PlumbingBossPro Blog — Running a Plumbing Business

Getting a New Plumbing Business Off Paper From Day One

Paper is cheap and it feels simple. A carbon-copy invoice pad, a spiral notebook for customers and a calendar on the fridge will run a brand-new plumbing company for a few months. The problem is what happens after those few months, when the notebook is full and the business is too busy to move it into anything else.

Why Paper Feels Fine at First

If you are leaving a shop to go out on your own, start with Starting a Plumbing Business After Years of Working for Someone Else. This article is about one decision from that first week: paper or software.

With five customers, you remember everything. You know which house has the tankless, which one has the dog and which one paid cash. Paper works because your memory is doing the real work.

That stops working sooner than most new owners expect, usually in the first busy season. Calls start to blur. Someone calls about “the water heater you put in last spring” and you flip through a stack of carbon copies to find which one. A customer says they paid and you cannot prove they did or did not.

The Real Cost of Paper

Paper does not cost money up front. It costs money quietly:

• Invoices that never go out. A ticket left in the van door pocket is a job you did for free.
• Equipment nobody wrote down. No model, no serial, no install year. The next replacement starts with a trip to look.
• Maintenance nobody remembers. A yearly flush sold once is a flush sold once, unless something reminds you to call.
• Hours spent re-typing. Every paper record has to be typed again the day you switch.

None of those show up on a bill. They show up as a business that works hard and still feels short at the end of the month. The bigger list of these is in Profit Leaks in a Plumbing Business: Unbilled Calls, Missed Flushes and Declined Cards.

What to Put in on Day One

You do not need to set up every feature on the first day. Start with the pieces you will use on the first call:

• Your services and prices. Service call, drain cleaning, toilet repair, faucet replacement, water heater flush, water heater replacement. Use the names you will say to customers.
• Your sales tax. So invoices are right from the start.
• Your first customers. Even if it is only a handful from friends, family and old contacts. If you have a list in a spreadsheet, a CSV import brings them in and places the addresses on the map automatically.
• Yourself as a tech. With a PIN, so you can log in to the tech app on your own phone.

That is an evening of work. Everything else, like recurring plans, estimate templates and website forms, can come in the first few weeks as you need them.

One Phone for the Whole Business

A one-van owner does not need an office computer to run software. In PlumbingBossPro, the owner can book the call from the office side on a phone or laptop, then open the tech app and work it like any tech would:

• The day's calls in route order with a navigation button.
• Equipment and access notes on each job card.
• Before and after photos saved with the job.
• An automatic on-the-way text to the customer.
• Complete creates the invoice and can charge the card on file.

The tech app runs in the browser on iPhone or Android and can be installed to the home screen. There is no app store download.

Record the House, Not Just the Job

The habit that pays the most over the years is recording equipment on every visit. When you are at a house for a leaky faucet, take thirty seconds to note the water heater: brand, model number, serial, size, gas or electric, the year installed and where it sits. Note where the main shut-off is and where the sewer cleanout is.

That record stays on the address. The next time anyone goes to that house, the job card shows it, and new jobs fill in from it with the From House picker. A water heater installed in your first year will need replacing someday, and you will be the company that already knows the details.

Paper Still Has a Place

Going off paper does not mean you never print anything. Some customers want a printed invoice. Some owners like a printed route sheet on the clipboard. PlumbingBossPro prints route sheets and a Plumbing Inspection Report for the homeowner. The difference is that the paper is printed from the record, not the record itself.

Start Clean, Stay Clean

The best day to get off paper is the day you start, because there is nothing to move. Every customer, every house and every invoice goes in once and stays. When you are ready to compare options, read Choosing Plumbing Business Software: What to Look For and What It Costs. For the full picture of running a plumbing company, visit the PlumbingBossPro plumbing business software page.