An evening with two painter’s paperwork…

So imagine this: two professional painters both with 3 invoices, 4 quotes and 3 estimates to create.

Painter A has read our new guide to cutting your paperwork in half, and Painter B carries on as usual with his routine for doing paperwork.

Painter B’s evening:

5:30pm: Painter B has spent half an hour rifling through his work clothes pocket, and checking his van for the notes he made last week on changes for the Peterson invoice, and the receipts that he needs for the Long’s invoice. As well as trying to find that scrap of paper that had the number for the potential estimate he was asked to go to.

6:35pm: Painter B after spending half an hour trying to remember what jobs he needed to quote for then spent the next half an hour trying to make notes for each of them. He finally gets on to creating the actual quote but then spends the next 20 minutes wrestling with Word’s spacing to try and get something that resembles a quote.

8:45pm: Painter B is still trying to slog his way through, after realising that he left invoice numbers off, as well as forgetting one quote he needed to do. Looks like he won’t be able to make the footy match at the pub tonight, or relax in front of the telly tomorrow night.

Painter A’s evening:

5pm: Painter A sits down at his desk and knows that for his 3 invoices, 4 quotes and 3 estimates he’s created a job folder for each one where every note, receipt or scribble has gone into. All he has to do now is dip into the job folder to get what he requires for each piece of paperwork.

6pm: Painter A has created all 4 quotes in an hour, using the quote prompt that he takes to every potential job now so he can make sure he remembers all the details. As well as using the quote template that he just drops the information into. In fact he’s even had time to make a well deserved coffee and take a phone call.

7:15pm: Painter A has ticked off his to-do list for each of his pieces of paperwork, as well as being able to tick them off his weekly plan: he’s currently sat with his feet up in front of the telly.