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Install AppOffline Mode

Offline Mode

When you lose internet — driving between job sites, in a basement, at a customer’s house with bad reception — Service Invoice Pro can still show you recent data. This page is honest about what works and what doesn’t, so you can plan around it.

The Short Version

Offline access is read-only. You can view pages and data that were loaded before you lost connection, but you can’t create, edit, or send anything. As soon as you’re back online, every action you take goes through normally.

This is intentional — it prevents you from losing work to a sync error or having two devices overwrite each other’s offline edits.

What Works Offline

If you visited these pages while online and have the app installed, they remain available offline:

  • Invoice details for invoices you’ve recently viewed
  • Customer details for customers you’ve recently viewed
  • Job details and the daily schedule for jobs you’ve recently viewed
  • Static pages like settings, help links, and dashboards (though the numbers may be stale)
  • The app shell — navigation, branding, layouts — always loads even if every API call fails

The offline cache holds API data for 5 minutes by default, so if you went offline an hour ago, the data you see may be slightly out of date. The app still shows it so you have something to work with.

What Doesn’t Work Offline

These actions require an active internet connection and will fail with an error if you try:

  • Creating new invoices, estimates, jobs, customers, or expenses
  • Editing any record
  • Sending invoices, estimates, or notifications (email or SMS)
  • Marking invoices paid or processing payments
  • Accepting customer payments via Stripe (payments go through Stripe’s servers, not yours)
  • Signing in or out — authentication needs the server
  • Real-time data like timesheet timer state, capacity dashboard updates, or daily dispatch refreshes

When you tap one of these actions offline, you’ll typically see an error toast or be redirected to the offline page.

The Offline Page

If you tap a link to a page you haven’t visited before, the app falls back to a simple “You’re Offline” screen with a Try Again button. Tap it once you’re back online to retry.

What Service Invoice Pro Does NOT Do

A few important things to be aware of so you don’t get caught out:

No offline save queue. If you start writing a note, change a field, or try to create a record while offline, your changes will not be saved and will not sync when you reconnect. The app does not queue your edits to apply later — there is no background sync. Always make sure you’re online before editing.

No offline payment collection. Customers cannot pay invoices while you’re offline, even if the invoice page is cached on your device. Payment processing always requires a connection to Stripe.

No offline SMS or email. Sending notifications routes through external providers (Twilio and Resend), so any send attempt offline will fail until you’re back online.

Best Practices for Spotty Connections

If you’re working in areas with bad reception (basements, rural drives, dead zones at customer sites), here’s how to get the most out of offline mode:

  1. Pull up the day’s jobs at the start of the day while you have good signal. The Daily Dispatch board and individual job pages cache so you can reference them later even if you go offline.
  2. Pre-load customer details before you arrive. Tap into each customer’s profile once while online, then you can reference their phone, address, and notes offline.
  3. Don’t try to edit offline. Wait until you’re back online — even one or two bars is enough for the app to save your work properly.
  4. Pull down to refresh when you reconnect. This forces the latest data to load and replaces any stale offline cache.

Updating to a New Version

Service Invoice Pro updates automatically when we deploy a new release. The update applies in the background and takes effect the next time you launch the app, or when you pull down to refresh. There’s no “update available” prompt to dismiss.

If you suspect you’re running an old version (a feature is missing or a bug you reported is still present), try:

  1. Close and reopen the app — applies the latest cached version.
  2. Pull down to refresh while the app is open — forces a reload.
  3. Force quit and relaunch — clears any stuck state.

If the issue persists after those steps, contact support.

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