Work order template: a free form to copy, with a filled-in example

A work order template is a one-page form in three parts. The request records the number, date, who asked, where and what’s wrong. The assignment adds the type, priority, who’s doing it, the due date and how to get in. The close-out records what was done, the hours, parts and costs, and who checked it.

This guide is for owners, office managers and maintenance leads at property, facilities and service teams who want a work order form they can use today, on paper, in a spreadsheet or in an app. It gives you the layout to copy, two jobs filled in, extra fields for maintenance, customer jobs and rentals, and how to number work orders. For what a work order is and the steps from request to close, start with our guide to what a work order is.

How we researched this: in October 2026 we checked each Google Sheets and Excel menu path and formula in this guide on Google’s and Microsoft’s own help pages, linked where they appear. The GoodTaco details come from the work order template’s own screens.

Work order Northgate Warehouse · Facilities No. WO-1101

Job Overhead door won’t close, bay 3 1 Request Reported Oct 27, 2026, 7:05 am Requested by Tessa Hollis, shift lead Phone or email (555) 010-4417 Site Northgate Warehouse Where Loading dock, bay 3 Equipment Overhead door OD-3 Problem Stops a foot from the floor and goes back up. The bay can’t be closed tonight. 2 Assignment Approved by Grace Lin, facilities manager Assigned to Kofi Mensah, maintenance Type Corrective Preventive Emergency Inspection Priority Urgent High Normal Low Due Oct 27, 2026 Getting in and safety Dock keys at the security desk. Unplug the opener before working on the door. 3 Close-out Started Oct 27, 9:30 am Finished Oct 27, 11:00 am What was done A pallet jack knocked the left safety sensor out of line, so the door kept reversing. Replaced the bent bracket, lined up both sensors and tested 5 closes. Labor 1.5 hours Status Open On hold Done Cancelled Parts and contractor QtyItemCost 1Sensor bracket$14.00 –Contractor$0.00 Total$14.00 Done by Kofi Mensah Checked by Grace Lin, Oct 27

What does a work order template look like?

Here’s the layout, in the order it’s filled in: the request when the job comes in, the assignment before anyone is sent, and the close-out when the work is done. The form above is a warehouse job. The example column below is a second job, WO-1108, at an apartment building.

To turn the layout into a form you can print:

1. Copy the three tables below and paste them into a Word or Google Docs page.
2. Select the cells in each example column and press Delete. The empty boxes are where people write.
3. Change each “Example: WO-1108” heading to “Fill in”, and add your business name at the top.
4. Print a stack. Write the next number from your log on each form as a job comes in.

For a spreadsheet, the field names go across the first row instead, one row per work order. There’s a line to copy in the spreadsheet section below.

Part 1: the request. Whoever takes the call or reads the message fills these in.

Field	Example: WO-1108
Work order number	WO-1108
Job, in one line	Water stain spreading on bathroom ceiling, unit 2C
Date and time reported	Oct 27, 2026, 6:40 pm
Requested by	Marisol Vega, tenant
Phone or email	(555) 010-6382
Site	Willow Park Apartments
Where	Unit 2C, bathroom ceiling
Equipment	None
Problem	Brown stain the size of a plate, bigger than last week. No dripping yet.

Part 2: the assignment. The manager fills these in before anyone is sent.

Field	Example: WO-1108
Approved by	Nate Brennan, property manager
Type	Corrective (tick one: corrective, preventive, emergency, inspection)
Priority	High (tick one: urgent, high, normal, low)
Assigned to	Ben Okafor, maintenance
Due	Oct 29, 2026
Getting in and safety	OK to enter 2C if nobody’s home; notice given Oct 28. One cat: keep the bathroom door shut. The tenant in 3C upstairs agreed to entry on Oct 29.

Part 3: the close-out. The person who did the work fills these in, and the manager signs off.

Field	Example: WO-1108
Started	Oct 29, 10:00 am
Finished	Oct 29, 12:15 pm
What was done	The caulk around the tub in 3C upstairs had cracked, so shower water ran down behind the wall. Re-caulked the 3C tub and checked the 2C ceiling: drying. Painting the stain is a separate work order once it’s dry.
Labor hours	2.25
Parts and contractor	1 tube of tub caulk, $9; no contractor
Status	Done (tick one: open, on hold, done, cancelled)
Done by	Ben Okafor
Checked by	Nate Brennan, Oct 29

On paper, leave two or three lines each for the problem and what was done. Set each priority’s due date once, so “urgent” means the same thing to everyone: urgent the same day, high the next day, normal within 7 days and low within 14. True emergencies, such as a burst pipe or a gas smell, are phoned in first, then written up with emergency as the type and urgent as the priority.

