Flooring & Service Buddy glossary
Flooring & Service Buddy glossary
Section titled “Flooring & Service Buddy glossary”A quick reference for the terms you’ll see in Service Buddy and the flooring industry. Use this when you’re new to the platform, training a new hire, or matching the language a client uses to what the app calls it.
Use Ctrl+F (or Cmd+F on Mac) to search this page. Terms are grouped into sections: Service Buddy workflow terms, Service Buddy features, flooring product terms, flooring trade terms, installation methods, and job roles.
Service Buddy — core workflow terms
Section titled “Service Buddy — core workflow terms”| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Client | The person or business you’re doing work for. Used throughout Service Buddy — in the sidebar, on quotes, on jobs, on invoices. |
| Lead | A prospect who’s shown interest but hasn’t bought yet. Convert a lead to a client when they commit. See Convert a lead to a client. |
| Property | A specific install address tied to a client. One client can have multiple properties (a homeowner with a vacation home, a property manager with multiple rentals). Each property carries its own tax rate. Also called install site or job site. |
| Quote | A pricing offer sent to a client before work begins. Created in the Quotes section. See Create a quote. |
| Digital Proposal | The way you send a quote to a client for sign-and-return. The client gets a link, reviews the quote, signs electronically, and (optionally) pays a deposit — all without printing or emailing PDFs back and forth. See Send a digital proposal. |
| Job | The actual work being done — a measure, an install, a repair, a refinish. Scheduled, assigned to a crew, and tracked in Service Buddy. The job is the record you manage; the Work Order below is the separate document you send to the installer. See Create a job. |
| Work Order (WO) | A separate document generated from a job — what to install, where, and who’s assigned, without pricing. Each Work Order has its own WO number (e.g. WO #7263). Printed or shared with the installer or assignee so they can work from one clean reference on site. See Create a work order. |
| Line Item | A row on a quote, job, invoice, or PO — one material or labor charge. Service Buddy supports two kinds of line items: Product line items (pulled from your Products list, with stock tracking) and Service line items (pulled from your Services list, no stock tracked). |
| Product | An item you sell or use from inventory — carpet, padding, LVP, hardwood, tile, transition strips, samples. Set up in Inventory → Products and pulled into quotes, jobs, invoices, and POs as line items. |
| Service | A labor or service offering you sell — install per sq ft, stair labor, binding, delivery, measure fee, design consult. Set up in Settings → Products & Services → Services and pulled in as line items. Services don’t track stock. |
| Scope of Work | A reusable, formatted description of a type of work (e.g. “Standard Carpet Install — Residential”). Saved once, attached to many quotes or jobs. See Create a scope of work template. |
| Invoice | A bill sent to a client after work is done (or partially done). Generated from a job in one click. See Generate an invoice. |
| Purchase Order (PO) | An order you place with a mill, manufacturer, or distributor. Tracks what’s ordered, what’s arrived, and what’s outstanding. See Create a purchase order. |
| Vendor | Any supplier you buy from — mills, manufacturers, distributors, freight carriers. |
| Required Deposit | A flat amount or percentage the client must pay when they approve a quote. Collected automatically online when BuddyPay is set up; can also be required without BuddyPay and collected manually. |
| Tax rate / Tax group | A sales tax percentage applied to quotes, invoices, and jobs. Set per client property; can be combined (e.g. state + county) using a tax group. |
| Tags | Free-text labels you attach to jobs, quotes, clients, invoices, and employees for grouping and filtering. Internal only — clients never see them. Examples: Commercial, Builder, Pet Damage, VIP. See Organize records with tags. |
| Labels | Printable QR or barcode labels for inventory products and samples. Used in the warehouse and showroom to scan items in and out. Different from Tags. See Print labels. |
| Custom Field | A field you add to your account to capture extra info on a quote, job, invoice, client, or product (e.g. Gate Code, HOA Approval Date, Subfloor Type). See Create a custom field. |
Service Buddy — features and tools
Section titled “Service Buddy — features and tools”| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| BuddyPay | Service Buddy’s online payments. US merchants run on Rainforest; international merchants run on Stripe. Both are fully integrated. Accepts card and ACH (US). In the Settings menu, BuddyPay appears as Service Buddy Payments. |
| BuddyAI | Service Buddy’s built-in AI assistant — answers questions about your business data, drafts messages, and summarizes jobs. |
| Client Portal | A web page each client can open to view their quotes, invoices, and payment history, and pay online. |
| Activity Log | The audit trail on a job, invoice, or other record — every change, who made it, when, and the before/after values. See View the activity log for a job. |
