Notes for owners · Industry-Specific Software Guides
How to Track Plumbing Service Calls and Job Costs
Give every service call and site job its own record. Note the plumber, the days worked, the material issued and the bill raised against it. Job cost then comes from entries already made, not from memory. GullySystem’s Plumbing Contractor Management Software keeps these on one job and shows material cost against billing to the owner.
Ganesh HS, Strategy and Technology, GullySystem · · 3 min read
What a plumbing job record holds
A job record is the single place where a call or site job is described. It carries the client, the address, the work asked for and the quotation, if there was one.
Costs sit on the same record. They come from three sources: material issued from the store, plumber and helper time, and any item bought outside for that job.
Billing sits there too. When cost and billing are on one record, the owner reads both without opening a second book.
Cost a service call at ticket level
A service call is short, so its cost is small, but calls are many. A ticket is raised for each complaint and the plumber is assigned from the office.
The visit is recorded with what was fitted or replaced. Washers, cartridges and short pipe lengths are issued from the store against the ticket instead of being picked up and forgotten.
The repair bill is raised from the same ticket. The office then sees, call by call, what was billed and what went out of the store to earn it.
- Complaint and address
- Plumber and visit date
- Fittings issued to the ticket
- Bill and receipt against the ticket
Cost a site job by stage
A site job runs in stages, so cost is read by stage. Material issued is recorded against the job as first fix, second fix or testing goes ahead.
Work done is measured against each stage and turned into a running bill. Retention held by the client is tracked, so the amount billed and the amount actually received are not confused.
Pressure tests and snags are noted before handover. Rework that a snag causes then shows as extra material or extra days on that job.
Count plumber wages against the right job
Plumbers and helpers are marked present each day and assigned to calls and sites. Wages come from those entries. Daily wage, piece-rate pay and advances follow the rules the firm already uses.
This matters for costing. A plumber paid by the day who spends two days on a blocked main is a cost to that job, not to the firm in general.
The owner sees wages and advances by plumber and helper, and material issued against each job. Reading the two together shows where a job took more days than its quotation allowed.
What to decide before you start costing
Costing is only as good as the entries. The first decision is whether the store keeper issues every item against a job, because material taken without a job number cannot be costed.
The second decision is which wages count toward a job, and how a shared helper’s day is split. Both are rules for the owner to set.
A single plumber with a few calls a week may not need any of this. A notebook and UPI can do. Ask for the free technology audit if the call volume is the thing you are unsure about.
Job cost sheet
Put each call or site job on its own line, carrying billed amount, material issued, plumber days and wages paid. Fill ten recent jobs to see how many have all four figures on hand.
Open a blank worksheet to printQuestions owners ask
Can material be traced to a particular job?
Yes. Material is issued from the store against a job, and what returns is recorded. The office can see what each job has used. Items that leave without a job number cannot be traced, so the store keeper’s habit matters.
Does it work out profit on a job?
The system shows material issued, wages and billing for each job, and the owner reads material cost against billing on the dashboard. How overheads are counted is a decision for the owner and the accountant.