FREE WORK ORDER TEMPLATE
Free work order template — and what goes on one
A work order template in Word and PDF, a maintenance work order for property and facilities work, every line explained, work order vs quote vs invoice in plain words — with a worked example from an accepted quote to the sheet in the van.
Word and PDF · Free · No email, no sign-up
The short answer
A work order is the instruction to do a specific job: who it's for, where, when, exactly what work, with what materials, by whom. It needs a work order number and date, the quote number if there was one, the customer and the job site with access notes, the schedule and who's assigned, every task and material on its own line (with prices if the customer gets a copy), what's not included, and a completion block: who did it, when, and the photos.
It sits between the quote and the invoice. The quote says what you offered; the work order says what you're doing, in the words the crew needs; the invoice says what you did and what's owed. On a small job the three carry the same lines — which is the point: when the work order is the accepted quote turned inward, the invoice bills exactly what was quoted and done, and nobody argues.
Write it for the person who wasn't at the site visit. “Two coats of eggshell on walls, semi-gloss on trim, one coat flat white on the living-room ceiling, park in the driveway, dog in the yard” gets the job done the way it was sold. “Paint 4 rooms” gets a phone call at 8:15.
FREE TEMPLATE · WORD AND PDF
The work order template, filled in
Below is the template filled in for Harbor Coat Painting, a fictional business, on the job from our quote guide: the customer accepted the quote, and this is the sheet the crew takes on site. The downloads are the same work order with [bracketed] lines to replace — free, no email address, no sign-up — plus a maintenance work order for property and facilities work.
Example · fictional business
Harbor Coat Painting Portland, ME (207) 555-0164 · hello@harborcoat.example | WORK ORDER |
Customer Elena Marsh 42 Ocean Ave Portland, ME (207) 555-0188 · home each morning until 9 | Job site Interior repaint: living room, hallway, two bedrooms 42 Ocean Ave · walls, trim and the living-room ceiling Park in the driveway. One dog (Milo) stays in the backyard. |
| Description | Qty | Rate | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prep Patch and sand, caulk, mask floors and fixtures | 1 | $380.00 | $380.00 |
| Painting — labor Two coats on walls and trim, four rooms | 1 | $1,650.00 | $1,650.00 |
| Living-room ceiling One coat, flat white | 1 | $240.00 | $240.00 |
| Paint and materials 6 gal premium interior eggshell, primer, caulk, tape | 1 | $412.50 | $412.50 |
| Subtotal | $2,682.50 | ||
| Sales tax, 7% on materials (example) | $28.88 | ||
| Total | $2,711.38 | ||
| Deposit received, Oct 6 | −$800.00 | ||
| Balance to collect on completion | $1,911.38 | ||
Work requested
Two coats of premium eggshell on walls, semi-gloss on trim, one coat of flat white on the living-room ceiling. Move light furniture and put it back; mask floors and fixtures. Colors as on the sample card the customer chose.
Not included — quote separately
Moving large furniture or the piano, drywall repair bigger than a fist, wallpaper removal. If you find any of it, stop and call the office.
Materials to load
6 gal premium interior eggshell, primer, caulk, tape — as quoted — plus drop cloths and two ladders.
Completion
Completed by ____________ Date ______ · Time on site ______ · Before and after photos taken ☐
Every figure on the example is an example, not a price guide. The Word files are standard .docx you can edit in Word, Google Docs or any app that opens Word documents; the PDFs print as-is for a clipboard in the van. Prices are optional on a work order — leave the money columns blank on an internal one.
The quote before, the invoice after
Start your website — quotes and invoices are built in
Add what you do, your town and your business name, and Zarla builds the site from that one line. The same dashboard sends the quote the work order comes from and the invoice it turns into — Zarla doesn't make work orders, so the template above fills the gap between them.
Already have a website? Bring it across →Zarla keeps your old page addresses where it can and redirects the ones that change, helping you keep the Google standing you've built.
