Forge

A job waiting on parts or a date can still have someone's name on it. Pick the technician right on the work order, from Assign to on a job in the Schedule's Not booked yet list, or on the phone, where a technician can tap Take it myself. A visit booked later goes to the same technician. A visit already waiting with nobody on it goes to them as well.

On the phone, Mine now also lists a job when you are on an upcoming visit to it, even if the job itself is someone else's. Everyone shows who each job belongs to.

When the job's quote or estimate has labor on it, logging work offers Covered, Bill it too or No charge, with Covered picked for you. Covered hours stay on the job but are not billed again, since the estimate's labor line already charges for them. Use Bill it too for work beyond what the estimate priced. If the customer declines the estimate, the hours bill as normal. On the desk you can change how an entry is charged until it is on an invoice.

Invoice again on a work order no longer bills labor, parts or travel that are already on an earlier invoice for the job. A voided invoice frees its work to be billed again. When there is nothing left to bill, it says so instead of making an empty invoice.

Open a quote or estimate under Billing and tap Email. The customer's email address is already filled in, their contacts are one tap away, and you can add a message. It is the same email the desk sends, with a link to the page where your customer chooses, approves or declines. Sending it marks the quote or estimate as sent.

Tap Copy link to copy the link to the quote or estimate, ready to paste into a text or a chat. Once it has been sent, the link is shown on the phone with Copy and Open. As on the desk, copying the link marks it as sent.

Your business name now shows under your logo instead of being replaced by it, along with your address, phone, email and website. It appears on the page your customer opens from a quote or estimate, at the top and bottom of the quote email, and on printed quotes, estimates and invoices. On the page and in the email, your phone, email and website are links. They come from Settings → Business information.

In a quote's Email window, clicking a contact's name under the To box now adds their address.

The × button that removes a line from a draft quote, estimate or invoice now works.

The Edit buttons on your services and on your inventory categories now open, and the × that removes one of a customer's locations works.

The pages your customers pay from -- the quote or estimate page, the invoice page and the page for adding a payment method -- now offer Apple Pay or Google Pay when the customer's phone or browser has it set up. They pay in a tap, it's charged like a card, and they can save it to their account for next time.

On an issued invoice, press Email to send it to your customer, or Copy pay link to send it yourself. They see the invoice -- the lines, the totals and the work you did -- and pay what's due by card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, bank account or Cash App, and can save what they paid with for next time. If you pass the processing fee on, they see the amount before they pay. The invoice shows when your customer opened it, and a paid invoice can be emailed as a receipt.

A card saved from Apple Pay or Google Pay is named that way -- for example, Apple Pay (Visa ending 4242) -- on the customer's record, when you take a payment, and on receipts.

Taking a payment with a customer's saved Cash App account now works. Before, it could stop with a message that payment services were unavailable.

On a customer's record, press Add payment method, then Send a link. Email it to them, or copy it to send in a text. On their own phone they can add Apple Pay or Google Pay -- which only they can add -- or a card, bank account or Cash App. Each link saves one payment method and works for 7 days.

Under Add payment method on a customer's record, choose Cash App and a QR code appears. Your customer scans it with their phone's camera and approves in Cash App, and it's saved to their record by itself. You can also open the Cash App link or copy it.

When a customer approves a quote or estimate from its link, it becomes an invoice right away, made from what they chose and due on your usual terms. The same page takes payment, so they can pay now or come back to the link any time. Estimates now offer Pay now as well, and one switch in Settings → Payments & payouts, Offer "Pay now" when a customer approves a quote or estimate, covers both.

Every line on a draft quote or estimate has a tick box. Tick the parts your customer should choose between and press Make an option group. Name it, pick Choose one or Add any, and mark which option is recommended. The lines become the group's options in one step, with no need to edit them one at a time.

When you add Forge AI research to a quote or estimate, choose where the parts go: Included, an option group the quote already has, or a new group you name right there. Look up another brand later and add it to the same group, so every choice for that part sits together. Press + Add an option on a group, then add research from that quote's From this job's research list, and it starts in that group.

With lines ticked, move them into any option group on the quote, or press Take out of group to make them Included lines again. The lines and their prices stay as they are.

Each option group has an Ungroup button. It removes the group and leaves its lines on the quote as Included lines, so nothing is deleted. It replaces Delete group, which did the same thing under a name that sounded riskier.

Saving a line from its Edit window no longer clears a discount on that line. The window now opens showing the line's discount.

Put more than one product on a quote and let the customer pick. Lines are either Included -- labor and anything the job needs, which the customer can't remove -- or options in a group you name. A Choose one group offers alternatives, like two brands of the same part, and can require a pick. An Add any group offers extras the customer can add one, several or none of. Mark one option as recommended and it starts picked. The quote shows the recommended total and the lowest and highest total the customer could reach.

