Every document Pistonlog prints, emails or texts to a customer follows the same template so your branding and the customer's record stay consistent. This article lists what you can rely on appearing.
What's always there
Your garage branding
Logo, garage name, address, phone number, and VAT number. Pulled from Company Settings and the garage profile — set these once and every output uses them.
Jobcard reference
The auto-generated reference number (e.g. Jobcard142 or #Estimate 17) so the customer can quote it back to you and you can find the record instantly. Formal invoices additionally carry their own document number (e.g. INV-2026-0004).
The date
Customer-facing outputs always carry a date — that's part of what makes them a record of the transaction. On a jobcard or estimate printout it's the date the jobcard was created, not the day you pressed print, so reprinting a card next month doesn't rewrite its history. A formal invoice carries its own issue date instead, fixed when the invoice was issued. An estimate also shows its Valid until date underneath, when one is set.
Customer details
The customer's name, always. The formal invoice's "Bill to" block also carries whichever address, email, and phone you have on file; jobcard and estimate printouts show the name only. The customer's record is the source — there is no separate "customer address" stored on the jobcard.
Vehicle details
Registration, make, and model. Jobcard and estimate printouts also carry mileage in/out; the formal invoice doesn't show mileage.
Full cost breakdown with VAT
Each job's labour and parts laid out as line items, with VAT calculated at the garage's rate on VAT-enabled jobs. Hourly rates and parts prices are visible to the customer by default (you can hide line-level prices on an individual print).
The jobcard title and your comments
If the jobcard has a title it prints under the header. The Comments field prints too — the toggle is on by default on the Customer Copy and the estimate, so assume anything written there will be read by the customer. Turn it off in the print dialog if this particular copy shouldn't carry it. Recommendations print on the Customer Copy only, not on estimates.
Set this stuff once
Your branding, VAT rate, and default hourly rate live in Company Settings and Pricing. Every customer-facing output pulls from those, so you only enter them once.
What customer-facing outputs never include
Internal-only fields — like the unit cost you paid for a part — stay hidden. That column is gated behind the parts.view_cost permission and never makes it onto a printout the customer sees.