LINE BY LINE
What goes on a work order
Every line on the template, in order, and what to write on it.
| The line | What to put there |
|---|---|
| The words Work Order | At the top, so nobody files it as a quote or pays it as an invoice. |
| Your business details | Business name, phone, email — and your license number if your trade is licensed. The customer keeps this sheet; it should say who did the work. |
| Work order number, date, and the quote it comes from | A number that never repeats (WO-1042), the date you wrote it, and the quote number if the customer accepted one. Matching numbers on the quote, the work order and the invoice is what makes a job's paperwork findable a year later. |
| Scheduled, and assigned to | The date and start time, and the technician or crew lead. A work order with a name on it gets done; one without gets handed around. |
| Customer, and the job site | Who the job is for and how to reach them on the day; where the work is, with the lines a stranger needs — parking, access, pets, who'll be home, alarm codes if they've given you one. |
| One line per task or material | Each piece of work and each material on its own line, in the same words as the quote. Quantities matter here more than anywhere: “6 gal eggshell”, “2 ladders”, “4 rooms”. If the customer gets a copy, keep the prices; on an internal sheet, leave the money columns blank. |
| Totals, deposit and the balance to collect | Subtotal, tax where it applies, the total, any deposit already received, and what's left to collect on completion — so the crew knows whether to take a payment at the door. Skip these on a purely internal work order. In the US, whether sales tax applies to your work — and whether it falls on the materials, the labor, both or neither — depends on your state, so keep materials and labor on separate lines and check your state's revenue department or your accountant. Outside the US: a GST-registered business in Australia or New Zealand and a VAT-registered business in the UK or EU show consumers prices that include the GST or VAT, and show the tax on the invoice the same way. Confirm the details with your accountant. |
| Work requested, and what's not included | The job in the customer's words, and the list of things that aren't part of it — the extras you'll quote separately if the crew finds them. It's the line that stops a $200 favor becoming a $200 argument. |
| Completion | Who completed it, when, the time on site, and whether before-and-after photos were taken. The completed work order is what the invoice is written from. |
STEP BY STEP
How to write a work order
Five minutes once the quote is accepted, before you book the crew.
Start from the accepted quote
Copy its number, the customer and every line — the work order is the quote turned inward. If there was no quote, write the job in the customer's words first.
Number it and schedule it
The next work order number, today's date, the date and start time, and who's assigned. Put the customer's phone number where the crew will see it.
Write the job site like a stranger will read it
Address, parking, access, pets, who's home, where the water shut-off is. Everything the person who did the site visit knows and the crew doesn't.
List tasks and materials with quantities
Every task and every material on its own line, with how much of it. Add the not-included list — the extras to quote separately if the crew finds them.
Send the customer the schedule
The date, the start time and who's coming, in one message, with a copy of the work order if they'd like one. It's the message that stops the 8:15 phone call.
Close it out, then invoice from it
The crew marks what was done, notes anything added on the day, takes photos and notes the time on site. The invoice is written from the completed work order, the same day.
Work order vs quote vs invoice (and a purchase order)
The quote is the offer. It goes to the customer before the work: the job, every line with a price, what's included and what's not, how long the price holds. The customer accepts it — and the job exists. See how to write a quote.
The work order is the instruction. It's written the day the quote is accepted, for whoever does the work: the same lines, plus the schedule, the crew, the access notes and the materials to load. Where the quote is written to win the customer, the work order is written so the job gets done the way it was sold. On a one-person business the two can be the same sheet of paper: the accepted quote with a date, a time and your notes on it.
The invoice is the bill. It's written from the completed work order: the same lines, anything the customer added on the day, the dates of the work, the deposit taken off and the balance due. See how to write an invoice — and how to write a receipt for when the money lands.
A purchase order goes the other way. A customer — usually a business, a property manager or a government department — sends you a purchase order to say “we're buying this from you, at this price, bill us against this number.” You then write your own work order to do the job, and your invoice quotes their PO number so their accounts department can match it and pay it. If a commercial customer gives you a PO number, it belongs on the work order and the invoice.
A maintenance work order is the same sheet for recurring or reactive work on something that already exists — a boiler, a rental unit, a parking lot — rather than a new job for a new customer. It swaps the quote number for a priority (routine, urgent, emergency) and a due-by date, names the asset and where it is, records the problem reported and the work performed, and tracks parts and labor hours. Property managers, HOAs, facilities teams and the trades that serve them live on these; the maintenance template above is laid out for that.
