Some audit findings will apply to one business. Others may point to a pattern across a trade, such as missed bookings or a pricing practice that erodes margin. We'll write about those patterns when the evidence supports them.
Six perspectives / One business
Published
24 articles
DispatchA busy dispatch board and a thin P&L are one number read from two screens. Technicians are paid for 8.8 hours a day and bill 5.7. Here is what that does to profit, and a fifteen-minute check you can run tonight.
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ProfitA practical setup for plumbing bookkeeping: pick cash or accrual, build a chart of accounts around your job types, cost every job, and run a weekly routine that keeps the P&L usable.
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PricingHow a plumbing company owner prices a job: work out your true hourly cost, scope the work, price materials, add permits and contingency, then set markup so the job pays.
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ExitA plumbing business is valued on what it earns after the owner is paid a fair wage, multiplied by a figure buyers set by risk. Here is how to work out your own number and what moves it.
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ProfitA plumbing owner's way to build an annual budget from last year's books, forecast cash through the slow months, and set a marketing budget you can check against booked jobs.
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DispatchService trade software can mean ServiceTrade, the commercial field service vendor, or the wider category. Here is what ServiceTrade sells, who it suits, and what software alone cannot fix in a service shop.
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BookingMost HVAC estimates go quiet because nobody owns the second touch. Here is how to sort open quotes, set a follow-up cadence, answer price objections, and measure your close rate from your own estimate log.
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PricingAn HVAC pricing guide for contractors: how to build a price from overhead, labor and equipment cost, set markup against margin, run a flat-rate price book, and write quotes homeowners can compare.
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RetentionAn HVAC membership is profitable only if visit cost, member discounts, capacity and renewals work out in your own books. Here is the arithmetic to check, and where plans quietly lose money.
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DispatchUtilization, efficiency and productivity are three different ratios. Here is how to calculate each per technician, what drags them down, and why a high number can still lose money.
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RetentionCustomer retention strategies for contractors, and how to work out what a returning customer is worth from your own invoices before you spend on a loyalty program or software.
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DispatchA plumbing dispatch board works when every call carries the same facts and emergencies have a rule. Here is how to set one up, run it daily, and check whether it is helping.
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PricingA plumbing shop owner's guide to paying technicians by the hour, on commission or both: how each plan is calculated, what it does to behavior, and how to test it against gross profit.
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PricingA plumbing labor price list only protects margin if every line comes from your own labor cost and billable hours. Here is how to build one, what to put on it, and how to check it.
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BookingWhy HVAC booking rate is decided in the first ninety seconds of the call and the outbound follow-up after it, not by adding another lead source.
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SoftwareA plain-language breakdown of what field service management software actually does, the features worth checking for, and how to compare named platforms without trusting a generic 'best of' ranking.
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ExitWhat an HVAC business valuation calculator can and can't tell an owner, how the multiple on your earnings actually gets built, and what moves it up or down before you ever list.
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ExitA plain look at why private equity is buying HVAC companies, who the roll-up platforms are, and what an owner should know before any acquisition conversation starts.
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ExitA plain explanation of what an HVAC business broker does, why valuation multiples vary shop to shop, and what to check before hiring one — written for an owner weighing an exit, not a broker pitching one.
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PricingA plain look at how plumbing companies actually pay technicians — hourly, commission, or a hybrid of the two — and which one fits which role without inviting the pricing pressure that costs an owner his reviews.
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ProfitA concrete way for HVAC owners to trace where labor burden, callbacks, ticket pricing, and job costing quietly erode margin, and what a real margin leak diagnostic checks that a P&L alone cannot show.
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ProfitA plain comparison of what a bookkeeper handles and what a fractional CFO adds for a $2-20M home services contractor, so an owner can tell which one his business actually needs right now.
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PricingHow HVAC price books turn a repair into one set number, what actually goes into the markup behind that number, and where flat rate pricing software fits for a $2-20M shop.
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ProfitA walk through how HVAC gross margin, net margin and overhead relate to each other, where job-level margin typically leaks, and how an owner can check his own numbers against them.
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