How to use Buddy.

1Before your first shift

Open the Setup tab, the gear at the bottom right. Five things, once:

• Home base. Set it from where you are standing, or type the address. Buddy starts a shift by itself when the car leaves home, and offers to track the miles back.
• Your car. Petrol or electric, and what it costs you to run. The per-hour verdict comes out after the car's cost, not before.
• Your target. The dollars an hour you want. Green on an offer means above it; red means below.
• Who you drive for. DoorDash, Uber Eats, or both. Buddy reads the apps you tick.
• Navigation. Which maps app opens when you tap Nav: Apple Maps, Google Maps or Waze. Switch it off if you like your own routine.

Two permissions matter. Location, set to Always, so Buddy knows when you reach the counter and the door with the phone in the mount. Photos, because Buddy reads your screenshots. It never signs in to DoorDash or Uber.

Prefer Spanish? Español is a switch at the bottom of Setup.

2The offer

Swipe back to Buddy. In a second or two the verdict is up: dollars an hour for this job, from the card's own pay, miles and minutes, after the car's cost and the wait that kitchen usually gives you. Beside it: how long that kitchen holds drivers, how safe the street felt last time, and what drivers near you are seeing right now.

Tap Start if you took it. Tap Cancel if you passed. Buddy only times the jobs you start.

Add-ons. When an app offers a second order mid-run, screenshot that too. Buddy judges the add-on with the run it joins: what the whole run pays now, before and after, with the clock against the summed quotes.

Nothing came up? Buddy reads the newest screenshot. If it was not the card, tap Choose Another on the Active tab and pick the right one, or add the job by hand.

3The shift

A shift starts itself when the car leaves home, or when Buddy reads the first offer. Start Shift on the Active tab does it by hand. The Active tab, the arrow at the bottom left, exists only while a shift is running.

Between jobs the waiting card counts the minutes since the last drop and the miles nobody is paying for, and shows what is hot near you. Break pauses the clock when you stop for a while; Resume starts it again.

4On the job

The run card lists every stop in order. Blue rows are counters, green rows are doors, and the row lit up is where you are headed now.

• Nav opens your maps to this stop.
• The check marks the counter picked up or the door delivered. Buddy usually notices on its own from where the car is; the check is for when it has not.
• Cancel is on the row, with the reasons the apps use. A cancelled DoorDash order after pickup keeps half the pay, and Buddy records it that way.
• Photo on a counter row takes a picture of the storefront, shown the next time you pull up there.

Shopping orders. After five minutes inside a store Buddy asks Shopping at X? Yes keeps those minutes out of the kitchen's wait and marks the job a shopping job, so the Money tab can tell you whether shopping pays.

The clock. Buddy times the counter, the drive and the door. Each job's row shows its leg against what the card promised; a DoorDash add-on and the run it joined are timed together, as an Uber run is.

5At the door

• The green bubble beside the customer's name writes a message: On my way, or a thank-you. Tap to copy it, paste it in the app.
• Photo and Sign make the proof: stamped with the time and where you stood. One page to send when a customer says it never came. It is on Places under Proof.
• Tap the check when the food is handed over. Buddy closes the door and starts the next leg.
• After dark Buddy asks once whether the lobby was locked, and how safe the street felt, 1 to 10. Both show on the next offer there.

6DoorDash, step by step

1. The offer card. Screenshot it while it counts down. Buddy reads the pay, the miles, the minutes and every store on it, including "Shop for N items".
2. The task sheet. After you accept, DoorDash shows the sheet with the customer and the drop-off. Screenshot it. That is how Buddy gets the door.
3. The pay panel. Right after each drop DoorDash shows what the order paid, store by store. Screenshot it then: it is the only time DoorDash shows the pay, and it closes the job in Buddy with the real money on it, tips included.
4. Quests. Screenshot the Quest page once and Buddy counts your deliveries toward it. It shows on the Drivers tab and on Money under Incentives.
5. End of the dash. Nothing else is needed. If you like, screenshot the Earnings page and Buddy checks every order against what it watched.

