Getting started

1. Sign up your shop

Pipr is invite-only while it is being built. If you don't have an invitation, open the sign-up page, fill in your shop's name, your name and your email (and, if you like, your phone, trade and how many people you are) and tap Ask to join. We email you when there is a place.

With an invitation:

1. Open the link in the email Start your shop on Pipr. It works once, for 14 days.
2. Sign in with the same email address the invitation went to: Continue with Google, or Email me a code and type the code we send you.

That makes your shop, with you as its owner. An email address can belong to one shop only.

2. Agree to the terms

The first time you're online after signing in, Pipr shows its Terms of Service. Read them, tick I agree to Pipr's Terms of Service and tap Continue. Only owners are asked; your team keeps working meanwhile. If the terms change, you're asked again.

3. The setup steps

Next, the web app walks you through setting up the shop, one screen at a time:

1. Welcome to Pipr: your shop's name and your name, as your crew and customers will see them, and, if you like, your shop's logo (a PNG or JPEG). The logo shows at the top left and on your bills and estimates; you can add or change it later in Settings.
2. What does your shop do?: tick plumbing, heating and cooling, electrical, or more than one.
3. Your time zone and your week: for timesheets and the calendar.
4. Your prices: your sales tax rate, your hourly rate and three markups for parts. These price your book. How prices are worked out. Then Deposit on approved work: the share of an approved estimate a customer pays by card to book the work (none until you pick one), with an optional most it can be. Whoever writes an estimate can change it for that estimate. It is also in Settings, Online booking.
5. You're set up: a list of what to do next.

Steps 2 to 4 have Skip for now. Anything you skip, or want to change later, is in Settings (tap your initials, top right).

4. Finish setting up

The last setup screen lists these. Do them whenever you're ready; each is also in Settings.

1. Card payments. Under Card payments (Stripe), tap Connect Stripe. Customers pay cards into your own Stripe account. More about Stripe.
2. Your price book. Open Price Book and tap Start from Pipr's standard jobs: example jobs for your trades. Then change what you charge differently. Price book help.
3. QuickBooks, if you use it. Under Payments, on the QuickBooks card, tap Connect QuickBooks. What Pipr sends.
4. Your crew. Open Users and add each person with their role, then send each one a link to sign in. People and signing in.
5. The phone app. Install it, then sign in with the same account you used on the web.
6. Optional: Your license number, which prints on your estimates and bills; Membership plans if you sell maintenance plans; and Google reviews so you can ask happy customers for a review.

5. The web app and the phone app

The web app is at pipr-web.onrender.com. On a computer the tabs run down the left side; some pages, like the dashboard, timesheets, stock and the price book editor, are on the web only. Opened in a phone's browser, the web app shows the day's tabs along the bottom and the rest under More.

The phone app is for the trucks. While Pipr is in testing, we send you the link to install it. On the phone the tabs are along the bottom: Today, Estimates, Bills and Customers, plus Dispatch for the owner and the office.

Everything on the phone is saved on the phone first and sent to the office when there's signal, so a technician never waits on the internet. How that works.

6. Try a whole job

The quickest way to learn Pipr is one pretend job from start to finish:

1. On Dispatch, book a visit for yourself at your own address.
2. On Today, tap On my way, then Arrived, then Complete and choose Bill now.
3. Add a job from the price book, tap Finish, then Collect payment and record it as cash.

The phone app guide walks through each step.