Glossary

U.S. carrier rules for business texting. Required before you can legally send SMS to customers from a 10-digit number.

A secret password that lets another program talk to Servato on your behalf. Skip unless a developer asked you to create one.

A piece of equipment at a property — HVAC unit, water heater, irrigation controller. Track service history and warranty per asset.

Your public web page where new customers can request a service appointment. Share the link on your website, business card, or Google profile.

A signed amendment to the original estimate when the customer adds or changes scope mid-job. Critical for getting paid for extra work.

Field crew taps a button to start their shift. Hours are calculated automatically and tied to the job for accurate labor costs.

Proof that a subcontractor carries liability insurance. General contractors usually require an active COI before letting a sub work on site. Servato tracks expiry dates and warns you 30 days out.

A private link you send each customer. They see their estimate, sign it, view photos, get the invoice, and pay — all branded as your business.

End-of-day summary: who worked, what got done, weather, delays, photos. Required by most general contractors and saves you in disputes.

An initial payment the customer makes before work starts, often to cover materials. Counts toward the total.

Assigning visits to crew members. Drag a job onto a tech's schedule to book them; Servato warns about overlaps.

Legally binding electronic signature. Customers tap or draw their signature on an estimate or document and you get a signed PDF.

A formal price quote you send to a customer. They can accept it electronically and you can convert it to an invoice in one click.

A virtual boundary around a job site. The app can auto-clock crews in when they arrive and out when they leave.

Servato changes its terminology based on your trade — landscapers see "visits," GCs see "projects," HVAC sees "service tickets." Same data, different words.

A bill you send to a customer. They can pay by card directly through Servato or you can record cash/check payments manually.

A potential job — someone who reached out asking for a quote. Once you win the work, the lead becomes a project.

A document the contractor signs saying they've been paid for work and won't file a mechanic's lien on the property. Often required before final payment.

A user's link to your organization with a specific role (owner, admin, member, field). Controls what they can see and do.

A scheduled invoice tied to a stage of the job — for example, 25% on signing, 50% at rough-in, 25% at completion. Helps cash flow on long projects.

Servato saves a complete copy of your data every night. If something goes wrong, you can restore from any past day.

A cap on a time-and-materials job. You bill what you actually spend, but never more than the NTE without approval.

How many units of a material you currently have in stock. Updated automatically as you record usage.

Your sales board. Each card is a potential job moving through stages — new, qualified, quoted, won, lost.

A physical address where work happens. One customer can have many properties — useful for property managers and rental owners.

The final to-do list at the end of a job — small fixes the customer wants done before they sign off (touch-up paint, a sticky door, a missing outlet cover).

A visual to-do board (kanban) for the final fixes on a job — drag items between Open, In Progress, and Done.

Servato installs to your phone's home screen like an app — no App Store required. Works offline and gets updates automatically.

The stock level that triggers a low-stock alert. Set it to roughly one week of typical usage.

Money the customer pays up front to lock in your time. Usually credited toward the final invoice.

An automatic email or text sent after job completion asking the customer to leave a Google review. The single biggest driver of new customers.

Servato reorders today's stops in the shortest driving order, then opens Google Maps with all stops as waypoints.

How Servato keeps your data separate from every other business on the platform. Nothing leaks across organizations, ever.

When a job slowly grows beyond what was originally agreed without a change order. The #1 cause of unprofitable jobs.

An outside crew or specialist you hire for part of a job (electrician, plumber, roofer). Servato tracks their insurance and assignments.

Billing by the hour plus the cost of materials, instead of a fixed price. Used when scope is unclear.

A single clock-in/clock-out record for one crew member on one job. Adds up to weekly payroll and labor cost per project.

A scheduled trip to a job site for service work — repair, maintenance, install. Can repeat (weekly, monthly, etc.).

The promise to fix issues for a set period after job completion. Servato tracks expiry per asset and per project.

A way to tell another piece of software "something happened in Servato." Developers use this to connect Servato to accounting tools, Slack, etc.