Daybook
Handyman services
Daybook runs a handyman business end to end: a request becomes a booked half day, the handyman quotes at the door from your own price list, and the list — every item the customer asked for, ticked as it is done — is the checklist on the job, with the hours and the materials on it. Then the invoice, with GST/HST by province.
The rules the trade lives under
A quote signed at an Ontario client’s home shows them their right to cancel for 10 days, and their copy is emailed with the last day to cancel.
FLHA forms in the crew app, on Crew and up: the hazards, the controls, the conditions and the techs on site, filled in on the phone at the start of the day and filed on the job the moment they land.
The right GST or HST for the province on every invoice, and the Sales Tax report ready when filing season is.
A mileage log that keeps itself, at the per-kilometre rate you set, ready for the accountant at year end.
Daybook names these so you can see where it helps. It is not a compliance product: it does not know which work your province reserves for a licensed trade, the hazard assessment is yours to fill in, and your accountant has the last word.
Three things that go wrong
The customer texts nine things, three get done, and by Friday nobody can say which six are left or why.
In Daybook The list is the checklist on the job: every item as the customer gave it, ticked as it is done, what was not done and why, and what you noticed while you were there.
The morning runs long, the receipt for the materials is in the truck, and the invoice is a guess made on Sunday night.
In Daybook The hours on site and the materials used are on the sheet, the price list has the hour, the half day and the full day on it, and a finished call offers its invoice the moment it is marked complete.
A property on contract gets a visit every month, and the owner wants to know what was checked, what was fixed and what is coming.
In Daybook The maintenance round is one sheet per visit — what was checked, what was fixed, what to report to the owner — on a recurring job whose visits stay on the schedule.
The brief
A job is a week of emails, texts, notes and updates from the crew. Daybook files each one on the job it belongs to and writes the brief: the gate code, the deadline, what the customer asked for, what you owe them and what they owe you — rewritten whenever something new arrives.
The brief and the AssistantTexting comes with the top plan of every rate card (Company, for a trade), from a verified toll-free number of your own.
A real capture of a contractor’s job. Daybook wrote every line of this brief from the messages on the job; only the five teal labels are added. A camp gets the same brief on a booking, a property manager on a work order.
The gate code, pinned. Said once in an email, and now at the top of the job for the crew.
The deadline. What is time-sensitive, and by when.
What the customer asked for. Each request, with the message it came from.
What we owe, and the next step. One next step, and a button that starts it.
What the customer owes. So nobody chases the wrong person.
Real captures of a contractor’s job. Daybook wrote every line of this brief from the messages on the job. A camp gets the same brief on a booking, a property manager on a work order.
On top of everything Daybook does for every one of its 44 trades — the full list is here — handyman work gets its own shape. A visit is a service call, not a site visit; the button says Book a service call; and the drafts, the replies and the job summaries say the list, half day and full day, minimum call, mount and hang, patch and touch-up, round and turnover the way a handyman does.
The service call
Every request lands on one board with its service type — small repairs, an install, a patch, a maintenance round — and one button: Book a service call. The handyman quotes at the door; when the call is done, the next step is Mark won.
The price list
A handyman quotes from a price list, not an estimator — so yours starts labelled: the hour, the half day and the full day, the minimum call, TV mounts and furniture assembly, drywall patches small and large, doors planed and rehung, gutters and the seasonal jobs, the monthly maintenance round and the rental turnover, and the materials bought on the way. Your own prices go on it, and every quote and invoice reads from it.
The paperwork
The list, as the customer gave it, ticked item by item, with what was not done and why. A mount and assembly sheet, so a TV on a wall is a TV that stays on the wall. A maintenance round, one sheet per visit to a property on contract. They attach themselves to the right jobs.
Contracts and plans
A property on contract is a recurring job: its visits are added to the schedule every night, so the round stays booked even if nobody opens the job. Or sell it as a maintenance plan — set the price, how often it bills and the visits it includes, put the client on it, and the visits keep coming and the plan bills itself.
Safety on site
Pick the job and the address and the techs come with it; the day’s conditions, each task with its hazard and its control — submitted from the phone at the start of the day and on the job’s record the moment it lands. Then clock-in, the list and the photos, with no signal if it comes to that.
Getting paid
The invoice is raised off what was agreed at the door — the half day, the items, the materials. With a Stripe card reader, a card or Interac debit is taken before the truck leaves. For the rest, a reminder you set once does the following-up, with a Pay Now link; e-transfers are matched to their invoices for you to confirm.
The techs
Field seats are free and unlimited on Crew and Company, so everyone you send out has the app: the day’s calls, clock-in, the FLHA, the list, the photos — and the office sees it the moment it lands.
The economics
Most field-service software charges by the head, in another currency. Daybook charges the office seats, in Canadian dollars, and leaves the people working the list alone.
| Workflow | Field-service platforms priced per user | Daybook |
|---|---|---|
| Currency | Often billed in US dollars — the exchange rate and your card’s foreign fee ride along. | Canadian dollars. Every plan, every add-on, printed on the pricing page. |
| The techs | Typically an extra monthly fee for every field user past the plan’s cap. | Field seats free and unlimited on Crew and Company — everyone you send out gets the app. |
| Handyman tools | A generic job form; the list lives in a text message. | The service-call shape, a price list by the hour, the half day and the item, and the list as the checklist on the job. |
| Canadian tax and mileage | Usually an accounting add-on, or by hand. | GST/HST by province on every invoice, the Sales Tax report, a mileage log at your own rate, receipts read for you. |
| Your website | Usually a separate builder, or a designer. | A handyman site template on every plan, with a maintenance-rounds page and a send-your-list form that mints a real request. |
Nothing here is a discount, and there is no setup fee.
Handyman work runs on the trades rate card — every plan the same app, the office seats counted and the techs free from Crew up. Solo $99 / Crew $249 / Company $449 a month CAD. Office seats included on every plan. Field seats are free and unlimited on Crew and Company. Crew and Company include selling online, and Company also includes your own domain and texting — a plan without them can add them.
Switching
There is no importer for another product’s export, and the page does not pretend there is. What there is gets a handyman business running in an afternoon.
Upload a CSV or paste it in — names, phones, emails, addresses — and the clients are there. A QuickBooks client list imports straight across.
The handyman price list is already labelled, from the minimum call to the rental turnover. Type your own prices in — or, on Crew and up, scan a supplier invoice and the price book fills with your real costs.
The handyman template is already written for the work, with a maintenance-rounds page — your photographs and your words go in, and the send-your-list form drops requests straight into Daybook.
The same app runs a one-person shop and a crew of ten. Solo is one seat, with requests, the starter price list, quotes, invoices and payments, and the website with its request form. Checklists, the crew app with the FLHA and free field seats start on Crew — the pricing page prints exactly what each plan includes.
No — a handyman quotes by the hour, the half day and the item, so that is what Daybook gives you: a labelled price list on day one, with your own prices on it.
Yes. Mark the job complete and it offers a blank invoice on the spot; until it is invoiced, the job shows as ready to invoice on your dashboard.
Yes. With a Stripe card reader, anyone in the field you have allowed to take payment can charge an invoice for a job they are on — tap, insert or Interac debit — and the payment lands on the invoice by itself. Cash and cheques are recorded on the spot.
Yes. The list, the mount and assembly sheet and the maintenance round are yours to edit, and you can add your own. Checklists are on Crew and up.
Clock-in, checklists and photos work with no signal and file themselves when the signal returns. The office sees them the moment they land.
Your own list beats any feature list — start the trial, book a half day, tick it off and see what the job page already knows.
14-day free trial · No credit card · Bring your client list