If tenants or customers report problems themselves, give them a shorter maintenance request form and copy their answers into part 1. If you’d rather not keep paper at all, GoodTaco’s work order template has the same three parts as a working app that numbers each job for you. It’s free to start, and the link is just after the next section.

What should a maintenance work order form include?

A maintenance work order is the same form plus a few fields about the equipment itself. They make each machine’s history worth reading later, and the lockout line reminds whoever does the work to make the machine safe first. WO-1102 is a quarterly service on the warehouse’s air compressor:

Field to add	Example: WO-1102
Equipment ID and type	AC-1, air compressor
Hour meter or mileage	2,140 hours
Checklist	Drain the tank, change the intake filter, check the belt, listen for leaks
Lockout needed?	Yes: switched off and locked at the disconnect
Downtime	8:00 to 9:15 am
What was found	Belt is worn; order a spare before the next service
Parts, with part numbers	1 intake filter, part no. IF-220, $22
Next due	Jan 28, 2027

On a repair, write the cause, not just the fix. “Pallet jack hit the sensor” tells you to move the pallet route; “adjusted” tells you nothing. For jobs that repeat, such as filter changes and inspections, print the same checklist on every work order so each visit is done the same way. Our preventive maintenance checklist has checklists by equipment type and a schedule layout.

What goes on a service work order for customer jobs?

Trades and service companies that work in customers’ homes and businesses use the same layout, plus the fields that lead to the invoice. WO-1109 is a water heater replacement for a plumbing company’s customer:

Field to add	Example: WO-1109
Customer	Owen Price
Job address	418 Birch Lane
Bill to	Same as the job address
Quote	$1,650, approved by phone on Oct 26
Charges	Materials $1,090; labor $560 (7 hours at $80); total $1,650, as quoted
Arrival window	Oct 28, 8 to 10 am
Labor	2 technicians, 3.5 hours each
Materials	40-gallon gas water heater, expansion tank, fittings
Customer sign-off	Signed on site by Owen Price

The work order tells your crew what to do, and the invoice bills the hours and materials it records. Put the work order number on the invoice, so a question about a bill leads straight to the job.

Fields to add for your trade or property

Trade or property	Add these fields
Heating and cooling	Unit make, model and serial; filter size; refrigerant added
Plumbing	Fixture or appliance; where the shut-off is; water heater size
Electrical	Panel and circuit; permit number, if one was needed
Trucks, trailers and forklifts	Unit number; mileage or hours; safe to use, yes or no
Apartments and rentals	Unit, tenant and best phone; permission to enter and the date notice was given; pets; charge back to the tenant, yes or no; owner approval above a set amount

If you manage rentals and are choosing software for it, our guide to property maintenance software covers what it should do and what it costs for small landlords and property managers.

What’s the simplest work order form?

If you hand out the jobs yourself and need something today, a simple work order form needs nine lines:

• Work order number
• Date reported
• Where: the site, plus the unit or room
• Problem
• Priority
• Assigned to
• Due date
• What was done
• Date finished

The rest of the full layout earns its place as the team grows. Who asked lets you call back. How to get in saves a wasted trip to a locked door. Hours and parts show what each building or machine costs you.

What is a work order number, and how do you number work orders?

A work order number is the one ID everyone uses for a job: the requester quoting it on the phone, the technician on the clipboard and the office on the parts order. A few rules keep the numbers useful:

• Use a prefix and a count. WO- plus a number, such as WO-1101, tells a work order apart from a purchase order or an invoice.
• Start at 1001. Every number then has four digits up to 9999, so a spreadsheet sorts them in order. Start at 1 and WO-10 sorts before WO-9.
• Keep one count. Hand out numbers in one place: the next line in the log, the next form in a pre-numbered pad, or the app. If two sites keep separate logs, give each its own prefix so their numbers never clash.
• Never reuse a number. Duplicate, declined and cancelled jobs keep their number, marked cancelled, so a gap never looks like a lost job. On paper, write “void” across a form with a mistake on it and file it.
• Add the year if you like. Some teams put the year after the prefix and start the count again each January, so a job’s age shows at a glance. The cost is a longer number to read out over the phone.
• Put it everywhere. On your reply to the requester, the parts order, the contractor’s bill and the invoice.

