Work order software is usually bought to stop paperwork going missing and then judged on something else entirely: whether anybody can say, on a Wednesday afternoon, which jobs are still open and what each is waiting for. Producing the document is the easy half. Tracking the state of a few hundred of them is the half that decides whether the purchase was worth it.
Three states worth separating
Open and not started, open and waiting on something, and closed. The middle one is the state most systems collapse into the first, and it is the one that matters commercially: a job waiting on a part is not late because anybody failed, it is late because of a thing you can chase. Collapsing the two makes the whole list look like a backlog.
Closed does not mean complete
A work order closed with a single line saying job done has been filed, not recorded. The test is whether somebody who was not there can answer what was found and what was fixed. Where they cannot, the record will not settle a dispute, will not tell you the fault is recurring, and was not worth the tap it took to close.
On site or not at all
A work order written at the address is a record and one written that evening is a reconstruction. That is the whole argument for the app in the van rather than the screen in the office, and it is why an interface that takes four screens to close a job produces worse records than a paper pad.
What has to be kept, and for how long
Records supporting income and expenses are kept for tax purposes, which the Internal Revenue Service sets out in Publication 583, and employment records have their own retention rules that the Department of Labor publishes separately. Beyond the legal minimum, the reason to keep them is the question people actually ask: what have we done at this address before.
Questions people ask about field work order software
How many open work orders is too many?
It depends less on the number than on how many are waiting on something nobody is chasing. Split the list that way and the answer becomes obvious.
Should technicians close their own work orders?
Yes. Anybody else closing them is transcribing, and transcription is where the detail goes.
Can we export the history?
From Dispatchzo, yes, as CSV from the account page at any time, and it stays exportable after you cancel.