# Getting Started

From signup to your first completed job - the whole loop in five minutes.

Welcome! TowConnect runs your whole towing operation - calls become **jobs**, jobs live on the **dispatch board**, finished jobs become **invoices**. This guide walks the loop once; after that, everything else is detail.

## 1. Create a job

Open **Jobs → All Jobs → New Job** (or the New Job button on the dashboard). A job only *needs* a pickup address - everything else (vehicle, client, price, driver, truck) can be added now or later.

## 2. Watch the dispatch board

The **Dispatch** page is live - every job your team creates appears in the feed within seconds, along with who's on shift. This is the page most operators keep open all day.

On a phone, **swipe a job right** for its next status, or **left** to call the customer. On a keyboard, focus a row and press the right or left arrow.

## 3. Work the job

On the job page, the status button walks the real journey: **Dispatch → En Route → On Scene → Start Tow → Completed**. Each step is timestamped into the job's history - that history feeds your reports and compliance registers automatically.

A swipe waits 5 seconds before it saves - press **Undo** in that time and nothing is sent. The same change is always on the job page: the status button, and the customer's number as a tap-to-call link.

## 4. Invoice it

Once a job is completed, **Create Invoice** on the job page turns it into a branded invoice - your company name, your tax settings, ready to email or download as a PDF.

## Set up the rest when you're ready

- **Drivers & trucks** - Fleet → Drivers / Trucks. Drivers get their own portal for jobs and shifts.
- **Your logo and details** - Settings → General (logo, phone, address, tax number).
- **Country & tax** - Settings → Tax and region. Picking a country sets currency, tax and dates in one go.
- **Your state** - Settings → Accident towing. It sets the fee caps, capped storage rate and rego check that apply to you.
- **Clients & accounts** - your customers. Some plans add B2B accounts, the customer portal and statements.

> Dismissed the Getting Started checklist? Reopen it from the dashboard's empty-state link, or revisit this guide any time.