What does this repair come to, and how far is it from the figure your customer approved?

A closed ticket is parts, bench hours and your own rate; the thing a repair ticket exists for is the step between that total and the figure the customer said yes to at intake. Type the ticket as you wrote it on the pad and this page prints the total, the balance after the deposit, the step from the approved figure in dollars and as a percent of it, and whether your own call-the-customer rule has been passed. It tells four closings of a ticket apart.

Everything you type stays in this browser: nothing you type is transmitted, stored or shared, and nothing is kept between visits. The page itself asks Google's two font hosts for one stylesheet and the type files that stylesheet names, and it reports up to four anonymous counts of its own use, one when the page is opened, one when anything is first typed into it, one when the offer lower down is reached and one when the offer's link is clicked; neither of those carries a figure or a word you typed. No field asks for a name, a telephone number or a serial, and no money figure is worked out from the instrument line or the customer reference: they are yours to write however you write them at intake, and the page prints back on the stub what you wrote in them, where you wrote something. The ticket number, the instrument line, the customer reference and the two dates are read for one purpose, and it is the purpose the warnings on this page are about: they are checked, with every figure of the work, against the worked example this page ships in its own fields, so that a ticket you have begun to fill in while every figure on it is still the example's is told so and prints no total of its own.

These are example figures, not yours, until you type over them.

What this ticket comes to$189.48

The balance due after the deposit$139.48

The figure your customer approved$185.00

The variance from the approved figure+$4.48

The variance as a percent of the approved figure2.4%

Bench hours booked to this repair2.5 hours

Where this ticket closesOver the approved figure, inside your own rule

The four ways a ticket closes

Every ticket typed here comes out as one of four, and the last row of the glance says which. They are not a scale of how well the job went. They are four different things to do next, and three of the four need a figure the customer agreed to before they mean anything at all. Two states are none of the four, and in each of them the page closes nothing and says so in the line it prints ahead of the glance: a ticket with no work entered on it yet, and a ticket whose number, instrument, reference or dates no longer carry the example's while every figure on it is still the example this page ships with. The ticket this page opens in is neither of those: it is the worked example, it closes as one of the four, and the mark printed with the glance says the figures are the example's and not yours until you type over them.

At or inside the approved figure: The ticket came to the figure the customer agreed to, or to a figure inside it. Nothing needs a telephone call, and the difference column says where the slack was: a parts line that came in cheaper, an hour you did not need, a supplies charge you waived.
Over the approved figure, inside your own rule: The ticket came to more, and the overage sits within the allowance you set for yourself. The figure stands; what you do with the overage is a decision, and the page makes none of it for you.
Over your own rule: The overage has crossed the allowance you set. This is the one closing the page exists to catch, and catching it while the instrument is still on the bench is the whole of the point: once the work is finished the conversation is a different one.
No approved figure on the ticket: Nothing on the ticket records what the customer agreed to, so there is no figure to measure the total against. The page prints the ticket total, the balance due and the bench hours, marks each of those three with an asterisk, and withholds every variance figure instead of measuring against a figure it has invented. It is the closing of a ticket that was written down without a quote.

The ticket

The ticket number is the next one in your own pad or book, so this page joins the numbering you already keep instead of starting a second one. The instrument line and the customer reference are free text and are printed back on the stub as you wrote them, with runs of space closed up and anything past 60 characters cut. Leave one of the two empty and the stub prints words of its own in its place rather than a blank line.

Ticket number whole number, 1 to 99999
Instrument, as you wrote it at intake
Customer reference, as you wrote it at intake
Date in your own bench record
Date the work was finished your own bench record

The estimate your customer approved

The figure written on the ticket when the customer said yes. It is the one input that cannot exist until a customer has approved something, and it is what every difference on this page is measured against. Leave it empty on a ticket where nothing was approved, and the page says so instead of measuring against nothing.

The two figures beneath it are for a quote written in two parts. Most quotes are one number, and one number is enough for everything the page prints except the per-line differences: those two rows need both halves, the approved parts figure and the approved labour figure, before either row says anything. One half alone buys neither row, because the page will not take one and infer the other, and a half-written split is told so beside the fields instead of being passed over.

Approved total $0 to $20,000
Approved parts figure only if you wrote the quote in two parts
Approved labour figure only if you wrote the quote in two parts

The work you actually did

Parts at cost means what the supplier invoiced you, before any markup of your own. Type the cost of one of a part and how many the job used, and the page multiplies: that way a quantity you change later moves the total on its own. The markup, the rate, the supplies charge and the tax rate are your figures; this page holds no default for any of them and suggests none.

The markup box is a rule, not a figure for this ticket: it is applied to the parts on every ticket you type here, so leave it empty on a bench that charges parts at what they cost. An empty box and a markup of nothing read differently in the working, and the page prints which of the two it used.

Parts lines on this ticket

Part 1

Cost each, as invoiced

Quantity

Part 2

Cost each, as invoiced

Quantity

Your markup on parts percent, 0 to 200; empty means none is added
Bench hours on this ticket 0 to 60, in quarter hours
Your hourly rate $0 to $500, whole dollars
Shop supplies charge $0 to $500
Parts taxable
Labour taxable
Shop supplies taxable
The tax rate you enter percent, 0 to 15, three decimals
Deposit already taken $0 to $20,000

Which lines are taxable, and whether labour is taxed where you work, is your call and your state's. The page applies the one rate you enter to the lines you mark and states no tax rule of its own.

Your own call-the-customer rule

Two ways to say the same thing, and you may set either or both: a dollar overage and a percent overage. Whichever allows less is the one that binds, and where the two allow the same it makes no difference which. Leave both empty and no flag is printed at all.