Work order log Northgate Warehouse · one count, in order

Number Job Status

WO-1101 Overhead door won’t close, bay 3 Done

WO-1102 Quarterly service, air compressor AC-1 Done

WO-1103 Dock leveler won’t rise, bay 2 On hold

WO-1104 Dock leveler stuck, bay 2 Same job as WO-1103 Cancelled Number kept

WO-1105 Restroom tap dripping, office Open

WO-1106 Battery charger fault, aisle 4 In progress

WO-1107 The next job, whoever logs it Next number

In a spreadsheet, type each number in, or copy the last one and add one. Don’t number work orders with a formula such as =ROW(). It returns the row a cell is on (Google help, Microsoft support), so the numbers change when someone sorts the sheet or deletes a row, and WO-1103 can quietly become another job.

Should you use a paper, spreadsheet or app work order form?

All three work. The right one depends on how many jobs you run, how many people do them and where they are when they fill in the form.

Printed forms

Paper costs almost nothing, works with no signal and needs no training. Print the layout above, or order pre-numbered carbonless pads from a print shop, so the technician keeps one copy and the office files the other. Paper gets hard once jobs spread across people and sites. Someone retypes each form, forms get lost between the van and the office, nobody sees what’s open without the binder, and finding a machine’s past repairs means digging through folders.

A spreadsheet

A spreadsheet log is one row per work order, with the field names from the layout across the first row. To set it up in one go, paste this line into cell A1:

Work order number,Job,Date and time reported,Requested by,Phone or email,Site,Where,Equipment,Problem,Approved by,Type,Priority,Assigned to,Due,Getting in and safety,Started,Finished,What was done,Labor hours,Parts and contractor,Status,Done by,Checked by

Then split it into columns. In Google Sheets, choose Data > Split text to columns (Google help). In Excel, choose Data > Text to Columns, pick Delimited, then Comma (Microsoft support).

Turn priority and status into dropdowns so everyone uses the same words. In Google Sheets, select the column and choose Insert > Dropdown (Google help). In Excel, choose Data > Data Validation, set Allow to List and enter the choices in Source (Microsoft support). Filter by status for the open list, and by equipment for a machine’s history.

A spreadsheet gets hard away from a desk. A wide sheet is awkward to fill in on a phone, you type every number yourself, and the open list is only as current as the last person who updated it. A Google Sheet works without signal only if someone turned on offline access first (Google help). Our guide to free work order software sets up the log in Google Sheets step by step and compares free work order apps.

A work order app

A work order app turns the same fields into screens. Technicians fill in the close-out on their phone at the job, the app hands out the numbers, and everyone sees what’s open and what’s late. The trade-offs are cost, often charged per user, and the time to set it up. If your team works in basements or mechanical rooms, check whether the app works without signal: some phone apps do, while browser-based apps such as GoodTaco need a connection.

In the grid below, a half circle means partly; the note beside each mark says why.

Paper, spreadsheet or app

Printed form Fill in at the job Numbers each job · Pre-numbered pads Team sees what’s open · One binder A machine’s past jobs · Dig through folders Works with no signal

Spreadsheet Fill in at the job · Hard on a phone Numbers each job · You type each one Team sees what’s open · If kept up A machine’s past jobs · Filter by equipment Works with no signal · If set up first

Work order app Fill in at the job Numbers each job Team sees what’s open A machine’s past jobs Works with no signal · Depends on the app

Fill in at the jobNumbers each jobTeam sees what’s openA machine’s past jobsWorks with no signal

Printed form Pre-numbered pads One binder Dig through folders

Spreadsheet Hard on a phone You type each one If kept up Filter by equipment If set up first

Work order app Depends on the app

Skip the paper with GoodTaco’s work order template

The bay 3 door took a phone call, a paper form, two signatures and a trip to the binder. In GoodTaco’s work order template, the same job lives on one page from request to close-out, and the template is a working app, not a file to fill in. Sign up and you land in your own copy, with sample records from a small property services team (Maple Court Apartments, Elm Street Offices and Riverside Plaza) to try it on. Rename the sites, equipment and team to yours, or clear the samples, and the three parts of the form become screens:

