As a time-and-materials plumbing company, maximizing efficiency is critical to maintaining profitability at Modern Plumbing & Heating, based in Kalispell in Montana’s Flathead Valley.

To maintain a high level of efficiency, the company uses Jobber, a field service management software that can handle everything from dispatching and job scheduling to compiling digital customer histories, paperless in-the-field invoicing and tracking hours spent on a job, says Paige Grover, who co-owns the company with her husband, Raun.

The company’s pre-Jobber invoicing process offers a good insight into the value the software adds to the company’s operations. Before, technicians would write invoices by hand, which then were manually inputted by office staff into QuickBooks accounting software from Intuit – a labor-intensive and time-consuming process, Grover notes.

“We did that for about a year before deciding we needed to be a work-smarter-not-harder kind of company,” Grover says. “We figured there had to be a better way.”

Now the company’s technicians fill out invoices digitally on tablets. They can also add photos and videos, as well as include notes about a job. Jobber then enables them to collect payment on site with a credit card or check, or to text or email the invoice to customers.

“It basically cut out the need for another office person because it saves us a ton of time,” Grover says. “It also tracks technicians’ hours per day per job. And if they don’t finish a job in one day, Jobber allows us to see how things are progressing so we can schedule accordingly. And if the same technician can’t get to that job, we can send another one out and they can finish the work because everything has already been thoroughly documented.”

The Jobber software also increases cash flow because customers receive invoices faster. And it increases profitability by ensuring technicians bill correctly for all hours worked.

“When you’re a time-and-materials shop, you need to track everything to stay profitable,” Grover says. “If you have four technicians, for example, and they each misbill by as little as a half hour, that adds up to a lot of money lost over the course of a year.

“With Jobber, we can create procedures that stop things from falling through the cracks and keep us consistent, efficient and profitable.”