Reviewing and sending a service report

The tech finishes the visit from the truck, and a while later a report shows up in your queue. BoltWright drafted it from what the crew captured on site: their notes, their readings, their photos, and the units they attached each of those to. It's a starting point that a person reads before the customer does, which is where you come in.

Where the report comes from

Reports sorts recent visits into three lists. Not ready holds visits whose work is still going or whose photos and notes are still arriving, marked "Evidence still arriving". Needs you holds the ones waiting on a person, including a draft that reads "Draft is ready. Read it and send." Sent holds what has gone to the customer. Each card shows when the work was completed.

Work from more than about a month back that was never sent from BoltWright goes under a fourth list, Older, which only shows up when there's something in it. Most of that is history that came in with your Jobber import. Nothing there is deleted or changed, search still finds it, and you can open any job to review it or leave it be. Each list's count covers all of it, however long the list, and Show more loads the next 25.

A finished visit doesn't always start its own draft. When one arrives without a draft, it says "Customer report not drafted", and a manager presses Draft customer report once the crew's notes are in. Any finished job can have a report, even one closed only in Jobber with no notes from the crew: open it from the job's page with Open report and press Draft customer report. BoltWright writes what the job details support and asks you what was done, rather than making it up. BoltWright shows "Writing…" while it drafts. If a draft fails it says so and offers Retry draft. Either way, the request is only for the report, so it can't finish the visit a second time, and if a draft already exists, office edits included, the retry keeps it rather than starting over.

BoltWright matches each note to a unit by the unit itself rather than by its label. That's why a site with an RTU-1 on the north building and another RTU-1 on the south building doesn't end up with both sets of readings under one heading. A label on its own only counts when no other unit on the site shares it, and a row it can't match is marked "Not in your equipment list". A note the tech captured from a unit's own screen stays on that unit even when the note never names it, and the job page shows which unit each of those notes came from.

How the page is laid out

The middle of the page is the customer's copy, laid out the way they'll read it, and you edit it right there. The trail at the very top reads Reports, then the site, then the job, and each one takes you to its page. Below it is the customer, one line with the site, job, kind of report, tech and date, and one status: Ready to send, or what needs you (tap it to jump there). Then one main button for the next step: Send report, or Download PDF while your shop's email is off. Tech's notes sits beside it, and More holds the rest: Download PDF, Redraft, Discard changes and Back to reports. On a computer, Tech's notes opens the tech's notes and photos down the right side and you keep editing the report while you read them; anything under Needs you stays above them. They follow you down the report: click into a unit or a recommendation and they narrow to the notes it was drafted from, under Notes for RTU #4 (or whichever line you're on), and Show all brings the rest back. A line drafted without any says No notes linked to it and leaves every note showing. Each note also says which lines it was Used on; press one to jump to that line. Press Tech's notes again, or Close, to put the right side back. On a tablet or phone they open over the report instead. On the report's top-right corner, Edit and Customer copy switch between editing and the exact PDF the customer gets, and the switch stays in reach as you scroll.

Everything that's only for the office sits beside the report on a wide screen, or below it on a tablet or phone, in a few short cards: Needs you (only when something does), Sending to, Quotes, and Context. Context holds the tech's Field handoff, anything still open from earlier visits, the site's equipment and the visit details, folded up with counts. The site and job in the visit details link to their pages too. On a phone Context folds away so the report comes first. None of it is ever printed for the customer.

What the customer needs from it

The customer wants to know where the tech went, which units were touched, what they found, what got done, which readings matter, and what still needs doing. The draft's job is to put the tech's facts under the right unit in language the property manager can follow, and your job is to read it the way the property manager will. Completed work should read as completed. The belt the tech couldn't replace should read as a recommendation rather than as work that was done, because a repair that still needs approval belongs in a quote, and a finding on the report can be carried into one from there.

The draft is built from what the tech captured, so a thin section usually means a thin capture. The fix is a call to the tech rather than a sentence you write on their behalf.

BoltWright writes from the tech's own words, tidied up rather than rewritten. It talks about the work, never about the notes, so the customer won't read "the technician reported" or "not documented". If it has to take a sentence out of the customer's copy for that reason, it lists what it took out once under Needs you, so you can put back anything the customer should see.

A tech's last notes sometimes land after the draft is written, and a note can be fixed, deleted or put back after it too. If nobody has touched the draft yet, BoltWright redrafts it about 15 minutes after the notes go quiet. Once you've started on it, your work is left alone: Needs you says who added or changed a note after the draft, with Redraft beside it.

