDF: the client receives the figures and the proof they accepted them at the same time.

In practice you write « facture bon B-0004 » on WhatsApp, or you click « Create invoice » in your workspace. The invoice number follows your usual series, and a report can only be invoiced once.

Is a signature on a screen worth anything?

In Switzerland a contract generally needs no particular form to be valid: that is the principle of freedom of form (art. 11 CO). A work report signed with a finger on a screen is therefore valid between the company and its client, exactly as a sheet from a pad would have been.

This is a simple electronic signature. It is not equivalent to a handwritten signature under the Swiss electronic signature act — that status is reserved for the qualified electronic signature issued by a recognised provider. In a dispute, what counts is evidential weight: that is why the signed PDF is frozen, time-stamped by the server, and tied to a digital fingerprint that changes if a single character is altered.

Frequently asked questions