Repair and trades software for labour, parts and what's still owed

The job pays; the van doesn't

A call-out is priced in your head before you leave the house — fifty thousand, maybe eighty for the far side of town. What isn't priced is the elbow, the two metres of cable and the roll of tape that came off the van, bought three weeks ago for somebody else's job.

By month end the money has gone through your pocket in both directions and no line anywhere says what the work earned. You cannot say whether emergency call-outs pay better than booked work, or how long the customer who always pays next week has been holding three hundred thousand of yours.

PesaScope puts labour and materials on the same job. The call-out and the hours are services with a standard price; the parts are products that come out of stock as you add them. One record, one total, and anything unpaid sits against the customer's name with a date.

One job, recorded once

1. Charge the call-out and the hoursSet your call-out fee and hourly rate up once as services. The price can be changed on any job that turns out bigger than the usual one.
2. Add the parts you actually fittedPick them off your list with quantities. Stock comes down as you save, so what's left in the van and the store stays countable.
3. Take what the customer hands overCash on site, Mobile Money later, or half of each. Record both against the same job so each side reconciles on its own.
4. Leave the balance where you can see itAnything unpaid becomes a dated debt against that customer. The debtors list shows every balance and how old it has grown.

The list a repair business sets up on day one

Pick "General repairs & trades" at sign-up and this list is already there. Labour goes in as services, the fittings you carry as products with a cost price and a selling price.

Add whatever your trade really carries — breakers, mixers, bearings, gas. Anything you fit twice a year can sit under one "sundries" line rather than be counted piece by piece.

A month of jobs, added up

Materials moved 1,150,000 and cost 980,000. A whole month of buying, carrying and fitting parts earned 170,000 — less than half of what you spent simply getting to the jobs. Almost everything you keep is labour, which is the rate most trades are shyest about raising.

What it will not do for you

PesaScope is not a diary. There is no booking calendar, no job scheduler and no way to push tomorrow's addresses to a technician's phone. There is no clock either, so the hours on a job are the hours you enter, not hours a timer measured.

That is a real limit and worth knowing before you sign up. What it does instead is record what was done and what was paid: the job, the parts, the person who did it, the balance outstanding.

Quotations sit in PesaScope Pro, the paid add-on. If you win work by sending a priced offer first — a rewire, a full bathroom — Pro writes the quote, tracks it from draft to accepted, and turns it into a branded invoice without retyping a line.

Where the money actually leaks

1. Parts fitted and never chargedThe commonest loss in the trade and the quietest. On the job record it is on the customer's bill; in your head, you gave it away.
2. The half payment nobody wrote down"He gave me forty and said he'd finish it" is not a record. Entered as a part payment, the balance is still there next month.
3. The favour that grewA ten-minute look becomes two hours and a new valve. Put the extra on the job even if you discount it to zero, and free work becomes a number.
4. Consumables bought as loose cashTape, screws, fuel and airtime leave your pocket in ones and twos. Recorded as expenses, they explain the gap between what you charged and what's left.

The detail, if you want it

Questions repair businesses ask