| Auto-deduct | A setting on a product that automatically reduces inventory when the product is added to a job or invoice. See Auto-deduct stock on jobs and invoices. |
| Internal Note | A note attached to a record (client, job, invoice, etc.) with optional photos. Internal-only — clients never see them. See Add internal notes. |
| Location | A physical store, showroom, or warehouse. Multi-location accounts can scope employees, jobs, POs, and reports per location. See Manage locations. |
| Commission | An employee payout based on a closed job or paid invoice. Configured per employee or per product, and calculated when a job closes or an invoice is paid. See Set up a commission plan. |
Flooring product terms
Section titled “Flooring product terms”| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Broadloom | Carpet sold by the roll, typically 12 or 15 feet wide, cut to fit the room. Priced by the square yard. |
| Roll goods | Anything sold on a roll — broadloom carpet, sheet vinyl, some underlayments. |
| Hard goods | Boxed or cartoned flooring — hardwood, LVP, laminate, tile. Opposite of soft goods (carpet, padding). |
| Soft goods | Carpet, padding, and other fiber-based products. Opposite of hard goods. |
| LVP / LVT | Luxury Vinyl Plank / Luxury Vinyl Tile. A durable, water-resistant vinyl flooring sold in planks or tiles. |
| SPC / WPC | Stone Plastic Composite / Wood Plastic Composite — two common LVP core types. SPC is denser and more rigid; WPC is softer underfoot. |
| Engineered hardwood | Real wood veneer over a plywood core. More stable than solid hardwood in moisture-prone areas. |
| Solid hardwood | Single piece of hardwood, typically 3/4” thick. Can be refinished multiple times. |
| Laminate | A photo-printed image of wood or stone over a fiberboard core. Cheaper than hardwood; not waterproof unless rated. |
| Sheet vinyl | Vinyl flooring sold on a roll, cut to fit. Cheaper than LVP and often used in kitchens and baths. |
| Tile (porcelain / ceramic) | Hard, fired-clay flooring. Porcelain is denser and lower-absorption than ceramic. Sold by the box. |
| Remnant | A leftover piece of carpet (or sometimes hardwood / LVP) from a larger roll or order. Sold at a discount or used for smaller jobs. |
| Stair runner | A strip of carpet that runs down the center of a staircase, leaving wood exposed on either side. Typically priced by the linear foot, with separate labor for stair installation. |
| Padding (carpet pad) | Cushion installed under carpet. Sold by weight (e.g. 7lb, 8lb) and thickness. |
| Underlayment | Cushion or moisture barrier installed under hardwood, LVP, or laminate. |
| Tack strip | Thin wood strips with nails, installed around the perimeter of a room to hold carpet edges in place. |
| Transition strip | A piece that bridges the joint between two different floor surfaces (e.g. carpet to tile). Also called a threshold or T-mold. |
| Quarter-round / Shoe molding | Trim installed at the base of a wall after flooring is laid, covering the expansion gap. |
| Seam tape | Heat-activated adhesive tape used to join two pieces of carpet. |
| Subfloor | The structural surface under the finish flooring (plywood, OSB, or concrete). Sometimes needs repair, leveling, or moisture testing before install. |
| Self-leveler | A poured compound used to flatten an uneven subfloor before install. |
| Moisture barrier / Vapor barrier | A plastic or foam layer that prevents moisture from passing from the subfloor to the flooring. Common under hardwood and LVP on concrete slabs. |
| Waste allowance | The extra material you add on top of the measured area to cover cuts, seams, and mistakes. Typically 5–15% depending on product and layout. |
| Mill | The manufacturer of carpet (Shaw, Mohawk, Stanton, Karastan, Tuftex, etc.). |
| Distributor | A regional middleman who stocks flooring from multiple mills and manufacturers, and sells to retailers (Galleher, BPI, NRF, etc.). |
| Drop-ship | When a mill or distributor ships directly to the job site (or client) instead of to your warehouse. |
| Face weight | The weight of carpet pile per square yard, measured in ounces (40oz, 32oz). Higher = more material per sq yd. |
| Pile | The visible surface fibers of a carpet. Cut pile vs. loop pile is one of the main carpet style distinctions. |
Flooring trade and process terms
Section titled “Flooring trade and process terms”| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Measure | The on-site visit to measure rooms before quoting. Used as a noun (schedule a measure) and a verb. The result is room dimensions, stair count, transitions, and notes the salesperson and installer both need. |
| Field measure | A measure performed by your team at the client’s site — the store guarantees the yardage. Most retailers won’t guarantee material if the measure didn’t come from their own crew. See Customer-supplied measure below. |
| Customer-supplied measure | The client provides their own room dimensions and is on the hook if the quantities run short. Faster than scheduling a measure, but risky for both sides — most retailers spell out clearly on the quote that material is not guaranteed when measurements come from the client. |
| Cut order | When a roll of carpet (or sheet vinyl) is cut at the mill or warehouse to the exact yardage for a specific job. Reduces waste but ties that piece to one client. |
| Bind / Binding | Finishing the cut edges of a carpet remnant so it can be used as an area rug or stair runner. Sold per linear foot. |
