The four photos
Every job gets these, and it takes ninety seconds.
- Odometer on arrival — the reading you will put on the invoice.
- The fault: the worn pad, the leaking hose, the cracked belt, in place, before removal.
- Old part next to new part — the single most persuasive photo in the trade.
- The finished work — fitted, clean, done.
Take them at the car, not at the desk
Photos taken on a phone in the bay and attached straight to the car's job or invoice are findable in a year. Photos taken 'for the record' and left in a camera roll are gone by Friday. If the pit has no reception, they should queue and upload when you walk back out.
Show the customer the right ones
Not every photo belongs on the invoice. Tick the fault and the old-versus-new shot; leave the compliance and receipt shots for your own file. Grouped before and after on the invoice page, they answer the question before it is asked.
Name what the customer is looking at
A photo without a caption is a puzzle. 'Rear pads, 1.5 mm, metal-on-metal within a month' turns the same picture into a decision. Add the reading where there is one — pad thickness, tread depth, odometer, a torque wrench on the setting — because numbers are what a second opinion checks against.
Keep the shot honest and plain: in focus, the part filling the frame, the rego or the job number visible somewhere in the sequence. A tidy bench and a clean rag behind the old part costs nothing and reads as a workshop that takes care.
Store them where they will be found
The question is never 'did we take a photo?' It is 'can we find it in eighteen months?' Photos attached to the car — by job, by invoice, by inspection — turn up when the car comes back, when the owner sells it, or when someone rings about a warranty. Compressed on the phone before upload, they cost almost nothing to keep forever.
For inspections, photograph every fail
An inspection item marked fail with a photo is evidence. Marked fail without one is an opinion. Buyers, sellers and occasionally tribunals treat the two very differently.