Build a custom document template without touching HTML

Every install ends in paperwork. Handover certificates, commissioning forms, warranty documents, sign-off sheets - the documents that prove the job was done properly and keep you covered if anyone ever asks. Payaca has always let you build these as document templates, so the paperwork generates itself on every project with the customer's details already filled in.

The honest caveat: document templates were the most technical corner of Payaca. A template is an HTML layout with merge variables, and while the ready-made library covers the common cases, building your own - your layout, your fields, your branding - meant editing code or finding someone who could.

That barrier is gone. Creating a document template is now a conversation. You describe the document you want in plain English, and Agent Dave builds it with you in the same panel - writes the layout, names it, sets the description, and makes your changes as you ask for them. No HTML, no separate save step.

If you've been putting off a custom certificate or sign-off form because nobody on the team wanted to touch the code, book a demo and we'll build one live on the call.

Three ways to start a template

Open Settings from your company name in the sidebar, then go to Document templates under Custom Data - or just type "document" into the settings search and jump straight there. (If you don't see the section, ask an admin about your permissions - document template access is role-based.)

Click Create document template and you'll see three routes:

1. Customise a ready-made template. The library is listed right on the create page. Click a document to preview it, then Add to account. Start here if something is close to what you need - each ready-made document is a tested layout, and adding one also brings across the custom fieldset that feeds it, so the fields your team fills in on site are set up for you. You can change anything afterwards.

2. Describe your document to Agent Dave. When nothing in the library is close, open the assistant and say what you need. Dave writes the layout and sets the template name and description for you.

3. Upload the HTML code yourself. Still there if you already have the markup and want to bring it across as-is.

The interesting one is the middle route, so let's walk through it.

Describing a document to Dave

Say you're a heat pump installer and you want a handover certificate that isn't the generic one. Click describe your document to Agent Dave and type something like:

"Create a heat pump handover certificate with the customer's name and install address, the make and model of the unit, the design flow temperature, a system settings section, and a customer signature at the bottom."

Dave builds the document while you watch. Whichever route you took, you land in the template editor with three tabs:

• Preview shows the document exactly as your customer will see it, with device buttons to check how it reads on a phone.
• Config holds the template name, the description, and the Require customer signature toggle. Tick it if the document needs signing and make sure the layout includes a signature field - Dave will add one if you asked for it.
• Code holds the HTML, for the day you're curious. You never have to open it.

Changes save automatically as you work. Edit a field, ask Dave for a tweak, and it's stored - there is no save button to forget.

And this isn't just for new templates. Open any existing template and ask Dave for the change directly: "add a commissioning date field under the system details" or "make the terms section smaller and move it to the last page". The template updates in place.

The details fill themselves in

A template is worth building once because it pays back on every job. Document templates support merge variables - the customer's name, the project's site address and similar details fill in automatically when a document is created from the template on a project. Your team opens the document on site, completes the job-specific fields, and if the template requires a signature the customer signs before the document is completed. Signed, dated, stored on the project.

That matters most for the paperwork you repeat. A few worth building this week:

• Handover packs and commissioning certificates - the documents your accreditation audits actually look at, in your format with your branding.
• Warranty registration confirmations - what was installed, when, and what's covered, generated per job instead of rewritten per job.
• Site survey sign-offs - what was agreed on the day, with the customer's signature attached to the project record rather than a photo of a paper form.

None of these are exotic. They're the documents most scaling installers already produce - just in Word, inconsistently, with the address copied in by hand.

Part of a bigger pattern

If you've followed what we're doing with Agent Dave, the direction is consistent: Dave isn't a chatbot bolted onto the side of Payaca, he's an assistant that does real work inside your account. He takes standing instructions so he understands how your business operates, and now he builds the operational assets you used to need technical help for.

Document templates were the clearest case of a feature whose ceiling was set by who on your team could write HTML. Now the ceiling is what you can describe. For an ops manager standardising paperwork across three crews, that's the difference between "we should have a proper handover pack" and having one by the end of a coffee.

Describe the document you're still producing by hand to Dave and see what comes back - or if you're not on Payaca yet, book a demo and bring the worst piece of paperwork in your business. We'll turn it into a template on the call.