What to put on a garage job card (and why it saves you)

A job card looks like admin. It is really insurance. The day a customer rings up three months later swearing they never approved the extra £200 of work, the job card is the only thing standing between you and an argument you cannot win. Get it right and the conversation is over in ten seconds. Leave gaps and you are relying on memory — yours against theirs.

Here is what belongs on a garage job card, section by section, and the entries that owners only wish they had written down after it went wrong. If you want a ready-made layout, our free mechanic job card template has all of this on one printable page.

The header: who, what, and when

Every card needs a unique job number, the date the car came in, and the date you promised it back. The job number is what ties the card to the invoice and the customer’s history — without it, finding last year’s work on the same car becomes a paper chase. The promised date matters more than people think: it is the first thing a customer remembers if the car runs late.

Customer and vehicle: the details that prove the story

Name and phone number are obvious. The two that get skipped are the ones that matter most in a dispute:

• Authorised spend limit.Write down the figure the customer agreed to before you touch the car — “up to £300” — and the moment you need to go over it, you have a clear line to ring them at.
• Mileage in and out.Recording both protects you against “the fault came back” claims and shows exactly what the car had done when it left you.
• Registration and MOT due date. The reg ties everything to the right vehicle; the MOT date is a free reminder to book the customer back in.

Reported fault: their words, not yours

Write what the customer actually said — “knocking noise over bumps, front nearside” — not your diagnosis. The reported fault is the brief you were given. If the complaint changes later, the card shows what you were asked to fix, which is a different thing from what you found.

Work carried out: enough detail to defend the bill

This is the section that becomes the invoice, so it needs to read cleanly to someone who was not there. “Fixed brakes” settles nothing. “Replaced front pads and discs, both sides, cleaned and greased slider pins, road tested” tells the whole story and justifies every line that follows.

Parts and labour: the numbers, itemised

List parts with quantity and price, and labour with hours and rate, on separate lines. Itemising is not bureaucracy — it is what lets a customer see they are being charged fairly, and it is what your accountant and, if it ever comes to it, HMRC expect to see. If you are unsure what to set your labour figure at, our labour rate calculator works out a rate that actually covers your costs.

Extra work: get the yes in writing

The single most valuable thing on a job card is a record of additional work being authorised: who agreed to it, when, and whether it was by phone or in person. Nine times out of ten it never gets questioned. The tenth time, that one line is worth more than the rest of the card put together.

Final checks and sign-off

A short checklist at the bottom — road test done, wheel nuts torqued, service light reset, MOT date checked — catches the small misses that turn into comebacks. Finish with the technician’s name and a space to sign. A signed card is a closed job.

The catch with paper

All of this only works if the card survives. Paper cards get oil on them, go missing off the ramp, and live in a folder no one can search when the customer rings. A digital job card holds the same fields but cannot be lost: the reg lookup fills the vehicle in, work gets ticked off on a phone, the authorisation is timestamped, and the finished card becomes the invoice in one tap. That is exactly how job cards in Garage Desk work.

The short version

A good job card records who, what car, what they reported, what you did, the parts and labour, and every yes you were given along the way. Print our job card template to get the layout right, or try Garage Desk free for 7 days and never lose a card again.