A job card is the one document that follows a car through your workshop. It tells the technician what to do, it records what the customer agreed to pay for, and once the car has gone it becomes the history you rely on when a customer rings up with a question. When job cards are rushed or half filled in, you see it later: arguments about what was authorised, labour that never reaches the invoice, and no record of the advisory you mentioned last time. This guide covers every field worth including, how to record authorisation for extra work properly, and what to do with old cards. The free template above puts all of it on a single A4 sheet.
What a job card is for
A job card does four jobs at once:
- An instruction. The technician should be able to pick it up and know what the customer wants, what has been agreed and what has not.
- A record of consent. It shows what the customer authorised, when and how, before any money was spent on their car.
- The source of the invoice. Every part fitted and every hour worked should be on the card, so nothing is missed when the bill is raised.
- The vehicle’s history. Next year, when the same car comes in, the old card tells you what was done, what was found and what the customer declined.
If your current card only covers the first of these, it is worth redesigning.
Every field to include
Customer details
- Name, phone number and email address
- Address, if you invoice by post or the customer is new
- How they prefer to be contacted about extra work (phone call, text, email)
Get the contact details right at the start. If the technician finds something mid-job and nobody can reach the customer, the car sits on the ramp.
Vehicle details
- Registration
- Make and model, and ideally the engine and fuel type
- Mileage on arrival, written down when the car comes in, not guessed from the last visit
- Anything already wrong with the car on arrival: damage, warning lights showing, missing locking wheel nut key
The mileage matters more than people think. Servicing schedules and parts warranties often depend on it, and it settles arguments about whether a car was used between visits.
The customer’s concern, in their words
Write down what the customer actually says, not your diagnosis. “Knocking noise from the front left over speed bumps, worse when cold” is far more useful to the technician than “suspension check”. If the problem turns out to be something else, the original words show that you investigated what they asked you to.
Work requested and work authorised
Keep these separate:
- Work requested is what the customer asked for when they booked or dropped off: a service, an MOT, “look at the noise”.
- Work authorised is what they have agreed to pay for, with the price or estimate they agreed to. If an estimate was given, write its reference on the card so anyone can find it.
A request to “look at the noise” is not authorisation to replace a wishbone. That distinction is the cause of most invoice disputes.
Parts
For each part: description, part number, quantity, and where it came from (stock or which supplier). Note anything ordered and still awaited. Writing the part numbers down makes warranty claims and repeat orders much easier.
Labour
Each labour line should say what was done and how long you are charging for it. If you charge book time, note the time used. If you charge actual time, the technician needs to record start and finish times as they go, not estimate them at the end of the day.
Technician and times
Who did the work, and when. If more than one person worked on the car, name each of them against the work they did. Recording times on the card is the only way to compare the hours a job took with the hours you charged.
Checks carried out
List the standard checks done on every car (lights, fluid levels, tyre pressures and tread, wipers), with a tick or a reading for each. A blank box tells you nothing. If you run a full vehicle health check, attach it or note its reference. The guide on vehicle health checks customers approve goes into that in detail.
Advisories found
Anything the technician spotted that was not part of the job: what it is, how urgent, and whether the customer was told. Advisories the customer declines are worth just as much as the ones they approve, because they are your record that you warned them and they are your reason to get in touch later.
Customer authorisation for extra work
See the section below: this is the field most worth getting right.
Road test, quality check and sign-off
Who road tested the car or did the final check, what they checked, and their signature or initials with the date. A separate sign-off stops a car going back to the customer with a loose wheel trim, a warning light still on or a missing service book stamp.
Key tag
A key tag number on the card and the matching tag on the keys saves a lot of time on a busy morning. It also stops the wrong car being handed back.
How to record authorisation for extra work
When the technician finds something that was not on the original job, stop and get the customer’s agreement before doing it. Then write down enough that anyone reading the card later can see exactly what was agreed:
- What was authorised: the specific work, not “brakes”.
