There are two main streams of revenue for HVAC companies. Either they are installing large units on malls, hospitals or office buildings, or they are maintaining those units through preventative maintenance contracts and service level agreements.
Getting a long-term contract is music to any HVAC organizations ears, as generally the revenue from years of recurring service will outperform the revenue earned from a single installation. But someone must put those units in place before any service level agreement can be signed. And while an installation may not be the long-term cash cow that contracts are, they are vitally important to any HVAC field service operation.
Simply planning an installation of a complex piece of equipment like an HVAC unit requires hours of thought and preparation. There is quoting and estimating that needs to be done, timelines need to be constructed and resources planned, as most companies don’t have large HVAC units in their warehouse. Inventory needs to be purchased and crews assembled to make sure the job is done properly and on time.
From start to finish, there are many different steps to complete the installation, each with their own specific hours to complete and technicians needed to finish the job. That’s where an HVAC field service software will help construct a timetable for the work to be completed, as, through a project module, each task that needs to be completed can have time and personnel allocated to it.
Demands for an installation can go from the estimate to the survey of the site, installing the machine and then clean up. And depending on the skills needed, it could mean a broad spectrum of employees are needed to complete the project. Chart layouts show the entire scope of the project and a simple search of technicians and their skills will bring up the schedules of the technicians that fit the work needed.
A simple drag and drop adds the technician to the task and puts that task on the technician’s schedule. With the chart layout, you can see a technician’s full schedule of work orders that aren’t project work, to make sure there is no crossover in the technician’s schedule to ensure they are available.
Most large installation projects also are billed on a progressive cycle, meaning when a certain task or percentage of the project is complete, an invoice is generated. In field service software, that process can be automated to produce an invoice through a financial integration to create an invoice once a specific task is completed. Hours logged, expenses and parts consumed can all be attached from one project, as opposed to multiple work orders being created.
Having a project module in your HVAC field service software not only keeps your projects on time and on budget, but streamlines the entire process. With plenty of work going on around an installation, having a field service software that takes care of the entire process from end-to-end will help add an installation portion to your HVAC business, which will open new streams of revenue for your organization.