ServiceM8 have just launched their big annual update for 2023 releasing version 12.0 which includes a whole host of cool AI improvements to make tradies lives easier! Here’s our breakdown on all the new features to ServiceM8 job management software.
Card Payment Processing Surcharge
ServiceM8 tradies now have the ability to automatically pass on credit card fees to the customer. If you’re taking credit card payments via ServiceM8 you can now choose whether you pass on those fees to the customer or not. You can also configure parameters around when you want to pass on the fee and when you don’t based on invoice value. We’ve been asking for this feature for ages and know it is something our tradies are going to be very happy to see added to the app.
Two way sync to accounting packages
Tied in with that, there’s also now an improvement to the sync to accounting packages . It’s a now a two-way sync so if you change anything on an invoice in ServiceM8, like add a credit card fee after the invoice has been pushed into the accounting package, it will now update the invoice with the new information.
Inbox Upgrade
Tradies that use ServiceM8 inbox will know that once you’ve got a lot of messages coming into your inbox it is currently a little bit difficult to manage. In the ServiceM8 version 12.0 update there has been a major upgrade to the inbox to help with management such as a search function. You can now filter by inbox message type i.e replied, snoozed or trashed, you can select multiple inbox messages and remove or update. These feature improvements will make your inbox more organised and useful especially for tradies with lots and lots of stuff in there.
Copy existing Bundles
Bundles was released in 2023 and this app update provides an improvement to bundles where you can now copy an existing bundle. So if you’ve created a bundle and it’s got a description you want to make a slight change to or create a variation on it, you can now copy a bundle and make whatever tweaks you wish to create a new bundle.
ServiceM8 Phone
In the past ServiceM8e phone has been a little bit patchy when you’ve got poor data connection or internet connection because it’s running over the data network. Version 12.0 now has a full back up to the cellular network so when you have poor data connection so you can be making calls over the cellular network and avoid dropout issues.
Improvements have also been made to the transcription of the ServiceM8 phone calls and how that transcription goes into the job diary with the new AI features that have been introduced with this update.
Longer Videos
Tradies will now have the ability to record up to 2 minute videos in a job and AI will transcribe the audio content of the video and turn it into a note that’s saved into the job diary. That will be really cool for walking around a site and dictating what you need to do or what you’ve done and then it will turn that into a text note automatically for you.
Multiple Checklists
You can now group checklist items together which is going to be really useful when you’ve got a lot of checklist items in ServiceM8 for different parts of a job. You can now create multiple checklists per job card and divide the job requirements by staff member, stage etc.
PDF Fill-in
You can now bring PDFs into a job and annotate them or mark them up digitally. You can add signatures to them or if it is a set of plans that you need to mark up you can now add shapes or annotations easily.
Room Scan
Improvements have been made to room scanning which was released in 2023. Room scans can now be used to turn into floor plans and you can annotate or mark up those room scans by adding shapes, symbols and images to them or marking specific locations. ServiceM8 12.0 allows you to now measure distances from point A to point B once you’ve generated that room scan.
AI improvements to Enquiry Forms
When you have a customer web inquiry form you can ask questions in that enquiry form and ServiceM8 will now automatically prompt the person filling out the form for extra details. This feature is thanks to the power of artificial intelligence that looks at the response that’s submitted and then asks various extra questions to gain more information about the request.
Supplier Invoices
Improvements have been made to supplier invoice importing in the latest ServiceM8 update. Now when you import supplier invoices into a job, you can split out the line items which is helpful if so you have a couple of things on there that you don’t want to charge to the customer such as might some tools or something you brought for the company from the supplier. You now have the ability to take those lines out because ServiceM8 will now split out the individual lines instead of the supplier invoice just all going in as one lump sum.
ServiceM8 Automations
When you’re doing a quote, follow-ups or invoice payment follow-ups, instead of just one email and one SMS, you can now create a schedule of multiple emails and multiple SMS messages. This means you can have a more structured approach to how you’re following things up and a pre planned process in place for your tradie business.
Smart writing helper and video transcriptions
ServiceM8 has added a lot of AI functionality around written content within your job in this latest update. Now when you type out a work completed, a job description or an email, you can now choose to use the smart writing helper to either improve what you’ve written or even generate written content from a bunch of dot points. The AI system can even look at the notes and video transcriptions that are on the job and it will automatically generate some written content of the work completed.
ServiceM8 12.0 can use AI to automatically generate quotes and invoices, where it will create a work description, add line items into the quote and into the invoice. This feature could be a real game changer and save tradies a bunch of time on manual data entry using AI and automation. The TradiePad team is super keen to check this feature out to see how accurate it actually is! We are pretty impressed with how ServiceM8 has embraced AI to improve their software and make it part of every job, they are the first we are aware of that has done this so expect more job management software programs to follow suit soon.
New ServiceM8 Proposals
The last big improvement is there is now a function for proposals and that a lead on from quotes. Traditionally you’ve been able to create a quote as a PDF document you send to a customer, or it might be an online pdf that the customer can view, but the new proposals function creates a much richer and much more interactive experience for the person that’s receiving the proposal.
You can now incorporate groupings of items with photos or a gallery of photos, you can create options such as optional colours or optional items and you can have subtotals of amounts on the proposal making it a much more detailed and rich experience for your customer.
Proposals will probably be best used for larger jobs or projects because it gives you that ability to group things together and create those options. You can obviously still create quotes if you’ve got a quick one to get out there but the proposals feature will allow you to level up and create more rich and vibrant content that you can present to your clients.
Voice chat interface
The new voice chat interface is like chat GPT built into ServiceM8 that uses voice prompts to activate a chat within ServiceM8 and locate information automatically for you. If you’re driving around the town and you want to know some information about a job that’s coming up, you can now voice ask the questions and ServiceM8 will look up the information and dictate it back to you. It can tell you job information like what’s coming up, what material you need, any instructions that you need for the next job and so on.
Missing Features
We were a little bit disappointed that we didn’t see more functionality around managing that project type work in the latest update considering we can create good proposals for it. Managing project work in ServiceM8 still has some gaps around invoicing. For example if we have a large project that we want to split into progress claims, that’s still a bit tricky to manage and things like tracking costs against jobs where they’re section based or if they’re broken into groups of larger jobs where we want to get a bit more visibility of job cost or maybe quoted versus actual. Hopefully these will be things we see in the next ServiceM8 update!
Overall we are pretty excited about the ServiceM8 12.0 update and can’t wait to jump in and start playing around with all the new automations and AI tools. From experience, some AI tools can be a hit and miss sometimes so we would love to hear your feedback about how you’re finding the new features and what ones have been the most helpful in your tradie business.
Interested in using ServiceM8 to streamline your business or need some training to use the app to it’s full potential?
Let’s Chat! TradiePad are ServiceM8 Gold Partners.
