> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.probaseapp.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Industries (trades)
> Tag your services by trade so ProBase tailors your catalog and job-completion fields
## What are industries?
An **industry** is the trade a service belongs to. ProBase ships with a large, ready-made list of trades — **Pool & Spa Service**, **Lawn Care**, **Landscaping**, **Pest Control**, **House Cleaning**, **Pressure Washing**, **HVAC**, **Plumbing**, **Electrical**, **Roofing**, and many more. You pick from this list (you can't invent your own), and you don't have to use all of them — most businesses only ever touch the one or two trades they actually work in. Tagging your services by trade lets ProBase tailor the experience to the work you do:
* **Trade-specific fields at job completion** — a **Pool** job asks for chemical readings and adjustments, while every other trade keeps a simpler, observations-only completion. ProBase shows the right fields for the right work instead of one generic form for everyone. (Pool is the only trade with its own completion fields today; the rest use the standard completion.)
* **An organized catalog** — your service list shows a small colored chip for each service's trade, and you can filter the list down to a single trade with one tap.
* **At-a-glance context on jobs** — overdue jobs, job cards, and the job detail page show the trade so you know what kind of work each visit is before you arrive.
Tagging is always **optional**. A service with no industry works exactly as it always has, and you can add or change a service's trade at any time.
Industries are a newer capability that may need to be turned on for your account. If you don't see trade options during onboarding, an **Industry** field on your services, or the **Manage Industries** card in your Business Profile, your account isn't set up for trades yet — everything else in ProBase works the same with or without them.
## Choosing your trades during onboarding
When trades are enabled, the first work question in the [onboarding wizard](/getting-started/onboarding) asks **"What services do you offer?"** under a **YOUR SERVICES** heading, with the note *"Choose all that apply. We'll use this to set up your standard line items and schedule formats."* Pick **all that apply** — this is a multi-select, so you can choose more than one. To keep onboarding quick, this step only offers the two most common trades — **Pool** and **Lawn** — and the ones you pick set up your starter catalog. The rest of the trades are available later from your Business Profile (see [Managing your trades later](#managing-your-trades-later)).
The trades you pick are saved to your business and used to pre-fill a starter catalog of services for those trades, so you finish onboarding ready to book work.
### If you don't do Pool or Lawn
Below the Pool and Lawn cards there's an **Other** card for businesses that don't fit either trade. Tapping **Other** is a deliberate "none of these" choice — it lets you move on with **Continue** (no need to Skip), declares no trade, and seeds no starter catalog. You'll finish onboarding on a simpler "You're all set" screen with no service summary, ready to build your own catalog from scratch.
This whole step is optional. Tap **Skip** to move on without declaring anything — slightly different from **Other**, which records that none of the offered trades apply. Either way, you can always add trades later from your Business Profile.
## Managing your trades later
You don't have to decide everything during onboarding. Go to **Settings** in the sidebar (under BUSINESS) and find the **Manage Industries** card to add or remove trades at any time. Unlike onboarding's short Pool/Lawn list, the **Add a trade** picker here offers the **full catalog** of trades ProBase supports, so this is where you'd declare something like Pest Control, Pressure Washing, or HVAC.
### Adding a trade
1. Open the **Add a trade** picker and choose a trade.
2. Confirm in the card that appears. Adding a trade simply unlocks it — you'll be able to tag services with it and get trade-specific fields at job completion. **Nothing changes until you tag a service**, and no existing services or jobs are affected.
3. The trade now appears under **Your industries**, with a count of how many of your services use it.
### Removing a trade
Removing a trade is handled from the same **Your industries** list — tap the trash icon next to a trade. ProBase always confirms first and tells you exactly what will happen.
Removing a trade **archives every service tagged with it**. The confirmation lists exactly which services will be archived. Archived services are kept — not deleted — and are automatically restored if you add the trade back later. If no services use the trade, nothing is archived, but ProBase still asks you to confirm so a removal is never silent.