The job's type decides which kind of report BoltWright writes, whether you picked it or BoltWright did. Maintenance gets a maintenance report; Service call, Repairs found during maintenance or Warranty gets a service report, whatever the job's title says. Change the type after a draft is written and the draft stays as it is, because you may have worked on it: Needs you names the job's type, with Redraft beside it to rewrite it as the other kind.

Internal work, your shop's own jobs like a safety meeting, training or truck repairs, has no customer report. Finished closes it with no note, nothing is drafted, and it never waits in Reports. BoltWright types a job as Internal work when its customer is your own company or its title says safety meeting, toolbox talk or tailgate meeting. If it picked wrong, change the type on the job's page.

A maintenance report says what the crew did

A maintenance report only prints what the crew's notes back up. BoltWright doesn't assume routine work on a unit nobody wrote about, and it doesn't fill in a task list on its own. Your shop's standard opening, like "October maintenance has been completed. All air filters have been replaced.", comes from two facts about the visit, shown in the This visit card: whether the maintenance was completed, and whether the filters were replaced, are on order or weren't needed. When the notes say, the card is already set. When they don't, Needs you asks, and one tap sets it and rewrites the opening for you; tap the same choice again to clear it. If your layout prints each unit's work, setting the maintenance as completed fills in your shop's standard tasks on rows the crew left empty. Your choice holds through a redraft.

Context has Where the draft came from: every line of the summary and every recommendation, with the crew's words it came from and a tag that says whether it's their wording, reworded, or worth checking. The recommendation on the report shows who wrote it, in their words. A line the notes don't back up is left out and listed there, with Add to summary if it's right. Something from the notes that's for your office rather than the customer, like a new roof hatch code, shows under For the office, and Save as customer note keeps it on the customer's record. When the crew named a problem but not which unit it was on, the recommendation says Not placed on a unit, and you pick the unit, with the likely ones first, or Building, not a unit.

Something the tech noticed about the building rather than a unit, like a door that won't latch or a roof hatch that won't close, prints under Building with the other recommendations. BoltWright puts the tech's there itself. To add your own, press Add a building recommendation under the table; a redraft keeps it. One on the building can still move to a unit from the same list.

A service call reads like the tech's account

A service report reads top to bottom the way a property manager wants it: a status first (Resolved, Needs follow-up, Temporary repair or Not running) with one sentence on where things stand, then Why we were called, then What we did, then What we recommend when there's follow-up. What we did is short past-tense lines in the tech's voice, with lines about a unit grouped under that unit and its make, model and serial. Each line is its own field: Enter starts the next one, the × takes one out, and Add a line puts one on the end. BoltWright only writes a line, a reason or a status a note backs up. When the notes don't say how the unit was left, it leaves the status unset and asks you under Before you send instead of guessing.

Under What we recommend, each item says whether a quote will follow, and you can change that. A problem the tech already fixed on the visit isn't a recommendation, so it doesn't show there, and neither is something a unit had done before, like an old board replacement. A fix with nothing left to do shows once, in the work, and not again as a finding.

BoltWright only recommends what the tech recommended. When the tech names a problem but recommends nothing, Needs you may offer the usual recommendation, like "Recommend replacing the damaged flame sensor wiring." Add puts it on the report and Leave out drops it; until you choose, the customer never sees it.

Some shops' report layouts print only the summary. For those, the summary carries the whole call: why you were called, then what was found and done on each unit in turn, then anything the tech recommended, and Add puts a suggestion at the end of the summary. The editor shows just what prints there, the summary and the photos, so there's no unit table to fill in that the customer would never see. A unit the tech named that isn't in your equipment list shows under Context, with Add as new unit and Attach to existing. On a layout with a Type of Inspection line, that line is the job's type: pick it on the report, next to Date of service, and set Urgency to Emergency to print "Emergency service call". The choice is saved on the job, so the job page shows it too. BoltWright fills it in from the job when it can, marked "BoltWright's guess" until someone picks. Once a report has gone out it keeps the line it went with. Maintenance reports keep the unit table, with the summary and recommendations on the PDF ahead of it.

The quote lives on the recommendation

Under each recommendation, in a small dashed chip that never prints, is where its quote stands. With no quote yet, press Draft quote and BoltWright starts writing one from the finding while you keep reading the report. It shows "Writing the quote…" with what it's doing, then "Quote drafted" with the total and a Review link. A recommendation BoltWright is already drafting on its own says so, and Draft now starts it straight away. Once a quote goes out it shows as sent, then won or declined when the customer answers. A quote number for work you quoted in another system goes on Recommendations, not on the report. None of this prints on the customer's copy: they still just read "We'll send you a quote."