Call once the ticket runs this far past the approved figure $0 to $2,000, whole dollars
Or once it runs this far past it as a percent percent, 0 to 100

The working, line by line

Every line below that shows a working is worked from the figures printed beside it, at the precision they are printed to. A line with no working beside it is one of three things and never more than one, a figure from one of the boxes above, a name this page worked out from the figures above it, or a dash where there is nothing of this repair to print. Nothing here is computed from a longer number than the one shown.

Approved against actual

Five rows and three columns. A dash means there is no figure to put in that cell: no ticket carries an approved shop-supplies figure or an approved tax figure, and a ticket quoted as one number carries no approved parts or labour figure either. The difference column is signed, negative where the ticket closed under the approved figure. Only the rows carrying an approved figure carry a difference at all, so a short column is not a short ticket, and the last row holds the difference for the whole ticket rather than the sum of the rows that carry one. Whether those row differences happen to come to the same figure as the last row is a fact about one ticket's figures and not about how the column is built, and the line printed under the table says which it is on this ticket.

Row	Approved	Actual	Difference
parts charged	$45.00	$31.07	-$13.93
labour	$140.00	$150.00	+$10.00
shop supplies	—	$6.00	—
tax	—	$2.41	—
ticket total	$185.00	$189.48	+$4.48

The ticket and the claim check

Print this page and the two boxes below come out together: the ticket for the instrument and the claim check for the customer, both carrying the same ticket number, or the same words where you have not numbered it yet. Cut between them.

Words used here

Parts at cost: What your supplier invoiced you for the parts on this ticket, before any markup of your own.
Parts charged: Parts at cost with your own markup rule applied to it. The rule is a percent you type and the page holds no default for it.
Approved figure: The total written on the ticket when the customer agreed to the work. It is typed here, never derived, and a ticket may carry none.
Variance: The ticket total less the approved figure, in dollars, and the same step as a percent of the approved figure. It is signed: negative where the ticket closed inside the approved figure.
Headroom: What is left of the allowance your own rule gives before the flag fires. It is signed too: negative once the flag has fired.
Balance due: The ticket total less the deposit you already took. Of the ticket's own money figures — parts at cost, parts charged, labour, shop supplies, tax, the ticket total and this one — it is the only one that can come out negative, which is a refund owed rather than money due. The signed difference columns and the headroom are not figures of that kind: they are steps between two figures, and they are signed by design.
Taxable subtotal: The sum of the lines you marked taxable, and nothing else. A line you did not mark contributes nothing to it, so a bench that taxes parts and not labour gets a subtotal of parts and supplies.
Shop supplies: A flat charge you type. It is never a percentage of anything here, because a shop-supplies charge worked out as a percentage of labour is a decision about pricing and this page makes none.
The allowance: What your own rule lets a ticket run over the approved figure before the flag fires. Where you set both a dollar figure and a percent, the allowance is whichever of the two is the smaller, and the working names which one it was.
Claim check: The stub a customer takes away, carrying the ticket number, the instrument, the date in and the balance due on collection. It is the stub a carbonless pad hands a customer.

What this page does not do

Named here so you know where the arithmetic stops.

It sets no hourly rate, no markup, no supplies charge, no tax rate and no threshold. Every one of those is a figure you type, and the page holds no default and prints no suggestion in place of one.
It states no tax rule. Which lines are taxable, and whether labour is taxable where you work, are your call and your state's; the page applies the one rate you entered to the lines you marked and says nothing else about tax at all.
It says nothing about an instrument nobody collects. Abandoned-property and repairer's-lien rules are state law, and the page asks you that question instead of answering it: no waiting period, no notice and no sale is named anywhere here.
It says nothing about written estimates or approval duties. Whether an estimate had to be in writing, and whether an overage needed the customer's approval before the work was done, is state law too, and the kit's closing disclaimer puts that question to you and answers none of it.
It does no date arithmetic. The two dates are printed back on the stub and nothing here counts days on the bench, turnaround, or how long an instrument has been waiting for collection.
It is not invoicing. It takes no payment, issues no receipt, holds no customer record, and keeps nothing at all between visits.
It judges no work. There is no condition, no valuation and no opinion here about whether the repair was the right repair or the figure a fair one.
It holds one ticket. A book of them, with the log footed and the uncollected instruments counted, is the kit, and this page is complete without it.

The ticket log this page is one ticket of

A page works out one closed ticket. The kit is the book: a numbered ticket log with the approved figure beside the actual on every row, your markup rule applied once, a status column and a days-held column that put the open tickets and the uncollected instruments one sort away, and the bench hours, the parts charged and the balances due footed over the log.

A spreadsheet: one row per ticket, numbered, with the estimate-against-actual column and your own threshold flag; a status column and a days-held column, so the tickets still open and the instruments nobody has collected are one sort away; and a summary that counts the uncollected ones and foots the bench hours, the parts charged and the balances due across the whole log, then cuts the log two ways: tickets, bench hours, parts charged, labour charged and ticket totals by kind of instrument, and tickets and balances due by status.
A check sheet in that workbook, which works out each of the book's totals a second way and prints the difference beside it, and a check column on every ticket that says what is unsound about a line it cannot reconcile.
A short document: the decisions a log cannot make for you, written as questions rather than answers, including the deposit you take, the approval threshold you set, loaners, a storage fee after the pickup date, what happens to an instrument nobody collects, and whether labour is taxed where you work.

Get the kit — $19

One payment, no subscription, no account on this site. A spreadsheet and a PDF; files, not software. Nothing on this page needs it, and the page stays free and complete without it.