## Tagging a service with a trade
Each service in your [service catalog](/getting-started/service-catalog) can carry one industry. The **Industry** field sits just below the service name on both the create and edit forms. It's optional and single-select — you choose from the trades your business has set up (the ones you declared during onboarding or added from your Business Profile), and each option shows how many of your services already use that trade.
The **Industry** field only appears once your business has declared at least one trade. If you haven't set up any trades yet — neither during onboarding nor from the **Manage Industries** card in your Business Profile — the create and edit forms hide the field entirely and new services save with no trade. Declare a trade first (see [Managing your trades later](#managing-your-trades-later)) and the field appears so you can start tagging.
### Suggested trades while you type
When you name a new service, ProBase watches for trade keywords and suggests a matching industry. Type "Weekly **Pool** Cleaning" and a prompt appears: **"Assign the Pool industry?"** Tap **Assign Pool** to fill in the field for you, or **Not now** to dismiss it.
The suggestion is just a shortcut — you're always free to pick a different trade, leave the field blank, or ignore the prompt entirely.
## Choosing a trade when creating a job
You can also set a job's trade right when you book the work. An **Industry** field appears alongside the service name in the [job creation wizard](/getting-started/creating-jobs), in the quick "new service" form on a property, and in the **Change Schedule** editor — so the trade is captured up front instead of only on the catalog.
* **Pick a service from your catalog and the trade fills in for you.** If the catalog service is already tagged, that trade carries over to the job automatically. Choose **Custom** instead and the field clears so you can set the trade yourself.
* **The field only shows when you have more than one trade.** If you do a single trade, ProBase tags every new job with it automatically and keeps the field hidden — there's nothing to choose. Teams with two or more trades see the picker.
* **It's still optional.** Leave it blank if a job doesn't fit a trade, and change it later from **Change Schedule** on the job's detail page.
Setting the trade here means the job shows its trade chip and asks for the right [completion fields](#trade-specific-fields-at-job-completion) from the very first visit — even for a custom-named job that ProBase couldn't have guessed the trade from.
## Seeing trades across ProBase
Once your services are tagged, the trade shows up wherever it's useful.
### On your service catalog
Your **My services** list shows a colored chip for each service's trade. Above the list, **filter pills** let you narrow the catalog to a single trade — each pill shows how many services it covers.
Tap a pill to show only that trade's services. To return to the full catalog, tap the highlighted pill again or tap the **All** pill.
A service's detail page also shows its trade.
### On your jobs
The trade for a job is shown as a chip on the **overdue jobs** list and on the **job detail** page, so you can tell at a glance what kind of work each visit is.
ProBase figures out a job's trade from the services on it. When every service on a job belongs to the same trade, that trade is shown. If a job mixes trades, or has services with no trade, no chip appears.
## Trade-specific fields at job completion
The biggest payoff of tagging your work is at [job completion](/routes/completing-jobs). The completion form adapts to the job's trade.
* **Pool jobs** show the full set of pool fields — **Chemical Readings**, **Chemical Adjustments**, and **Observations**.
* **Other trades** (and jobs with no trade) show a simpler completion with **Observations** only — the chemical-reading sections stay out of the way for work that doesn't need them.
### A nudge to set a trade at completion
If you're completing a job whose service doesn't have a trade yet, ProBase shows a gentle prompt — **"Set an industry for this service"** — so you can tag it on the spot and unlock the right fields.
Tap **Set industry**, choose the trade, and the completion form updates to show that trade's fields.
You can dismiss the prompt if you'd rather not tag the service — it won't get in your way, and it won't keep reappearing on every visit.
## Next steps
* [Manage your service catalog](/getting-started/service-catalog) and tag your services by trade
* [Complete a job](/routes/completing-jobs) and capture trade-specific service records
* [Business Profile settings](/getting-started/settings) — add or remove trades from the Manage Industries card