Tradify keeps the trade business organised — jobs tracked, diaries scheduled, quotes and invoices out, timesheets in. Then the working day starts, and 80%+ of customers arrive somewhere Tradify isn't: WhatsApp, while your people are holding tools, wiring boards, or fitting boilers. Every one of those messages needs answering, typing up, filing — from a phone screen, mid-job. Half an hour's delay and the client's booked whoever replied first. Link Tradify to WhatsApp through Susan and the whole intake layer disappears into chat: triage, photos, postcodes, job cards, quotes, deposits — handled while the tools stay in hand.
⚡ Key Takeaways
- WhatsApp text becomes a structured Tradify job with contact attached — no typing on site, ever. Greeting lands in seconds, prices get answered, postcodes verified, all hours. Photos and videos pin themselves to the ticket. Deposits and invoices collect over one-tap links — settled in minutes, not weeks. And everything syncs onward to Xero, QuickBooks, and the diary automatically.
Job software assumes clean data entry; site work guarantees the opposite. The four fractures: speed — most trade jobs go to whoever answers first, and post-job replies lose the good-margin work. Safety — typing on ladders, mid-solder, around live wiring is dangerous as well as slow. Unpaid travel — quote trips across town with no deposit and no postcode check burn fuel and mornings. And dead invoices — emailed quotes opened a fifth of the time, paid eventually, maybe.
Setup is five minutes, no code:
Manual app versus web form versus chat, side by side: replies took half an hour to four hours, or half a day to a day by email — now seconds, always. Job cards were thumb-typed on tiny screens or pasted from email — now created whole from chat. Photos arrived after the visit or never — now prompted up front and attached. Deposits were emailed links or nothing — now one-tap in chat. Postcodes were checked by hand or not at all — now instant qualification. Invoice opens ran ~20% email, ~15% forms — now ~98% in chat. Accounts meant manual sync triggers and retyping — now two-way and automatic.
In the working day it looks like this. Complex request arrives with a quote ask — photos or clips requested, evidence pinned to the ticket, tech previews parts before driving. Pricing lives in your rules — hourly, minimum call-out, fixture fees — so estimates draft themselves and approvals land in seconds. Job done — dynamic Stripe link in chat, Apple Pay to card, paid on completion instead of in 30 days. Two hours later — review ask on WhatsApp, local rankings compounding job by job.
Same pattern, neighbouring stacks: Jobber, ServiceM8, quoting on WhatsApp, plumber quote-to-cash — plus plumbers, garages, salons, clinics.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Any code or IT involved?
None. Authorisation wizard, five minutes, no developers.
Photos — where do they actually go?
Straight onto the Tradify job card as they arrive. Techs open the ticket and see the fault before leaving the yard.
Deposits before travelling?
Yes — Stripe links in chat, Apple Pay or card, banked before fuel burns. Emergency call-outs especially.
And the accounts?
Tradify talks to Xero and QuickBooks natively, so WhatsApp-collected money lands in the ledgers by itself.