The page your customer opens from the email now leads with your logo and walks them through it: what's included, each group with its rule ("Choose one" or "Optional"), and a total that updates as they choose. They approve the work with their choices in one press, or decline with a reason. It works just as well on a phone, with the total pinned to the bottom of the screen.

When a customer approves a quote linked to a work order, the work order shows Approved by the customer with the quote and the time, and a note lists what they chose. The quote shows which options were chosen and which weren't.

Once they approve, the same page offers Pay now by card, bank account or Cash App -- or they can pay later. Paying turns the chosen lines into an invoice, marked paid, and their receipt is on the page. Options they didn't choose never reach the invoice. If you pass the processing fee on, they see the amount before they pay.

When they pay, customers can tick Save to my account to keep that card or bank account for next time. It appears on the customer's record with the payment methods you add yourself. Left unticked, nothing is kept.

The logo you upload in Settings now heads the customer's quote page, the quote email, and printed and PDF quotes, estimates and invoices.

The link in a quote email now opens for the customer wherever they are, without being signed in to anything. Links from earlier emails are refreshed the next time you send or copy the quote's link.

Changing a line on a quote or invoice no longer resets a part to a service or clears its detail.

Settings → Payments has a switch for Pay now on approved quotes, which starts on, and a separate one for estimates, which starts off because an estimate's final price may change once the work is done.

Press Forge AI at the top of a work order, quote or invoice -- or the Forge AI tab on the right edge of the screen, or Ctrl+J -- and it slides in from the right. Ask in plain words. It reads the job first -- the problem reported, the diagnosis, the work logged, the parts on it and the notes -- so you don't have to explain it. Answers come back in the panel while you keep working, and it stays open as you move from page to page until you close it.

Ask what part a unit needs, what it costs, whether a cheaper one fits, or whether a model has recalls. Forge AI looks at the supplier and maker websites you list first, then the rest of the web, and every answer shows the pages it used. A part is only listed when it came from one of those pages, with the price found and where.

Keep asking in the same conversation -- "is the cheaper one OK?", "what's the warranty?" -- and it answers from the research it already did before looking anything up again. The questions and answers are kept with that research.

Save an answer to the job and it becomes research on the new Research tab, numbered R1, R2 and so on: what was found, the parts with the price found and your price, the specs, every page it came from, and the follow-up questions. The prices you pay and the supplier pages are for your staff only. Research can be moved to another work order.

From the research, choose a draft quote or invoice on the job, or make a new quote, estimate or invoice. Pick the parts and set your price -- it starts at the price found plus your parts markup -- and add a plain-English summary for your customer with links to the makers' pages. What you paid and where never appears on the customer's copy. Quotes that were sent and invoices that were issued are never changed, and you can undo it while the document is still a draft.

Add the parts Forge AI found to your parts catalog in one step, with the price found as the cost and your price as the price, so they can be picked next time.

Forge AI in the sidebar keeps every conversation. Research anything there -- replacement equipment for a customer, a code question -- then pick the work order it belongs to and what it found is saved there.

On the phone, Forge AI has its own tab at the bottom, and a button on every work order, quote, estimate and invoice. Research found in the field can be saved to the job and added to a quote, estimate or invoice right there. Quotes and estimates are on the phone now too, under Billing beside invoices: see the lines and totals, and switch a draft between quote and estimate.

Take or attach a photo -- a nameplate, a label, a part -- and Forge AI reads it with your question. It works the same on a technician's phone, where Forge AI opens from the job.

Forge AI → Usage shows this month's requests and what they drew from your Axion usage account, by person, by kind of request, and request by request with the job it was for, plus the money left on the account. The Support menu and the Forge AI card in Settings show this month's numbers and the money left on your usage account too. Models, your own OpenAI or Claude key, and web search on or off are under Settings → AI.

Set the markup you add to parts under Settings → Billing defaults. Forge AI starts your price for a researched part at the price it found plus that markup, and you can always change it on the line.

Each quote can now be a quote or an estimate. A quote is a firm price, good until its valid-until date. An estimate is your best figure: it has no expiry, and the customer's copy -- the link you send, the email and the printout -- says it is an estimate and that the final price may change once the work is done.

Your tickets are one list, split into problems and feature requests. Each one shows whose turn it is to reply, how badly a problem is in your way or how far a request has got, and when it last moved, in your own time zone. Search the list, switch between open and closed, and read it as cards on a phone.

If support tickets are turned off for your company, the Support button now says so instead of disappearing.

Forge is the new name for ForgeWorx -- Axion Forge in full. You will see it in page titles and on the app on your technicians' phones. Nothing else changes: same account, same data, same sign-in.