Context also lists anything still open from earlier visits to the site: the finding, when it was found, which report it came from, and where its quote or repair stands. None of it prints unless you choose. When the customer should hear about one again, press Add to report. It prints beside that unit as "Still open since March 10th 2026: Cracked belt." followed by the original recommendation, and Customer copy shows it in place. The earlier finding stays the one record, so its quote and follow-up carry on as before. Take off removes it from this report, and once the finding is resolved it stops printing on its own. Building recommendations from earlier visits are listed too, under Building, and print under Building when you add them. They have no unit page, so Resolve or Dismiss them right there once the customer has dealt with them.

A quote is written for whoever approves repairs at the site, so BoltWright addresses it to the site contact rather than the billing address that gets invoices, unless you pick someone else. The quote opens with a line about the visit it came from, like "Following up on Ken's visit on October 4 at Eau Claire Office." On the quote, the rail shows the report and unit it came from with what the tech wrote, and links back.

Fixing what the draft got wrong

The editor lays the units out by building, with each building's address under its name, so a site with two buildings on different streets reads to the customer the way the property reads to them. Units without a building sit under Other equipment on site, and a site with no buildings just lists its equipment.

Date of service is its own field. Until someone changes it, it's the day of the visit's work, in your shop's time zone: when the tech arrived, or failing that, their last note or the finish. So a Tuesday visit closed out on Wednesday morning still says Tuesday. If that day is wrong, change it. Visit, under Context, still shows when the job was closed; changing the date of service doesn't change that. Whatever date the report ends up with is the one that shows everywhere else too: the PDF, the unit's service history and last service, the findings from that visit, and the customer portal.

A draft can carry a row that shouldn't be there. Sometimes a tech adds a failed thermostat as its own unit when it belongs to the RTU it hangs off, and sometimes a placeholder row that came in with imported data shows up as if it were equipment. Point at a unit (or tap it on a phone) and its ⋯ menu shows what you can do with it: Show notes and photos, Move to another unit for the rare note that landed on the wrong one, and Remove from report. Remove takes the row off this report only, and it waits under Removed from this report with a Restore button in case you change your mind. A row that isn't linked to a unit yet shows "Not in your equipment list" with Attach to existing, to choose the unit on that site it really belongs to, and Add as new unit, for the genuine case where the tech found something the system had never heard of. A thermostat hanging off an RTU isn't that case.

Units print by building, then in number order, so EF #9 comes before EF #10. To put a row somewhere else, drag it with the mouse. On a phone or from the keyboard, use Move up or Move down in its ⋯ menu. You can also tell Bolt something like "put EF 10 after EF 9". Once you've moved a row, the report keeps your order, including through a redraft, and a unit new to the report slots in by its number. A row stays with its building, since each building's units print together.

BoltWright picks the photos too. When it drafts the report it looks at every photo the techs took and keeps the ones that show the customer the equipment, the work and what was found, as many as help, leaving out blurry shots, near-duplicates and receipts. The Photos section at the bottom of the report shows exactly the photos the customer will get, in order, and a maintenance report in your shop's own layout prints them on a page of their own after the report. Each photo's ⋯ menu has Move earlier, Move later and Remove from report, with Undo right after a removal. Choose photos opens every photo on the job: a checked one prints, so tap a photo to put it on the report or take it off. A photo that reached the job after the pick is marked New and waits for you rather than going on by itself. If a tech texted you a photo, Upload photos in the same window adds it, or drag it onto the report's photos on a computer. It goes on the job as an office note and prints last. Once you change the photos, a redraft keeps your choice. A report drafted before BoltWright picked photos keeps the ones it had, so a maintenance report in your own layout from before then has none until you press Add photos or Redraft. The photos themselves stay with the visit.

Anything BoltWright couldn't settle from the notes is listed under Needs you, along with maintenance units whose routine work has no notes or photos behind it (those units carry a small Confirm on the report too). Once you've dealt with a question, press Done beside it and it comes off the list. It's an office checklist, so clearing it doesn't change the customer's copy.

If someone else in the office changes the same part of the report while you're typing, BoltWright doesn't save over them. It stops and says so. Reload the report to see their version, and what you typed stays on the page so you can copy back what you still want.

Fixing a tech's note

A typo or a wrong word in a tech's note is best fixed in the note itself, so the next draft and the job's history both have it right. On the job or visit page, a note saved from the field has a ⋯ menu with Edit words…, History and Delete note… for the tech who wrote it, for the office, and for the lead on a visit BoltWright scheduled. Only the words change, and the photos and the recording stay exactly as the tech took them. An edited note says Edited with who did it and when, and History shows every version with who changed it and whether they did it from Office, the phone or Bolt. If someone else changed the words while you were typing, BoltWright shows you their version and keeps yours in the box, so nobody's fix gets replaced without them seeing it.