A stacked DoorDash card is two jobs with two pays; Buddy times each one. A card that reads "+$3.75, +2 stops" is an add-on, judged with the run.

7Uber Eats, step by step

1. The trip request. Screenshot it while it counts down. Uber quotes the whole run, add-ons included, and Buddy judges it whole.
2. The pickup sheet. The screen that names the restaurant once you accept. Screenshot it: it gives Buddy the kitchen.
3. Each drop-off sheet. The screen with the customer's name and street. Screenshot every one on a stacked run; each one is a door.
4. Add-ons. Screenshot the add-on offer too. Buddy shows the run before and after.
5. Trip details, at night. Uber shows a trip's pay and tip later. Screenshot each trip's details page from Earnings and Buddy puts the real pay on the job. Promotions and quests the same way.

8Ending the shift

Tap End on the Active tab. If you are away from home Buddy asks whether to track the miles back. Then the recap card: paid, per hour, jobs, miles, where the money was, where the waits were, and what Buddy saved you in miles the apps never counted. It lands on the Money tab, and a notification says the same the moment the shift closes.

A shift ended and picked up again later is one day; the gap shows on the calendar as home time.

9Fixing a job

Tap a job and it opens as the form it was built from: the stores, their customers, the app, the pay, the tip. Wrong store, wrong customer, a tip the app only told you by notification: type it there. The card that priced the job stays with it.

• Add a job by hand from the + beside the jobs, when no card was read.
• Put back a door marked delivered by mistake, from its done row.
• The ? on a live row opens the same form mid-run.
• A finished evening can still be edited from Money: open the shift, tap the job.

10Money

• Tax receipt. What this year has paid and what to set aside. Tap through to the tax report: the year on one page, the mileage log, the four quarterly payments, exported as a spreadsheet or a page to print.
• Miles kept. The miles Buddy counted that the apps would have lost, and what they are worth at the IRS rate.
• By day, by week, by month. Bars you can swipe back through; tap a day to open it.
• Which app pays. DoorDash and Uber Eats side by side: per hour, per mile, average tip, how many doors tipped nothing, incentives, paid, deliveries.
• Shopping. The same figures for shopping orders on each app against every ordinary pickup, with per delivery as a line. Is shopping worth it? This card says.
• Shifts. Every evening, with its rate; tap one to open it.
• Incentives and Expenses, with a note when an expense is already covered by the mileage rate.

11Places

Every kitchen and every door you have been to: how long each one holds you, who tips, how many visits. A place's page carries its photos, notes, safety rating, lobby hours and bathroom, and a heart or a never-again. Proof lists every signed door.

12Drivers

• Hot near you. Which kitchens are moving right now and what they paid in the last hour, from every Buddy on the road. Never a customer, never a door. A map of it, too.
• Bathrooms and food near where you are, with the ones other drivers marked.
• The week's plan. A goal for the week, the hours Buddy picks for it, blocks you set with a reminder, and the calendar of what was actually worked: hours, money, miles, trips.
• Quests you are chasing and where they stand.
• Tips and stories from other drivers, and a line from the owner now and then.
• Write to the developer. Buddy is built from what drivers report.

13When something is off

• The card was not read. The newest screenshot was something else. Tap Choose Another on Active and pick the card, or add the job by hand.
• Wrong kitchen on the job. Tap the row and pick the right one; Buddy asks when two branches of a chain are close.
• The shift did not start itself. Home base is not set, or Location is not on Always. Setup says which.
• A door went to the wrong job. Open the job, move the customer in the form.
• Old screenshots. Buddy reads only screenshots newer than its last look. It never reads your photos.
• Updates. Buddy fetches its own updates and restarts into them when nothing is running. To take one now, close the app fully and open it again.
• Anything else. Report a bug on Setup sends us what, when, and a screenshot. We fix it, usually the same day.

Your shifts, places, photos and customers stay on your phone. What goes to other drivers is the restaurant, its wait and roughly what the job paid. Privacy.