HVAC service software for the season that pays for the year.
The first hot week decides your summer. Foldrule keeps every request, quote, visit and invoice on one job record, so the calls you take at 7 in the morning still turn into money in August.
What an HVAC week actually looks like.
Two weeks a year the phone does not stop, and the rest of the year you are chasing tune ups and filter changes to keep the crew busy. A tech is on a roof at noon and in an attic at three, and the office is trying to work out which of yesterday’s quotes ever got sent.
The work is not the hard part. Keeping the paperwork level with the work is the hard part, especially in the weeks when you are running twelve calls a day.
- Two seasonal peaks and a slow stretch in between
- Service calls, tune ups and full system replacements in the same day
- Rooftop units, attics and crawlspaces with no signal
- Replacement quotes with a good, better and best option
The office you run in April breaks in July
April is slow enough to run the shop out of your head. The phone rings a few times before lunch and you answer it yourself. You know each client by voice, the whiteboard has room on it, and a replacement quote can wait until after dinner because nobody else is quoting either. None of it is written down anywhere, and in April it does not need to be.
The first heat wave usually lands on a weekend. By Monday the voicemail box is full, and a no cooling call from a house with a newborn goes ahead of the tune ups you sold in the spring. Your spouse or a part time hire is on the phone now, and they do not know which house has the dog behind the side gate or which client already paid for a capacitor last August. The tune ups get pushed once and then again, and nobody writes down who was pushed. By ten you are up on a roof yourself.
September is when you find out what slipped. A few replacement quotes never got a follow up call, and some of the maintenance clients you bumped in July were never put back on the schedule. A handful of them will call in November with no heat.
Foldrule is meant to carry what your head carries in April, so the new person on the phone in July can log a call as a request on the right client. A pushed visit stays on its job, and in September the ones that never happened are easy to find. If you are going to change HVAC service software, April is the month you have the hours for it.
Quote the replacement before you come down the ladder.
A condenser that is done is a quote you should hand over while the homeowner is still standing there. Build it on the phone from your price book, put two or three options on it, and send it. The customer opens the portal, picks an option, signs, and it is approved.
- Good, better and best as options on one quote
- Signature in the portal, no printer and no scanner
- A deposit on the quote before you order the equipment
- Approved quote becomes the job with the lines already on it
Photos of the rooftop unit the customer will never climb up to see.
Nobody argues with a picture of a cracked heat exchanger or a coil packed solid with cottonwood. Every job holds photos, and you decide per photo whether the customer sees it or it stays internal for the crew and the warranty file.
- Before and after on every visit
- Per photo control of what the customer sees
- Shot offline in the attic, synced when the phone finds signal
- Attached to the visit, not buried in a camera roll
Sales tax by service address, not by the address on your truck.
You work three towns and two tax rates, and the one that counts is the one where the equipment sits. Tax lives on the property in Foldrule, so an invoice for a house in the next county bills at that county’s rate without anyone doing math at the end of the night.
- Tax rate set on the property, used on every document for it
- One client with many properties, each with its own rate
- US sales tax and Canadian GST, HST, PST and QST
- Totals frozen on the invoice once it is sent
Get paid before the van leaves the driveway.
Send the invoice from the job and the customer pays by card or bank transfer through your own Stripe account. If they hand you a check or send an e-Transfer, record it against the same invoice and the balance is right either way.
- Card and bank transfer online, money in your own account
- Cash, check, Zelle, Venmo and Interac e-Transfer recorded by hand
- Deposits, progress billing and a final invoice on one job
- Overpayment becomes client credit instead of a refund argument
An HVAC price book on the first day.
Your account starts with a price list written for HVAC work: diagnostics, tune ups, capacitor and contactor swaps, coil cleaning, refrigerant, condensate work, system replacements by tonnage. Prices are yours to change, and your own items sit next to them in the same catalog.
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What HVAC owners ask first.
If your question is not here, write to us and a person answers.
Can one quote hold more than one system option?
Yes. Put the repair, the mid range replacement and the high efficiency replacement on the same quote as options. The customer picks one in the portal and signs, and only the option they picked becomes the job.
Can I take a deposit before I order the equipment?
Yes. Set a deposit on the quote and the customer pays it in the portal when they approve. The deposit sits as credit on the job and comes off the first invoice you send for it.
Does the mobile app work on a roof with no signal?
Yes. The mobile app works offline. Your tech can open the visit, tick the checklist, add lines and shoot photos in a mechanical room, and it all syncs when the phone gets service again.
I service both houses and commercial buildings. Does that fit?
It does. A client can have many properties, each with its own address, tax rate and contacts, so a property manager with eight buildings is one client and eight properties.
Will it charge the right tax for a job in the next town?
Tax comes from the property the work happened at, not from your office. You set the rate on the property once and every quote and invoice for that address uses it.
Can I keep using QuickBooks Online?
Yes. Foldrule syncs clients, invoices and payments to QuickBooks Online, so your bookkeeper keeps working the way they already do.
Get on the list before the next season.
Foldrule is not open to everyone yet. Tell us about your shop and we will bring you in early, and move your data across for you at no charge.