- The price quoted, including VAT if you are VAT registered.
- Who gave the authorisation: the customer’s name, or the name of whoever they said could approve on their behalf.
- When: date and time.
- How: in person, by phone, by text or email, or through a link.
- Who took it at your end.
- What was declined, if the customer said no to some items.
Phone authorisation is the weak spot. A note that says “OK’d by phone” with no name, time or price is close to useless if there is a disagreement later. If the customer approves something in writing (a text, an email or an online approval), keep that record with the job.
Paper or digital job cards?
Paper job cards are cheap, quick to start with, and every technician knows how to use one. They work well enough in a small workshop where the owner sees every card. Their weaknesses show as you get busier:
- Cards get lost, damaged or left in the car.
- Handwriting is hard to read, especially part numbers.
- The front desk can’t see where a job is without walking into the workshop.
- Parts and labour have to be typed again to raise the invoice.
- Finding last year’s card for a particular car means a trip to the filing boxes.
A digital job card fixes those, as long as the technicians actually use it. That depends on it being quick on whatever device is in their hand, and on the fields matching how your workshop works. Whichever you choose, the fields above are the same. If you are thinking of moving from paper, the guide to switching from paper or spreadsheets walks through the change.
Keeping job cards for history
Treat old job cards as part of the vehicle’s record, not as waste paper:
- File them so you can find them by registration, not just by date.
- Keep them with the invoice or cross-referenced to it, so you can match what was done with what was charged.
- Keep them for as long as the records might be needed. Ask your accountant how long you must keep business records, and remember that the history is useful for far longer than any legal minimum.
- Use them. When a car comes back, read the last card before you start: the declined advisories are often today’s work.
What the free template contains
The free template above is a single A4 job card you can print and use straight away. It has sections for:
- Your garage’s details
- Customer details
- Vehicle details, including registration and mileage
- The customer’s concern, in their words
- Work requested
- Parts and labour lines
- Advisories found
- Extra work authorised, with space for who authorised it, when and how
- The technician who did the work
- Road test and quality check
- Final sign-off
Print a stack, keep them on a clipboard at the front desk and fill in the top half when the car arrives. If you want to see how the same fields look in software, read on.
Checklist
- Record the customer’s contact details and how they want to hear about extra work
- Write down the registration, make, model and mileage on arrival
- Note any damage or warning lights before the car goes into the workshop
- Write the customer’s concern in their own words
- Keep work requested and work authorised as separate fields
- Put the estimate reference on the card if an estimate was given
- List every part with its part number and every labour line with its time
- Record who authorised extra work, when, how and at what price
- Record advisories, including the ones the customer declined
- Get a named road test or quality check sign-off before the car is released
- Tag the keys with a number that matches the card
- File old cards so you can find them by registration
How AutoChain handles job cards
In AutoChain, every job is a digital job card that stays attached to the vehicle. You type the registration and the make, model, year, fuel type, engine size, MOT expiry and tax due date come back from the lookup, with the DVSA MOT history and recent advisories flagged so you can mention them at booking. Find an existing customer by name, email or phone, or add a new one with postcode address lookup, as described on the quick job logging page.
On the job you assign a technician, add work items and parts, keep internal notes that the customer never sees, and upload photos and videos. Jobs move from Requested and Scheduled to Checked In, In Progress, Completed and Vehicle Released, and the jobs board has lanes for jobs awaiting authorisation, parts and payment, so you can drag a card to a new lane to update its status. For extra work, a digital vehicle health check sends the customer a live link to accept or decline each item, and approved work drops straight onto the job, with the customer’s authorisation logged. When the work is finished, you raise the invoice from the job and the parts and labour carry over.
Technicians can clock on and off each work item with job clocking, the calendar shows the hours booked for each technician, and technician analytics compare hours booked with hours invoiced. See everything a job holds on the garage job management software page, or read what a garage management system is for the bigger picture of how garage management software fits together.