When the situation changed after the note was written, like a belt that was on order and is now installed, the tech adds an update instead of rewriting what was true at the time. The update sits under the original, marked Update, and the report treats it as the current state.

Delete note… is for a practice note or one taken on the wrong visit, and the note's photos and recording go with it. Deleted notes are listed under Removed notes on the job, with who deleted each one and why, and the office can press Restore to put one back exactly as it was. A note on a report that has already gone to the customer can't be deleted, and neither can a unit's own photo, which you change from the unit instead.

A report that has already gone to the customer is never rewritten. When someone edits one of its notes afterwards, the report shows Note edited after this report with the new words, and Follow-up lists the same change, so the office can decide whether the customer needs to hear about it and then press Seen.

The tech's Done for now notes

Under Context, in Field handoff, you'll see each tech's own answer for the visit: who it's from, whether their assigned work is done, they're coming back, or they handed over, their note, and when the office received it. If two techs worked it, each has their own. Those notes are for the office and never go in the customer's copy, and reading them doesn't draft, approve or send anything.

Sending it

Nothing in the report reaches the customer until you send it. When it's right, press Send report. It opens one window with everything about sending: tick who gets it from the customer's contacts, add someone by name and email (and save them to the customer if you like), send it yourself instead, or ask for a signature. Everyone you tick gets their own email, addressed to them. BoltWright remembers who you chose for that site and ticks them next time, so usually you just press send; another building of the same customer has its own list. Sending to beside the report shows who it's set to go to. Review email shows exactly what goes out before you commit, including who it's to, the company it's from, where replies go, the office copy, and the PDF attached. You can change the subject and message right there for this one send, and the PDF and links stay in whatever you type. Your standing wording stays in Admin, Templates. Send report now sends it.

BoltWright emails the finished PDF from your company, with replies and a copy going to your office. When the report has photos, the email also links to a page where your customer sees them unit by unit, opens any of them large and flips through the rest, and opens the PDF. The link works for as long as the report stays sent; while you're correcting it, the page says the report is being updated. The report tracks each person's email from there: queued, sending, accepted, delivered, or bounced and failed with what to check. If one address bounces, that person is flagged, on the report and on Today, and the report stays sent as long as someone else got it. Send another copy resends the same PDF. A sent report stays as sent while you read it, so looking something up can't reopen it. To correct it, choose Edit and resend at the top: your first change puts it back to a draft, and the earlier email is marked as an earlier version of the report. If you'd rather send it yourself, Download PDF, Open Gmail draft and Record as sent are still there, and Record as sent asks you to confirm first.

Most shops send the report the same day and the quote after, often once the supplier's pricing is in, so quotes never hold up the report. After you send it, Next beside the report lists the recommendations still waiting on a quote, one tap each to review or draft. When a quote is already drafted and you've checked it, the final review offers Send the quote too? It's never ticked for you. Ticking it shows who the quote goes to and its lines. When the quote goes to the same person as the report, it goes in the same email: the review shows one email with both PDFs, and the message gives the quote's total, how long it's good for and a link to accept or decline it. Sending approves the quote, just as Send does on the quote itself, and the quote keeps its own receipt. A quote you send to someone else says Its own email to them and goes right after the report. If that email bounces, sending the report again starts with the same quote ticked. A quote over your shop's approval amount goes along only if you can approve it. With your shop's email off, a quote that's ready is ticked for you, because nothing leaves BoltWright: the main button reads Download report and quote, and it shows the quote under Quote in the same email before you download. You get two PDFs to attach to one email, and Record as sent records both. Untick it to download the report alone.

Reports → Recommendations lists every recommendation across your reports with where its quote stands: To quote, Quoted, Won and All. Each row has the same Draft quote or Review as the report; a recommendation written on a report row (not a finding) offers Open report to quote instead. For history from before BoltWright, the ⋯ on a row links an existing quote or keeps the number from your old system. Older drafts nobody reviewed, mostly from Jobber, sit behind Show … from older drafts and aren't counted in the tabs.

The PDF is frozen as sent. If you move a unit to a different building afterwards, the preview in Office follows the current record, but the PDF the customer already has stays the way it went out. While your shop's messages are in Test, report emails go to your test inbox instead of the customer and don't mark the report sent. A signature link in a test copy opens the page your customer would see, but it can't be signed.

Nothing goes out by itself

Finishing a visit doesn't send the customer anything, not the report and not a text. The report goes out only when someone sends it.

Updated November 4, 2026.