Livo for trades businesses
Electrical, plumbing, painting, tiling, joinery, roofing — one system for office and site. Built around the job, not the till.
Built for your trade
No two trades bill alike. An emergency callout is not a bathroom refit — Livo handles both.
Electrical
Installation, callouts, meter changes. Many small jobs a day — each with materials and hours.
Plumbing & heating
Emergency callouts and bathroom refits in one business: one job takes two hours, the next three weeks.
Painting & decorating
Billed by area. The measurement decides the invoice — and is otherwise retyped in the evening.
Tiling & flooring
Square metres, skirting, wastage. Calculations like “3.20 × 2.50” are on every notepad.
Joinery & carpentry
Quote, deposit, installation, final invoice — one job over weeks, with materials from a catalogue.
Roofing & timber
Sites with several people. Who is where and when has to be right — otherwise the crew stands still.
From the site to the invoice — without retyping
This is what sets it apart from invoicing software: what you record on site is already in the document by the evening. Retyping is exactly where the wrong quantity creeps in.
- 1
Measure on site
Type the calculation the way you note it anyway: “3.20 × 2.50”. Livo works it out and suggests 8 — you decide whether to use it.
- 2
The customer signs
Right on your phone, on site. After that the record is locked and belongs unchangeably to what was signed.
- 3
Take it into the document
Signed measurements, used materials and recorded hours move into the invoice at a click — with the calculation as evidence for the quantity.
- 4
Invoice with a gapless number
Sequential per document type, restarting at 1 in a new year. Once locked it no longer changes; corrections happen via a cancellation entry.
What Livo explicitly is NOT: audit-proof archiving under German GoBD rules, and no tax-verified compliance. That note is visible on every document — not buried in the small print.
In use today
Every point here is built and proven locally — verified against the code, not written from memory. Where something has a limit, the limit is stated at the point itself.
Customers & jobs
Enquiry → quote → job → done → invoiced. Every job with site address, dates and everything attached to it.
Customer file with outstanding amount
The phone rings — and you immediately see the outstanding amount, running jobs, all documents and the next appointments. Without searching three lists.
Quotes and invoices with an audit trail
Line items for materials, labour and services, VAT per rate. Locked documents no longer change — corrections happen via a cancellation entry, not by overwriting.
Gapless numbering per document type
Quotes and invoices count separately and both restart at 1 in a new year. Back-dating is refused instead of quietly issuing a number twice.
Measurements with signature and calculation
The customer signs on your phone, right on site. Type the calculation as usual — “3.20 × 2.50” is worked out and offered as a suggestion, never entered behind your back.
Measurements, materials and hours into the document
What was recorded on site moves into the invoice at a click — with the calculation as evidence for the quantity. No retyping, and therefore no mistyped quantity.
Time tracking per job
Stopwatch on site or entered later, per team member and job. Billable hours go into the invoice at your default rate.
Scheduling with a double-booking warning
Livo tells you when the same person would have to be on two sites at once — but does not forbid it. Sometimes overbooking is deliberate.
Dunning with a ready-made letter
Three levels — payment reminder, 1st and 2nd notice, each with a print-ready letter and the outstanding amount. The printed level is exactly the one the record keeps. You send it yourself — there is no automatic dispatch.
E-invoicing as XRechnung 3.0
XML export for public-sector contracts, including a check of which details are still missing. Honestly: not validated against the official KoSIT validator — please have it checked once before your first submission.
A warning before the 0.00 line
While any line item has no price, the document tells you. A forgotten zero is easy to miss on an invoice — but it never gets paid either.
Being built — and why
We are still working on these. Each point says what is holding it up: a placeholder without a reason is just an announcement.
ZUGFeRD (PDF with embedded XML)in progress
XRechnung as XML exists. ZUGFeRD additionally requires a PDF/A-3 with that XML embedded — we lack server-side PDF generation for that; today your browser prints. We would rather build it properly than ship a PDF the recipient rejects.
Site photo documentationin progress
Photos attached to the job, before and after. Not built: images need storage outside the database and an answer to how long they are kept — neither has been decided yet.
Automatic dunning dispatchin progress
The reminder letter is ready, sending it is not. E-mail dispatch touches deliverability and sender domains — until that is settled you print or mail the letter yourself, and we say so plainly.
GoBD-compliant archivingin progress
Documents are locked and only corrected via cancellation entries. That is not yet audit-proof archiving under German GoBD rules — so we claim it nowhere, not even on the document.
One price, everything included.
No tiers by number of jobs, no surcharge for e-invoicing. Cancellable monthly, and you can try it in your browser first without an account.
€19 per month, plus VAT — beta access, no payment yet