Who can build a custom ServiceM8 report?

Who can build a custom ServiceM8 report?

The honest answer depends on what the word custom means for your business. If it means a count or a revenue figure cut a particular way, ServiceM8 builds it: the Custom Reports builder in the Advanced Reporting Pack does metrics, filters and breakdowns on any plan. If it means a document, one that pulls the job, the site, the form the technician filled in and the photos into the layout a property manager or an auditor expects, no built in tool assembles that. It is written as a small program against the ServiceM8 REST API, by a certified developer from ServiceM8's directory or by FFP Digital in Ipswich.

What ServiceM8 can report on its own

ServiceM8 ships sixteen reports in the Online Dashboard's Reports tab, visible to the Business Owner role: Job Backlog, Completed Jobs By Category, Jobs By Month, Jobs By Status, Jobs Win/Lose Rate, Material Usage, Top Clients, Revenue By Category, Revenue By Month, Feedback By Month, Recent Feedback, Online Bookings By Service, Online Bookings By Source, and three timesheet views. Those are the weekly look at how the business is going, and if you have never opened that tab, start there before paying anyone.

The Advanced Reporting Pack adds Custom Reports and two CSV exports. The builder lets you pick a metric, a time frame with a comparison period, filters and a breakdown, then save the result as a table or chart and export it as CSV. ServiceM8 has also added a Smart Report Helper that drafts the metrics and filters from a plain English request. That covers most ad hoc questions an owner has for themselves.

Where the built in reports stop

Every built in report works the same way: a metric over a date range, broken down by a field. The requests that turn up in the ServiceM8 community fall outside that in a few repeatable ways. An inspection or service report that needs the form answers, the asset list and the photos on one page. A monthly summary that arrives in a customer's inbox without anyone remembering to run it. A next due date worked out from the last visit. A figure that needs ServiceM8 data beside Xero data or a spreadsheet the office keeps. None of those is a metric in the builder, and the CSV exports carry no files, so the photos cannot come from an export either.

What a developer actually builds

A custom report is a small program that reads what it needs through the ServiceM8 API, which covers jobs, clients, sites, form responses and attachments, does the calculation or the assembly, and produces the document. For one account, the developer authenticates with an API key you create under Settings, API Keys, which ServiceM8 says needs no developer account and is the private application route. The report can run from a link the office clicks, or on a schedule that emails the customer directly.

Three things separate a build that works from one that merely exists. It is tested on real completed jobs, not sample data. It is hosted somewhere that keeps running when nobody is watching, with a log the office can read. And it comes with one page saying what it reads and where it sends the result. FFP Digital's custom reports are from $1,200 plus GST, five business days from deposit, with the code, the documentation and the hosting access staying with you. The one running now for a fire services compliance business puts a photo on every asset in the report, live since September 2026.

How to brief whoever builds it

The brief is most of the job. Write who reads the report, every field it must show, what starts it and where it goes. Say which reports you already tried in ServiceM8, so the developer does not rebuild one that exists. Name the odd cases you know about. A developer who can quote a fixed price from that page is the one to use; one who cannot has not read it.