Dispatch — how to use it

1. What Dispatch is for

Dispatch is the office's booking book and the drivers' job list, in one place. Instead of a diary on the desk and phone calls to the trucks, everyone sees the same thing at the same time.

The office books jobs, keeps client details, and sees what each truck is doing. The drivers see only their own truck's work for the day, and tick jobs off as they go.

2. Getting in

There are three logins:

Drivers genuinely cannot see the other truck's work, the client list, or any money. That's built into the system, not just hidden from the menu.

You stay logged in for 30 days on each device, so nobody types a password every morning.

Switching accounts on a phone: on a driver's phone there's a Log out button in the top-right corner. Tap it, confirm, and you're back at the login screen — so the office can check a driver's screen and then sign in as admin on the same phone. When signed in as admin on a phone, Log out is in the menu (☰ top-left), at the bottom.

Let the phone's browser save the password and it becomes a fingerprint or Face ID tap.

3. Putting it on a phone

Open the web address in the phone's browser, then:

• Android / Chrome: menu (⋮) → Add to Home screen
• iPhone / Safari: Share button → Add to Home Screen

It then opens full-screen with its own icon, like any other app. Worth doing for both drivers — it's much easier than finding a browser tab.

4. A normal day in the office

1. Open the Dashboard. It shows today: what each truck still has to do, what's already finished, and anything waiting for you to confirm.
2. Deal with the confirmation queue first if there is one. See section 9 — this is the step that turns finished work into invoices.
3. Take bookings as the phone rings. The New booking button is in the top bar, on every screen.
4. Use Schedule to plan ahead. The little calendar on the left colours each day by how busy it is, so you can see at a glance where there's room.

Reading the calendar colours

The number of jobs is also printed under each date, so you don't have to rely on the colour alone.

5. A normal day for a driver

A driver opens the app and sees only their own jobs. Three tabs along the bottom:

Each job card has one big button telling them the next step:

1. Start job — tapped when they arrive. The office sees it turn to "In Progress".
2. Complete job — tapped when the work is done. It asks how the client paid, then locks the job.

Underneath are three smaller buttons: Navigate (opens maps), Call, and Chat (opens WhatsApp to that client).

6. Making a booking

The form is in four sections so you're only looking at one decision at a time. Only four things are actually required — they're marked with a *:

Saving time on repeat clients

Start typing an address or name you've used before and it suggests matches from your own client list — not from the internet. Pick one and it fills in everything about that place: name, contact, phone, email, GPS pin, site notes and tank size. It does not touch the date, time, truck or price, because those belong to this one job.

There's also a 📋 Browse all saved button next to the address if you'd rather scroll the whole list.

Leaving the time blank

If a job hasn't got a fixed time, leave the Time box empty. It shows as "Flexible time" and sits at the bottom of that day's list, after all the timed jobs. That's on purpose — flexible work shouldn't push a booked appointment out of order.

Both trucks

For a big job, choose Both as the truck. It appears on both drivers' lists and holds that time slot on both trucks.

7. Addresses and map pins

This matters more than it sounds, because it's how the driver finds the place.

Whatever you type in the address box is what gets saved and what the driver sees. Nothing overwrites it. Type the full street address including the number.

For farms, plots and anywhere the street address isn't enough, open the GPS pin section underneath and press 🗺️ Set pin on map. You can search for the area, zoom right in, and tap the exact gate or door. Drag the marker to fine-tune it.

You can also paste coordinates if someone sends them:

• -34.0512, 22.2301 — plain coordinates
• 34°03'55.3"S 22°11'47.4"E — what Google Maps gives when you right-click a spot and copy the coordinates
• A full Google Maps web link

The pin adds to the address — it never replaces it. When a job has a pin, the driver's Navigate button takes them to the exact pin instead of the street address.

8. The two kinds of notes

This is the single most useful thing to understand, because it saves retyping.

9. Finishing a job and invoicing

There are deliberately two steps, so a mis-tap in a truck can't send an invoice.

1. The driver taps Complete job. A panel slides up asking how the client paid — Cash, EFT or Card. They pick one and confirm. The job locks: the driver can't change it any more.
2. You confirm it in the office. Cash jobs need nothing. EFT and Card jobs appear on your Dashboard under ⏳ Waiting for your confirmation, with a count badge on the Dashboard menu item.

Each one gives you two choices:

• ✓ Confirm — ready to invoice. Done and billable.
• ↩ Not done — send back. Reopens it for the driver. Use this if something wasn't finished properly.

If a driver marks something complete by mistake, you're the one who can reopen it — just change its status back on the Dashboard or Schedule.

10. The client list

Every address you've ever serviced, with its history. The table shows how many jobs each site has had, when it was last done, and whether it has a GPS pin or site notes saved.

You can search by address, name, contact person or phone number — and the phone search works whether you type 082 441 9122 or +27 82 441 9122.

Click any row to open that site's own page: full job history, contact people, site notes, GPS pin, and buttons to call, WhatsApp or navigate there.

Things worth using

• Tags — labels like "Pays later", "Difficult access", "Farm", "Regular". Add them on the client's page.
• Tank size — the septic tank's capacity, under Service when adding or editing a client, in kilolitres: type 8.5 (or 8.5 kl, 8,5, 6kl — litres like 8500 work too). It's shown as 8.5 kL. A range like 2/3kl isn't accepted: pick the actual size. Once it's saved, every booking at that address fills it in automatically. If a site doesn't have one yet, the first booking that includes a tank size saves it for next time.
• Service interval — if a site normally needs emptying every 12 months, put 12 in. The app then flags it as Due now once that long has passed. Filter the list by "Due for service" to see who to phone.
• More than one contact — a guesthouse might have a manager who books and an owner who pays. Add both, and mark one as the billing contact.
• Import and Export — bring an existing client spreadsheet in, or take a copy out. See below.

Importing your existing client list

If you've got clients in Excel already, press Import on the Clients page.

• Your file needs a heading row. The only column it must have is the address.
• It recognises ordinary headings — "Street Address", "Cell No", "Client Name", "Adres", "Selfoon" — so you usually don't need to rename anything.
• Nothing is saved until you've seen what will happen. It shows you how many will be added, how many are already on file, and anything it can't read — with the exact row numbers.
• There's a blank template button if it's easier to paste into the right shape.

11. Looking up past jobs

Job history searches everything ever booked. Results are grouped by day, and each day collapses to one line:

Wed, 16 Sept 2026   3 jobs · 07:00–14:30 · T1 · T2   ✓ all done

Click a day to open it, then click any job to see the full details. Typing in the search box filters as you go — no need to press anything.

12. Reports

All the money lives here and nowhere else. That's deliberate: the day-to-day screens are about the work, so revenue figures aren't sitting in the corner of your eye while you're trying to book a truck.

Reports shows revenue, jobs completed, average per job, loads pumped, a month-by-month breakdown, how clients paid, a per-truck comparison, and your top clients by value. Pick a date range or use the This month / Last 3 months / This year buttons.

It also shows the value of anything still waiting for your confirmation — the one place a rand figure is actually asking you to do something.

13. What it doesn't do yet

Being straight about this so nothing comes as a surprise:

14. If something goes wrong