The argument about day-work hours rarely starts on site. It starts six weeks later on the phone: "Twelve hours for the kerbstones? There was only one guy there." The sheet that could settle it has no signature, and the foreman does not remember exactly. Two things in Bautimer have made sure since the autumn that a daily report holds what it says: the customer's signature on site and the review in the office.
The customer signs on the tablet
Friday, the customer walks the site with the foreman. He opens "Have the customer confirm" on the tablet – the reports are already selected: this week's unconfirmed ones; one tap more and it is all open ones – and the tablet shows the summary: period, days on site, hours and quantities per service, the material. Below it the signature field with the customer's name, and a smaller one for the foreman. The customer signs with a finger. Done.
In the app on the tablet or phone this works without signal too: the signature stays on the device and is uploaded as soon as it is back online; until then the reports read "signed · upload pending". The signed summary is then filed as a PDF with the site's documents; the office sends it to the customer if they want a copy. A signed report is read-only in the app. If it is changed after all, the signature loses its validity and the report has to be confirmed again – a signature under something that changes afterwards would be worth nothing.
Two ways, no obligation: whoever prefers a PDF summary by e-mail still gets it. The signature on the tablet is the second way, not the only one. It is not a qualified electronic signature – the document says so.
The office checks, the owner approves
In the office every daily report gets a tick: "checked" – complete and correct for payroll and invoicing. A site's reports are sorted by calendar week, with "Check week" for the Monday pile. The ticks produce the office status of every site: red when reports are unchecked, amber when something is still to be invoiced or approved, green when everything is done. The "To do" filter shows only the red and amber sites – the answer to "which site needs me today".
An office of two switches on the two-step review: the assistant checks every report, the owner approves. A checked but not yet approved report is then amber. The approval alone is enough – an absent assistant blocks nothing. And the invoice never blocks: if reports are still open, Bautimer asks ("3 of the 7 reports on this invoice are not checked. Invoice anyway?"), nothing more. The setting is off by default; a one-person office does not notice it.
What is locked stays locked
Three locks work together: invoiced hours have been read-only since the summer, so that the hours on the invoice stay the hours in the report. A checked report is locked for the crew – the office takes the check back when it has to correct something. And a signed report is locked until the signature is deliberately invalidated.
And the crew?
For the crew the report on the phone has become simpler: the position's name comes first and may take two lines, the same work after the break continues with "Continue" instead of five dialogs, and a machine the office has not set up yet the foreman creates himself by name – the office adds the cost rate later. Everything else is on the feature overview.