Pest Control Work Order Template (Free, With Example)

Attila, founder of PestShiftLast updated: November 11, 202610 min read

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A pest control work order is the instruction sheet that sends a technician to a job: who the customer is, where the property is, when to arrive, what service to perform, how to get in, what to watch out for, and which license the job needs. It is written by the office before the visit, and everything the technician records afterwards hangs off it. The free template below has every field, followed by a filled-in example you can copy.

A work order is easy to confuse with the other paperwork in a pest control company, because they all share the customer's name and address. The difference is direction. The work order goes from the office to the technician, before the job. The documents that go to the customer come after.

How is a work order different from an estimate, service report or invoice?

Document	Who writes it	Who reads it	When	What it answers
Estimate	Office or technician	Customer	Before the customer agrees	What will it cost?
Work order	Office	Technician	Before the visit	What do I do, where, and when?
Chemical application record	Technician	Your state regulator	At the application	What was applied, how much, by whom?
Service report	Technician	Customer	End of the visit	What did you find and do?
Invoice	Office	Customer	After the visit	What do I owe?

Each customer-facing one has its own template: the estimate, the service report and the invoice. The forms overview covers which of them are legal records. The work order is the one internal document in the set, so it is the one most companies leave in someone's head.

That works with one truck. It stops working the day a second technician takes a job the owner booked, and the gate code, the dog and the customer's note about the kitchen all stay in the owner's phone.

What should a pest control work order include?

Seven blocks. If a field doesn't change the way the technician does the job, leave it out.

Job details. Work order number, date, arrival time or window, estimated length, assigned technician.
Customer and property. Customer name, phone, service address, property type, and whether the customer will be home.
Access and safety. Gate codes, lockbox, where to park, pets, children, allergies or sensitive occupants, areas not to enter.
The work. Service type (initial, routine, callback, inspection only), target pests, areas to treat, add-ons, and what the customer reported in their own words.
Licensing and products. The license category the job needs, and any product the customer asked for or asked you to avoid.
History. Last visit date, what was applied last time, open issues from the last report.
Completion. What the technician must record before the job counts as done: notes, recommendations, chemical record, photos, signature.

Notice what is not on the list: the price. The technician doesn't need it to do the work, and the customer never sees the work order. If your technicians collect payment at the door, add an "amount to collect" line; otherwise keep money on the invoice.

Free pest control work order template

Copy this into a document or your notes app. Delete lines you never use, but keep the access and completion blocks.

PEST CONTROL WORK ORDER

Work order no.: ________   Created by: ____________   Date created: ________

1. JOB
Visit date: ________   Arrival window: ______ to ______   Est. length: ______
Assigned technician: ____________________
Service type: [ ] Initial  [ ] Routine (plan)  [ ] Callback  [ ] Inspection only  [ ] One-time
Part of a recurring plan? [ ] No  [ ] Yes: ____________ (visit __ of __)

2. CUSTOMER AND PROPERTY
Customer: ______________________________   Phone: ________________
Service address: _______________________________________________
Property type: [ ] House  [ ] Apartment/condo  [ ] Commercial: ____________
Customer home during visit? [ ] Yes  [ ] No  [ ] Unknown

3. ACCESS AND SAFETY
Gate / door code: ____________   Lockbox: ____________
Parking: ____________________________________________
Pets on site: ________________  Secured? [ ] Yes  [ ] No
Children, allergies, sensitive occupants: ______________________
Areas NOT to enter or treat: __________________________________

4. THE WORK
Target pests: _________________________________________________
Customer's report (their words): ______________________________
Areas to treat: [ ] Exterior perimeter  [ ] Interior  [ ] Garage
                [ ] Attic  [ ] Crawl space  [ ] Yard  [ ] Other: ______
Add-ons: ______________________________________________________
Inspection required before treating? [ ] Yes  [ ] No

5. LICENSING AND PRODUCTS
License category required: ____________________
Technician holds it, current on visit date? [ ] Yes  [ ] Check
Products requested or to avoid: ______________________________

6. HISTORY
Last visit: ________   Last technician: ____________
Applied last time: ____________________________________________
Open issues from last report: _________________________________

7. COMPLETION (technician fills in on site)
Time in: ______   Time out: ______
[ ] Treatment notes written
[ ] Recommendations for customer written
[ ] Chemical application record completed (if any product applied)
[ ] Photos taken (before / after)
[ ] Customer signature (if required)
[ ] Payment collected: [ ] N/A  [ ] Cash  [ ] Check
Follow-up needed? [ ] No  [ ] Yes: ____________________________

Technician: ____________________   Date: ________

Two fields people skip and regret:

Customer's report, in their words. "Ants on the kitchen counter every morning near the window" tells the technician where to start. "Ants" doesn't.
License category required. The office knows the job is a termite treatment when it books it. The work order is where that turns into "this technician must hold the right license", before the truck leaves, not after.

A filled-in example

Here is the same template filled in for a routine visit on a quarterly plan. The details are made up.