Work orders for your trade. The same sheet works for a plumber's service call, a handyman's punch list, a cleaning crew's first visit or a junk-removal pickup — change the lines, not the layout. For the bill at the end, the trade invoice templates are shaped for each: free invoice template, junk removal invoice template, car detailing invoice template, pressure washing invoice template, cleaning invoice template, construction invoice template, handyman invoice template, plumbing invoice template, pet sitting invoice template, towing invoice template, daycare invoice template, moving invoice template, notary invoice template, electrician invoice template, tree service invoice template, consulting invoice template, HVAC invoice template, painting invoice template.
Quote it and bill it from Zarla; the work order is the template above
Zarla doesn't make work orders. It makes the two documents either side of one — and if you send those from Zarla, the work order is a two-minute job.
If your website is on Zarla, the quoting tool sends the quote as a link: your customer picks an option, ticks any extras and accepts it online by typing their name, and Zarla drafts the invoice for exactly what they chose, with any deposit you asked for. Print or open the accepted quote and you have the work order's scope, line for line — copy it into the template above, add the schedule, the access notes and the crew, and that's the sheet for the van. When the work is done, the invoice is already drafted from the same lines; add anything the customer added on the day, and send it. On a paid plan, with your Stripe account connected, the invoice carries a pay-now button, so the customer can pay by card the day the work is done.
The whole paper trail: the price list the job is priced from → how to write a quote → this work order → how to write an invoice → how to write a receipt. Same business, same job, same lines on every page.
Work orders: common questions
A document that describes a specific job to be done: who it's for, where, when, exactly what work and materials, and who's doing it. In a small service business it's written the day a customer accepts a quote and goes with the crew to the job; in property and facilities management it's the ticket that tracks a repair or an inspection from request to completion. The invoice is written from the completed work order.
The words Work Order; your business details; a work order number and date, and the quote number if there was one; the schedule and who's assigned; the customer and the job site with access notes; every task and material on its own line with quantities (and prices, if the customer gets a copy); what's not included; and a completion block — who did it, when, the time on site and the photos.
A work order says what work is to be done, and is written before the job; an invoice says what work was done and what's owed, and is written after. On a small job they carry the same lines — the invoice is the completed work order with the dates of the work, anything added on the day, the deposit taken off and the balance due.
Direction. A purchase order comes from the customer to you — “we're buying this at this price, bill us against this number.” A work order is yours — the instruction to do the work. When a business customer sends a PO, you write a work order to do the job and put their PO number on your invoice so they can match and pay it.
A quote is the offer, written to win the customer — the job, the lines, the prices, how long it holds. A work order is the instruction, written once the customer says yes — the same lines plus the schedule, the crew, the access notes and the materials to load. For the quote itself, see how to write a quote.
If the customer gets a copy, yes — the same lines and prices as the quote, with the deposit taken off and the balance to collect, so everyone is reading the same numbers. If it's an internal sheet for the crew and the customer already has the quote, leave the money columns blank: the crew needs the scope, not the margin.
A work order for work on something that already exists — a boiler, a rental unit, a roof, a parking lot — rather than a new job for a new customer. It records who requested it and why, a priority and a due-by date, the asset and its location, the work performed, and parts and labor hours. The maintenance template on this page is laid out for that; property managers and facilities teams run on them.
Whoever sold the job — the owner or the estimator — writes it the day the quote is accepted, so the crew gets what the customer was promised in the words the customer heard. The crew completes it on site: what was done, what was added, photos, time on site. On a one-person business you write and complete your own; it still earns its keep as the record the invoice is written from.
Free, yes — the work order and the maintenance work order download as Word documents and PDFs, with no email address or sign-up. Edit the Word files in Word, Google Docs or any app that opens Word documents, or print the PDFs for a clipboard. There's no Excel version: a work order is mostly words, and Word keeps the lines readable on a phone.
No. Zarla sends the quote before the job and the invoice after it, from the same dashboard as your website: your customer accepts the quote online, Zarla drafts the invoice for exactly what they chose, with any deposit you asked for, and you send it when the work is done. The work order in between is this template — copy the accepted quote's lines into it, add the schedule and the access notes, and it's ready for the van.
Quote it, do it, bill it — from your own website
Add what you do, your town and your business name, and Zarla builds the site from that one line — with quotes, invoices and receipts in the same dashboard. The work order in between is the free template above.
Already have a website? Bring it across →Zarla keeps your old page addresses where it can and redirects the ones that change, helping you keep the Google standing you've built.