There are two ways your organisation can record labour and parts in the EAM mobile app: against each service task, or against the work order as a whole.
This guide covers the second one. If your hours are recorded task by task, read Logging your time in the EAM mobile app instead.
How to tell which one you are on
Open any work order and look at the chips along the top. At work order level there is a Labour chip next to Parts — that is where all your time goes, no matter which task you were doing.
The other giveaway is the time sheet itself: every one of them says Work order under its title.
| Service task level | Work order level |
Your hours are saved against | The individual task you were working on. | The whole work order, in one running total. |
Ticking a task off | Asks you for the time that task took. | Just marks it done. Time is logged separately. |
Best for | Costing each job step separately. | Shops that care what the repair cost in total, not how the hours split across steps. |
💡 You still get the same three ways of recording time — Stopwatch, Estimates, and Start and Stop. Only the thing the time is attached to changes.
Stopwatch, step by step
The app times the work for you, and the clock belongs to the work order rather than to any one task.
Step 1. Open the work order.
You see the asset, the tasks, and any Issues attached to it. The tasks are a checklist — there is no timer on any of them. The only button is Start Work.
Step 2. Press Start Work.
The clock starts on the work order. The button becomes Finish Work and shows the running total underneath, and a pause button appears next to it. The Labour chip turns amber to show time is being recorded.
Tick tasks off as you go. That does not stop or split the clock.
Step 3. Press Finish Work and check the total.
Complete Time Log shows the start time, the end time and the duration, all editable. Discard throws the stretch away; Complete saves it to the work order.
⚠️ If the app thinks the entry looks off, it says so at the top of this screen — for example "This time log looks shorter than expected." Fix the start and end times here before saving. This is the record that reaches payroll and job costs.
The pause button saves the time so far and leaves the work order open. Pressing Start Work again begins a fresh stretch, so a job you come back to three times shows as three entries adding up to one total.
Estimates, step by step
No timer. You tell the app how long you spent, whenever suits you.
Open the Labour chip on the work order and add your time. The sheet is titled How Long Did It Take? with Work order underneath, so you can see what the time is going against.
Already logged at the top is the total on the work order so far, including anyone else’s time.
Tap a preset (30 min, 1 h, 2 h, 4 h, 8 h) or set the dials for anything else.
The line above the button spells out the result — "Adding 30 min — 1 h 32 min total on this work order".
Tap Log Labour to Work Order.
You can add time more than once. Each entry adds to the running total rather than replacing it.
Start and Stop, step by step
The same as Estimates, except the app asks when the work happened rather than how long it took.
Open the Labour chip and choose to add time. Log Start and End Time opens with two sets of dials: Started on the left, Ended on the right. The app works out the duration and shows it above the button — "Logging 30 min to this work order".
⚠️ Check the Started time before you save. The dials open near the current time, so a two-hour job can easily read as 30 minutes. Wind the start back to when you actually began.
Adding parts
Parts work the same way as time: they belong to the work order, not to a task. Open the Parts chip at the top, add what you used and the quantity, and the chip shows a count of what is on the job.
Full detail is in Adding parts in the EAM mobile app.
Finishing the work order
Tick off the last task and the app offers to close the job out: "Every task on this work order is checked off. Ready to close it out?" Choose Complete Work Order, or Not yet if you still have time or parts to add.
The completion screen collects anything still outstanding before it lets you submit:
Unresolved Issues — pick an action for each one, and add a note if it helps whoever reads it later.
A meter reading, if the asset type requires one.
A quality rating from 1 Very Poor to 5 Excellent.
Then tap Complete Work Order. Putting the vehicle back on the road is a separate step — see Finishing a work order.
⚠️ Stop the clock before you leave a work order. A timer left running keeps counting, and the time it collects is the time that gets costed.
For administrators: choosing the level
Both settings live in one place. In the web admin, go to EAM → Settings → General.
Logging Level — Task level logs labour, parts and costs against the individual service tasks on a work order. Work order level logs them against the work order as a whole.
Hour Logging Type — Stopwatch (press start/stop), Estimates (duration only), or Start and Stop (enter times).
Mechanics Can Add New Parts — lets a mechanic create a part that is not in the catalogue yet.
Part Addition Style — Directly add puts parts straight on the work order; Request creates a part request instead.
Click Save, then reopen the page to confirm the values stuck.
⚠️ Set the logging level once, at the start, with your Spare representative. Task level and work order level are not a preference to toggle back and forth — they change where every hour, part and cost is recorded, so a fleet’s history ends up split across two shapes and past work orders no longer compare cleanly with new ones. Decide it during your initial configuration, and involve the Spare team before changing it afterwards.
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