Guides, and field notes from the work.
Two kinds of writing live here. Guides are practical fixes for the software shops already run on: checked against the vendor’s own documentation, dated, and free of client results. Those are published now. Field notes are what we shipped, what it cost, what worked and what didn't, with specific shops and specific numbers. Those still only get published after a build has closed and the owner has signed off.
Published guides.
How-to pages for owners and office managers. No results claimed, no client named: just how the tools actually behave, and what to do about it. Each one says the date it was last checked.
- 2026-10-08 Jobber + QuickBooks Online: how the sync actually works, and the errors that break it guide
- 2026-10-08 Housecall Pro + QuickBooks Online: how the sync actually works, and the alerts that break it guide
- 2026-10-08 Unpaid invoices in a trade business: the first 30 days, step by step guide
- 2026-10-08 Overdue invoice reminders for service businesses: settings for Jobber, Housecall Pro and QuickBooks, plus templates guide
- 2026-10-08 Late fees on service invoices: what to put in writing, how to set them up, and what Jobber can’t do guide
- 2026-10-09 Jobber vs Housecall Pro: the money side, plan by plan guide
Field notes: nothing here yet.
The first field note lands when the first engagement closes. We'd rather publish nothing than publish anything generic, so the field-notes log will stay quiet until there is something specific worth reading.
If you want a note when one is published, email hello@keystrawai.com. We add you to a small list and send only when something ships. No newsletter. No drip. No "best of 2026" recap.
What we expect to write about.
Topics already on the list. Topics we expect to write up first, once there is a closed engagement behind them. Order is intent, not commitment.
- after engagement #1 The accounts-receivable baseline nobody expects: what was never actually sent, and what moved at 30, 60, and 90 days. revenue-recovery
- after engagement #1 What Jobber and QuickBooks already did, before we built anything, and what we charged for instead. native-first
- after engagement #2 After-hours intake at a trades shop: what the pilot week of texts actually booked. phone-desk
- after engagement #2 The cheapest friday-digest build worth shipping, and what makes it usable on day one. friday-digest
- when we’ve declined enough When NOT to add an AI phone agent, in three live examples. phone-desk
- later Dispatch logic for a trades outfit: rules versus a model versus the dispatcher. schedule-keeper
- a year after the first cutover A year of run costs: where the bills actually land for a shop with three automations live. economics
Why field notes wait until a build ships.
AI commentary is cheap to generate and exhausting to read. The world doesn't need another "10 ways AI will change [industry]" post, especially from a practice that hasn't shipped at that industry yet.
Field notes here will be the opposite: a single shop, the automation we built, the number it moved (or didn't), what we'd do differently. If we don't have one of those to publish, we publish no field note. A quiet log is more credible than a loud blog.
Guides are a different thing, which is why they don't wait. They make no claim about what we've done for anyone. They describe how the software behaves, cite the vendor's documentation, and carry the date they were checked.
When a note does appear, it will include:
- the shop's name (with permission) or a clear anonymization
- the automation shipped and the stack it runs on
- the pilot + first-week numeric report, unedited
- what we'd do differently if we shipped it again
- a contact path to the owner if you want to ask them yourself
While the field-notes log is empty, the work is happening.
If you want to be the engagement we write up first, send the intake. The first three intakes get an unusual amount of attention.