• The request comes in through a request page anyone can use without signing in, once you publish the app with its public link. Only people signed in to your GoodTaco workspace can open the board and the work orders. Anyone else who has the link gets the request page and nothing more. Each building can have its own link, and the requester sees their work order number as soon as they send it.
• The assignment happens when you accept a request: pick the technician, the priority and the due date. The app fills in the due date from the priority: the same day for urgent, the next day for high, 7 days for normal and 14 for low.
• My work shows one technician’s jobs at a time, most pressing first. Each job opens with how to get in and directions, and buttons to start it, put it on hold or finish it.
• The close-out records what was done, labor hours, parts cost and contractor cost. On the Done tab, pick a month to see its labor hours and its parts and contractor costs added up, and export those jobs as a CSV file for invoicing or the budget.
• Numbers come from the app: each new work order or request gets the next one (WO-1001, WO-1002 and so on), and no two share a number.
• Print any work order from its page, for a technician who still wants paper on the clipboard.
• Sites and equipment keep each machine’s make and model, serial number and install date, with its own work order history.
• Repeating jobs cover preventive maintenance, such as a furnace filter change every 3 months at each building. Each work order is created a set number of days before it’s due (7 by default) when someone on your team who can edit opens the app, and it lands in the work order list and in that technician’s My work.

Work orders

Work orders Board Work orders My work Repeating jobs Sites and equipment Team

Work orders Overhead door won’t close, bay 3 WO-1101 Done Urgent Edit close-out Print Reopen Assignment Assigned to Kofi Mensah Due Oct 27 Priority Urgent Reported Oct 27 Finished Oct 27 What was done A pallet jack knocked the left safety sensor out of line, so the door kept reversing. Replaced the bent bracket, lined up both sensors and tested 5 closes. 1.5 h · $14.00 in parts Details Getting in Dock keys at the security desk. Unplug a door’s opener before working on it. Stops a foot from the floor and goes back up. The bay can’t be closed tonight. Site Northgate Warehouse 2200 Industrial Way Where Loading dock, bay 3 Equipment Overhead door OD-3 Building Requested by Tessa Hollis (555) 010-4417 Activity Reported · Tessa Hollis · Oct 27 Started · Oct 27 Note · Kofi Mensah · Oct 27 Left sensor knocked out of line, bracket bent. Swapping the bracket from stock. Finished · Oct 27

The paper form has a few lines the template doesn’t: the type, who approved the job, a parts list item by item, and a “Checked by” sign-off. Ask GoodTaco in plain words and it changes the app for you, for example:

Add a checked-by name and date to the close-out.

Every version is saved, with one-click rollback, and the app works in any browser, including a phone’s. GoodTaco is free to start. Paid plans start at $9 a month, and Pro at $49 a month includes 10 users; bigger teams talk to us about Enterprise.

If your work order log is already an Excel or CSV file, start there: turn the spreadsheet into an app, with no account needed to try. Each row comes in as a record in a built-in database, and columns of repeated choices, such as status and priority, become dropdowns. A log in Google Sheets can stay put: GoodTaco builds the app on the sheet and reads and writes it live.

Give every job one number, one form and one list your team can check. Start free, no credit card needed.

Frequently asked questions

What should a work order template include?

About 23 fields in three parts, in the order they're filled in. The request has 9: number, job, date and time reported, who asked, how to reach them, site, where, equipment and problem. The assignment has 6: approved by, type, priority, assigned to, due date, and getting in and safety. The close-out has 8: started, finished, what was done, labor hours, parts and contractor, status, done by and checked by. A simple form can get by with nine lines.

How do I make a work order form in Word, Google Docs or Excel?

Copy this guide's three tables into Word or Google Docs, delete the example text and print a stack. For Excel or Google Sheets, paste the guide's line of field names into cell A1, split it into columns and make priority and status dropdowns. Or start from GoodTaco's work order template, a working app with the same three parts.

What is a work order number?

It's the unique ID on each work order, so the requester, the technician and the office all mean the same job. Most teams use a prefix and a count, such as WO-1101. Start at 1001 so every number has the same number of digits, hand out numbers from one log (or give each site its own prefix), and never reuse a number, even for a cancelled job.

How do you number work orders in Excel or Google Sheets?

Type each number in as you add the work order, or copy the last one and add one. Don't number them with a formula such as ROW(), which returns the row a cell is on, because the numbers change when someone sorts the sheet or deletes a row.

Is there a free work order template?

Yes. The layout in this guide is free to copy into a document or spreadsheet, or to print. GoodTaco's work order template is a working app with a request page, assignments, numbering and close-outs, and GoodTaco is free to start.

What is a maintenance work order form?

It's a work order for repairs and upkeep on buildings and equipment. On top of the usual fields, it records the equipment ID, an hour meter or mileage reading, a checklist for routine jobs, whether the equipment must be locked out, the downtime, what was found and the parts used with their part numbers.

Should I use a paper or digital work order form?

Paper suits a few jobs a week at one site and works with no signal. A spreadsheet suits a small team that updates it at a desk. Move to a work order app when technicians work from their phones, you look after several sites, or people keep asking whether their job is done.