Before and after photos on trade jobs: why and how to keep them

A photo taken before you touch anything takes ten seconds. Without one, “that crack was already there” is your word against the client’s. Photos taken before, during and after the work are the cheapest record a trade business can keep, and most of their value only shows up months later, when someone asks a question you can’t otherwise answer.

Why take them

• What was there before. The scuffed skirting, the cracked tile, the damp patch under the window. A photo from the doorway on day one ends the argument about whether you caused it.
• Work that gets covered up. Pipe runs before the floor goes down, cable routes before the plaster, the membrane under the tiles. Once it’s covered, a photo is the only way anyone sees it again, including the next tradesperson.
• Callbacks and guarantees. When a client rings a year later, photos of what you fitted and how tell you what you’re walking into before you go.
• Handing over. If someone else does the next visit, the photos tell them what they’ll find.
• Showing your work. A good after photo wins the next job. Ask the client before you post one anywhere.

What to photograph

Before you start

• A wide shot of the whole area from the doorway, so later photos have a reference.
• Close-ups of anything already damaged, with something in the shot for scale.
• Anything you’ll have to move, disconnect or lift.
• The data plate of anything you’re taking out, if it has one.

During the work

• Everything that will be hidden, before it’s hidden.
• A tape measure in the shot where a depth or a distance matters.
• The labels on materials as you fit them.

When you finish

• The same wide shot, from the same spot, as the first one.
• The finished detail close up.
• The data plate and serial number of anything new, which you’ll need for a manufacturer’s warranty.
• The area cleaned up.

Keep them with the job, not in your camera roll

A camera roll mixes every job with your own photos, and two years later nobody can find the right bathroom. Keep a job’s photos with the job they belong to, and keep the files as they came off the camera: the time a photo was taken is part of what it shows, and an edited photo is easy to argue with.

A client’s home is private

Photos of someone’s home can show their belongings, family pictures on the wall, or post with their name on it. Treat them like the rest of the client’s records: take what the job needs, frame tightly, keep them for the job, and ask before you share one.

How Sendinvo keeps them

In Sendinvo, photos go on the job, or on one of its visits, from your phone or a computer.

• Sorted without asking. Sendinvo compares when each photo was taken with when its visit started and finished, and puts it under Before, During or After. On the web it goes by the file’s own date, which isn’t always the moment the photo was taken, so add photos on the day.
• Made small to send. Each photo is resized to 2,048 pixels on its long edge before it uploads, so a large camera file goes as a few hundred kilobytes. JPEG and PNG work everywhere, and HEIC wherever your browser can open it.
• On the job, not the invoice. Photos are a record for you and your team and don’t appear on quotes or invoices. To send the client a certificate or a picture, attach it to the invoice email.
• For the team. Everyone who can see the job sees its photos. A Field person adds photos on the jobs they have a visit on, in the Sendinvo app for iPhone, which is on its way to the App Store.
• Yours to take. Export everything puts every job’s photos in the zip file, a folder for each job.

Photos are one part of keeping a job in one place. Job management software for sole traders covers the rest.

Questions