How to Automate a Plumbing Contracting Business

Plumbing work arrives by phone, WhatsApp and walk-in. Each channel tends to leave its own note, and the notes rarely sit together.

Log every enquiry with its source, the client’s name and the site address. Record the kind of work asked for, from a bathroom refit to a building water line. Schedule the site visit from the same record.

Measurements and photographs taken at the visit stay with the client. The supervisor reads them again when the quotation is built, and the office reads them when a question comes back later.

Quotations are built from the firm’s rates for pipes, fittings, sanitaryware and labour. Enter those rates once, with sizes and types, and let each quotation pick from them.

Every revision is kept. The earlier figure is not overwritten when a client negotiates. The owner can see which quotations are still open, which were won and which were lost.

An accepted quotation becomes a job. Its stages, such as first fix, second fix and testing, are set to match the contract.

A service call is a short job. A tap leaks or a drain blocks, and one ticket follows the complaint from the first call to the bill.

A site job covers a building or a block of flats and runs in stages. The two need different screens, and a firm that does both should keep both in one system.

The office assigns the plumber. The plumber sees the day’s calls and jobs on a phone and marks each one done.

Pipes, fittings and sanitaryware are received from dealers, issued to a job and returned when unused. Reorder levels can be set for the sizes that are used most often.

Plumbers and helpers are marked present and assigned to jobs. Daily wages, piece-rate pay and advances follow the rules the firm uses today.

Work done is measured against each stage and turned into a running bill or a final bill. Receipts by cash, UPI or cheque are posted against it, and dues show with the oldest bill first.

A single plumber who takes a few calls each week can manage with a phone and a notebook. The software starts to pay its way when several plumbers, several sites and several unpaid bills are running together.

Decide three things before moving. First, which stages and billing terms your builders use. Second, how wages are paid. Third, which open jobs and unpaid bills must come across from the register.

If you also do electrical work or waterproofing, the matching GullySystem product fits that part better. An audit of your present setup, free of charge, will show where the plumbing records stand today.