PEST CONTROL WORK ORDER

Work order no.: 2047   Created by: Office   Date created: Nov 3

1. JOB
Visit date: Nov 11   Arrival window: 8:00 to 10:00   Est. length: 45 min
Assigned technician: Tech 2
Service type: [x] Routine (plan)
Part of a recurring plan? [x] Yes: Quarterly general pest (visit 3 of 4)

2. CUSTOMER AND PROPERTY
Customer: Homeowner (see customer record)   Phone: on file
Service address: on file
Property type: [x] House
Customer home during visit? [x] No

3. ACCESS AND SAFETY
Gate / door code: side gate, code on file
Parking: street, not the driveway
Pets on site: one dog   Secured? [x] Yes, inside during exterior work
Children, allergies, sensitive occupants: none reported
Areas NOT to enter or treat: vegetable bed on the south side

4. THE WORK
Target pests: ants, spiders
Customer's report (their words): "Ants by the back door again since the rain."
Areas to treat: [x] Exterior perimeter  [x] Garage
Add-ons: none
Inspection required before treating? [x] Yes, back door threshold

5. LICENSING AND PRODUCTS
License category required: General Pest
Technician holds it, current on visit date? [x] Yes
Products requested or to avoid: avoid treating near vegetable bed

6. HISTORY
Last visit: Aug 12   Last technician: Tech 2
Applied last time: exterior perimeter, same product as usual
Open issues from last report: mulch against foundation at back door

7. COMPLETION
(left blank for the technician)

The example shows the point of the history block: the open issue from last time (mulch at the back door) is probably the reason for the ants this time, and the technician knows that before getting out of the truck.

How does a work order flow into the service report and chemical record?

Think of the work order as the top half of the job and the completion block as the bottom half. Done in order, nothing gets written twice.

The office creates the work order when the visit is booked, or when a recurring plan puts the next visit on the calendar.
The technician reads it before arriving. Access, safety, the customer's report and history are the parts that change how they work.
The technician inspects and treats. If the job needs an inspection first, the pest control inspection checklist covers what to look at.
The technician fills in the chemical application record for every product applied: product, EPA registration number, amount, target pest, where it went. The customer, address and date carry over from the work order. The chemical application record template lists the fields.
The technician completes the visit with notes, recommendations and photos. That becomes the customer's service report.
The office invoices it from the completed work order.

Step 4 is where the work order saves real trouble. State record rules ask for details the work order already has. Texas, for example, lists the customer billing name and address, service location, product names and EPA registration numbers, total amount of each product applied, target pest or purpose, date, and the applicator's name and license number, kept for 2 years (4 Tex. Admin. Code §7.144). Half of that is on the work order before the technician arrives. The federal floor for restricted-use pesticide records is 2 years under 40 CFR Part 171. Other states differ, so check your state on our compliance guides and confirm with your state agency, because rules change.

How does PestShift handle work orders?

PestShift visit opened from the calendar: date and time, customer, phone and address, technician, Completed status, the chemical record and the completion report with notes and recommendations A visit opened from the PestShift calendar: the work order and its result in one window. (demo data)

In PestShift the visit is the work order. When you book one you search for the customer or add a new one, pick the property, the service and any add-ons, then the date, time and technician. PestShift won't let you double-book a technician, and it checks their license for the service while you're booking. Each service can name the license category it needs; a visit is flagged when the assigned technician has no current license in that category or it expires soon.

On the technician's phone, My day shows each visit with the time, customer, service, address with a map link, tap-to-call, access notes like gate codes or a dog on site, the plan it belongs to, and what was applied at that property last time. That is blocks 1 to 6 of the template, filled in from the booking.

Block 7 is the completion. The technician completes the visit with treatment notes, recommendations, the chemical record, photos and, if you turn it on, the customer's signature. On a service that requires a chemical record, the job can't be marked complete until the record is there. It works offline once My day has loaded, and syncs when the phone is back in range.

Back in the office, click any visit on the calendar to open it: the customer and property, the technician, status and price at the top, then the deposit and payment, the chemical record, the route it's on, and the completion report with notes, photos and recommendations. The customer gets the service report by email, and every completed visit gets a numbered invoice.

What PestShift doesn't do

It doesn't pick the technician for you. You assign each visit yourself. The routing tool orders each technician's day, but it doesn't decide who gets which job.
License flags warn, they don't block. If you book a flagged visit anyway, PestShift asks you to confirm and notes that you did. You know your state's supervision rules better than software does.
It doesn't know each state's license categories. Categories are matched by name, so use the same wording on the license and on the service.
The technician app isn't in the app stores. It installs from the browser onto the home screen on iPhone and Android.

To see the whole flow on your own jobs, start a free 14-day trial.

Frequently asked questions

Is a work order the same as a service ticket?

Mostly, yes. Companies use work order, service ticket, job ticket and dispatch sheet for the same thing: the office's instructions for one visit. What matters is that it reaches the technician before the job with access and safety notes on it.

Does the customer see the work order?

No. The work order is internal. The customer sees the estimate before the job and the service report and invoice after. Keep anything you wouldn't want a customer to read, like notes about a difficult account, on the work order only.

Should the work order show the price?

Only if the technician collects payment on site. Otherwise the price belongs on the invoice, and leaving it off the work order keeps the technician focused on the work.

Do I need a work order for recurring visits?

Yes, even if it is generated from the plan. Each visit needs its own date, technician and history, and the open issues from the last visit are what make a routine stop worth the customer's money.

Is a work order a legal record?

Generally no; the chemical application record is the legal record in most states. But the work order holds fields that record needs, so keep them consistent. Confirm with your state agency what your records must include and how long to keep them.

What is the most common work order mistake?

Leaving out access and safety notes. A technician who can't get through the gate, or who meets a dog nobody mentioned, loses the time the work order was meant to save.