The tool, in your browser
The callback log
One card per call. Her words, the day she called, the day somebody stood on the roof, then what the roof said: whose it was — ours, the material, or neither — and what failed. Hours, material and trips get priced at your own loaded rate, and the box up top adds it up: what callbacks cost you, how many jobs’ profit that is, and which cause is eating the most.
Free, and it asks for nothing. No email, no account, no sign-up. What you type stays in this browser on this device.
Read this first
This log only knows about this browser. Nothing you type is sent to us and nothing syncs, so the phone and the office computer each keep their own copy — and anyone who opens this page on that computer can read every address and every complaint on it. Clearing your browsing data wipes it, and a new phone won’t bring it along. Keep the-callback-log.xlsx on the computer at the office if a season of calls has to last.
The log fills in right here in your browser. If this line stays put, JavaScript is off — the spreadsheet below does the same job.
What the columns mean
Whose it was gets decided on the roof, not on the phone.
A call starts Open and stays Open until somebody has stood on it. Then it is one of three things: ours (a nail, a boot, a flashing your crew put in wrong), material (the shingle itself failed), or neither (a storm after you left, gutters you never touched). That’s sorting it on the roof. A card that says ours, material or neither with nothing in what failed, or a card still Open that already has hours on it, doesn’t line up — it says so under the box, and it stays out of the figures until it does.
What the fix cost is your cost, never a price: hours at your loaded rate, material at what you paid, and a trip charge for every time a truck went out. Take off what you billed the homeowner and the rest is what it cost you — and a neither-callback you billed back in full costs you nothing, which is the point of billing it. The table at the bottom is the same money by cause; when one line runs away from the rest, that’s the same callback twice, and the fix is on the install, not the phone.
How it gets used
- Type the three numbers up top once. The loaded hour comes off the hours-not-days sheet; the trip cost is fuel and an hour of somebody’s time; the average job profit is the yardstick the last box divides by.
- Log the call the day it comes in — her words, the address, the crew. Leave it Open. The card is fine with nothing else on it.
- Fill in the rest after the roof. The date somebody stood on it, whose it was, what failed, and the hours and material the fix took, everybody’s, door to door.
- Read the box at the money meeting. What it cost you, how many jobs’ profit that is, and the one cause at the top of the table. This is a log, not a schedule — the open ones get a slot on the ten-day board.
Want it in a spreadsheet?
The same log as a spreadsheet
the-callback-log.xlsx is this log as a spreadsheet — same columns, same rates, same table by cause — for the computer at the office. The big difference: the file refuses to print any money while one row doesn’t line up, because a cell can’t say which row. This page can, so it says what’s wrong under the box, leaves that callback out of the figures, and adds up the rest. Three smaller ones in the page’s favour: no row-59 ceiling, the example rows are placeholder text with nothing to delete, and words in a number box are said out loud where the file quietly reads them as nothing. One the other way: the file is a real file, so a season survives a cleared browser and prints for the meeting. The sheets ask for your email once; this page never does.
The play behind it — M13-01 When She Says It's Leaking, the Clock Starts — is where the log comes from, and the sheet notes spell out every column and formula.