Free tool · Template
Free work order template
One spreadsheet to track every job you take — who it is for, which of your businesses it belongs to, where it stands, and what it earned. Dropdowns for status and priority, example rows to copy, and a how-to built in. Download it and start today.
Using Google Sheets? Upload the file via File → Import. No email required.
The download
Grab it — no email, no account
Everything is on this page and the file is a plain static download. There is no form wall and no signup — the copy below explains every column, so you can decide it fits before you ever open it. No email required.
Work order tracker — two formats
The .xlsx keeps the styling, frozen header, and dropdown menus; the .csv is the same columns and example rows as plain text.
Every column, explained
How to use it
Open the “Work Orders” sheet and add a row under the examples for each job that comes in. Give it the next WO number, then work left to right. The “How to use” tab inside the file repeats all of this, so it travels with the template.
- WO #
- A unique number for each job — WO-1001, WO-1002, and so on. Never reuse one: it is the thread that ties a job to its photos, texts, and invoice later.
- Date received
- The day the request came in. Track it and you can see how long jobs sit before anyone schedules them.
- Business
- Which of your businesses owns the job. This is the column that lets one spreadsheet hold several businesses at once — sort or filter by it to see one company at a time.
- Customer
- Who you are doing the work for. Kept separate from Business, which is your company; Customer is theirs.
- Phone
- The contact for the day of — usually the person who meets your crew on site.
- Site address
- Where the work actually happens. It often differs from a customer’s billing address, so it gets its own field.
- Job description
- One plain line of what needs doing — enough that anyone glancing at the row knows the job without opening anything.
- Priority
- Low, Normal, High, or Emergency, from the dropdown. Emergency is the no-heat, no-water, no-power call that jumps the queue.
- Status
- The dropdown that mirrors a real job lifecycle: New, then Triaged, Scheduled, In progress, Done, Invoiced, and Paid — plus Blocked and On hold for the jobs that step out of line. Move a job along as it changes so the sheet always shows where it truly stands.
- Assigned to
- Who is on the job, so nothing is “someone’s problem” and therefore no one’s.
- Scheduled date
- The day the job is booked for. Sort by it to build tomorrow’s route.
- Hours logged
- A running total of labor time on the job — the number your invoice and your job-costing both lean on.
- Materials cost
- What you spent on parts. Subtract it from what you invoiced and you have the job’s real margin.
- Amount invoiced
- What you billed the customer once the work was done.
- Paid?
- Yes or No, from the dropdown. Filter to No and you are looking at exactly who to chase.
- Notes
- The catch-all. When a job is Blocked, the reason goes here; when it is On hold, the wake-up date goes here; gate codes, parking, anything else lives here too.
Why the Status column mirrors a real job lifecycle
The dropdown is fixed, not free text, on purpose: those states are the ones a job actually passes through, in order — so a glance down the column tells you what is stuck at intake, what is on a truck today, and what is waiting to be billed.
Two states earn a note in Notes. Blocked demands a reason — waiting on parts, a permit, or site access — so a stalled job is a visible, answerable thing instead of a silent gap. On hold demands a wake-up date, so “paused” never quietly becomes “forgotten.” That one habit is the difference between a spreadsheet you trust and one you have to re-check by hand.
Watching the same board fill up on screen instead of in cells is the status-first job board — the columns here become moveable cards there.
The honest limits
When a template isn’t enough
A spreadsheet is a great start and an honest tool. But it only ever remembers what someone types, and a few things break as the work grows.
No status anyone enforces
A row reads “Done” only because someone remembered to change it — and nothing stops a job being marked paid before it was ever invoiced.
No photos from the field
The proof of the work — before-and-after shots, a meter reading, a signature — sits in someone’s camera roll, not on the job it belongs to.
No realtime
Your copy and the one your tech has open drift apart the moment two people edit. Whoever saves last wins, and someone’s change is gone.
Multi-business chaos
One sheet across several businesses works until it doesn’t: a missed filter mixes the books, and the totals you trust quietly stop being right.
Each of those is a thing MasterBuilds does that a grid of cells cannot: enforced statuses and captured photos live on the job status board, and several businesses stay cleanly separate when you run them from one workspace. Not sure it is time to switch yet? Here is when to move off the spreadsheet.
Free now, more when you need it
Get the template, and early access
The template is yours, free, no strings — the download is right above. If you would rather the spreadsheet kept itself honest — statuses the database enforces, photos on the job, and a board the whole crew sees in realtime — that is what MasterBuilds is, for a flat $99 a month with unlimited businesses and crew. We are onboarding operators now.
Questions about the template
- Is it really free?
- Yes — completely. Download the Excel or CSV file above with no email address, no account, and no trial clock. Use it for one business or ten, keep it forever, and change anything you like. The whole how-to sits on this page, ungated, on purpose: a template you have to trade your inbox for is not really free.
- Does it work in Google Sheets?
- Yes. Download the .xlsx (or the .csv), then in Google Sheets choose File → Import and upload it — your columns, the example rows, and the dropdowns all come across. It also opens directly in Microsoft Excel, LibreOffice Calc, and Apple Numbers. The Status, Priority, and Paid? menus are standard data validation, so they survive the trip into Sheets.
- What’s the difference between the template and MasterBuilds?
- The template is a spreadsheet: it remembers what you type, and nothing more. MasterBuilds runs the same job lifecycle with the parts a spreadsheet cannot do — statuses the database enforces, photos and time captured on the crew’s phones, a board that updates in realtime, and several businesses kept cleanly separate in one login. The template is a fine place to start; MasterBuilds is where you go when it stops keeping up, for a flat $99 a month with unlimited businesses and crew.
- Can I track more than one business in it?
- Yes — that is what the Business column is for. Put each job under the business that owns it, then sort or filter by that column to see one company at a time and keep separate totals for your books. It works until the filtering and the mental math get heavy — which is exactly the multi-business problem MasterBuilds was built to solve.
When the spreadsheet stops scaling
That is the moment MasterBuilds is built for. Request access and we’ll set up your workspace, your businesses, and their boards with you.