| Acclimation | The 48–72 hour period (sometimes longer) that hardwood, LVP, or laminate sits in the install space before being installed, so it can adjust to the room’s temperature and humidity. Skipping acclimation is the most common cause of expansion gaps and buckling. |
| Memo sample | A showroom sample loaned to a customer to take home for a few days. Worth tracking — they’re easy to lose and individually small but collectively expensive. |
| Sample board | An in-store display board with multiple flooring swatches mounted on it for clients to compare in the showroom. |
| Claim | A client-reported defect or workmanship issue after installation. Typically goes back to the mill (manufacturing defect) or to the installer (workmanship). Most retailers track these per-job to spot patterns. |
| Dye lot / Lot number | A batch identifier on carpet, tile, or some hardwood. Color and finish can vary slightly between lots, so installers always try to use the same lot across a job — and retailers track lot numbers on POs and inventory. |
Installation methods
Section titled “Installation methods”| Method | What it means |
|---|---|
| Stretch-in | Carpet installation method where carpet is stretched over padding and held in place by tack strips around the room’s perimeter. The traditional residential carpet install. |
| Glue-down | Flooring is adhered directly to the subfloor with adhesive. Common for commercial carpet, LVP, and some hardwood. No expansion gap needed. |
| Float / Floating floor | Planks click together but aren’t fastened to the subfloor — the whole floor “floats” as one piece over an underlayment. Standard for laminate and most click-lock LVP. |
| Nail-down | Hardwood planks fastened to a wood subfloor with nails or staples. Standard for solid hardwood on a wood subfloor. |
| Staple-down | Similar to nail-down but using staples. Common for thinner engineered hardwood. |
Job roles
Section titled “Job roles”| Role | What they do |
|---|---|
| Owner / Admin | Has full access. Sets pricing, runs reports, configures the account. |
| Office staff / Back-office admin | Handles invoicing, payments, POs, and scheduling from the store. |
| Salesperson (sales associate) | Works the showroom floor and with clients. Creates quotes, follows up on leads, closes deals. |
| Measurer (estimator) | Goes to the client’s site to measure rooms and inspect conditions before quoting. |
| Installer / Install crew | Performs the install on site — carpet, hardwood, LVP, tile, etc. |
| Manager | Oversees a store or location. May have multi-location visibility. |
How these terms map across the app
Section titled “How these terms map across the app”When you see this in Service Buddy, it means this in flooring terms:
- Project (on a job or quote) → the short description of the work: “Smith — Living Room Hardwood”
- Property → the install address
- Line Item → a row on a quote, job, invoice, or PO — one material or labor charge
- Product → a stocked or sold item from Inventory → Products (carpet, padding, LVP, etc.)
- Service → a labor offering from Settings → Products & Services → Services (install per sq ft, stair labor, binding, etc.)
- Vendor → a mill, manufacturer, distributor, or freight carrier
- Required Deposit → money down at quote approval
- Work Order (WO) → the installer’s printable assignment doc, generated from a job
- Activity Log → who changed what, and when, on a job or invoice
- Tags → internal grouping labels on records (filter-only, not visible to clients)
- Labels → printable QR/barcode labels for inventory
- BuddyPay → online card and ACH payments (shown in Settings as Service Buddy Payments)
- BuddyAI → built-in AI assistant for messaging, summaries, and Q&A
What’s the difference between Tags and Labels?
They sound similar but they’re different features. Tags are free-text grouping labels you attach to jobs, quotes, clients, and invoices to filter records (Commercial, Pet Damage, Builder). They live inside Service Buddy and clients never see them. Labels are printable QR or barcode stickers you put on physical inventory products and samples — used in your warehouse and showroom to scan items in and out.
What’s the difference between a Product and a Service?
A Product is something you sell or use from inventory — carpet, padding, LVP, tile, samples — and Service Buddy tracks stock for it. A Service is a labor or service charge — install per sq ft, binding, measure fee, delivery — and there’s no stock to track. Both show up as line items on quotes, jobs, and invoices.
Is a Quote the same as a Digital Proposal?
No. A Quote is the document — the pricing offer you create in Service Buddy. A Digital Proposal is the way you send a quote to a client for sign-and-return — they get a link, sign electronically, and can pay a deposit on the spot. You can also send a quote as a PDF the old way; the Digital Proposal flow is what most retailers move to once they see the conversion difference.
Is “Job” the same as “Order” or “Job Order”?
In Service Buddy you’ll only see Job in the UI. “Order” was an earlier internal name; you might see it in older URLs (/job/...) or in backend exports, but the app and your team should always say “Job.”
Where do I add a new product or service?
Products live in Inventory → Products (left sidebar). Services live in Settings → Products & Services → Services. See Add a product to get started.