HVACBossPro Blog — Property Managers & Commercial

Quoting Commercial HVAC Work With Online Approval

On a homeowner call, the person paying is usually standing in the kitchen when the tech finds the problem. On commercial and rental work, they almost never are. The property manager is at their desk across town. The landlord is at their day job. The church business manager is out until Thursday. Repairs stall while everyone plays phone tag, and the tenant or the business sits without heat or cooling. Online approval fixes that.

The Approval Gap on Commercial Work

Reports by account, covered in Reports by Account: Seeing What Each Commercial HVAC Customer Brings In, show you which accounts are worth the most. Many of those accounts grow through repair and replacement quotes, and quotes live or die on how fast they get approved.

The usual approval path for a rental repair is a mess. The tech calls the office. The office calls the manager. The manager is in a meeting. The manager calls back and asks for it in writing. The office types it up and emails it. The manager forwards it to the owner. Two days later, someone says yes, and the tech has to go back out.

Build the Estimate From Your Service List

In HVACBossPro, estimates are built from your own service list. You set up the services you sell and what you charge: diagnostic, tune-ups, maintenance plan, capacitor, contactor, drain line, refrigerant per pound, blower motor, thermostat, coil cleaning, whatever you offer. The estimate pulls from that list, so quotes are consistent from tech to tech and from month to month.

Equipment details can be filled in on the estimate and carry onto the job. If the quote is for a rooftop unit at Suite 4, the brand, model, serial, tonnage and filter size come along, and the tech who does the work sees them on the card.

Add the Photo

A line that says “Replace blower motor” is a cost. A line with a photo of the burnt motor windings is a reason. Commercial decision-makers are often approving work on equipment they have never seen, and they may have to justify it to an owner or a board. Give them the photo.

Before and after photos taken in the tech app stay with the job. Use them to support the quote and, later, to prove the work was done.

Approval Online, Then on the Schedule

The manager gets the estimate and approves it online from their phone or computer. No printing, signing and scanning. Once approved, the estimate becomes the scheduled job. Nobody retypes it. The office sees it ready to go on the dispatch board and assigns it to a van and a day.

If the estimate sits, estimate follow-up emails remind the manager it is waiting. That alone saves the office a lot of “just checking in” calls, and it keeps the job from being forgotten while the manager waits on an owner.

Set Approval Limits Up Front

Not every repair needs a formal quote. Most property managers set an amount below which the tech can just do the work. A $40 capacitor should not wait two days for an online approval. Agree on that limit when you take the account, and store it in a custom field on the client so every tech and office person knows it.

Above the limit, quote it. Below the limit, fix it, take the photo and let the line land on the invoice or monthly statement.

Replacement Quotes

Commercial and rental accounts eventually need replacements. A twenty-year-old furnace in a rental, a package unit on a restaurant roof that has had three repairs in two summers. The equipment record and job history on each address give you the backup: here is the age, here are the past repairs, here are the photos.

Build the replacement estimate from your service list, include the equipment details, and send it for online approval. Many owners appreciate getting one estimate for the repair and a separate one for the replacement, so they can decide for themselves.

Who Approves on Each Account

Commercial accounts often have more than one contact. The facility contact who reports the problem may not be the person who approves the spend. Keep the right contacts on the client record, and note in a custom field who approves work. Then the estimate goes to the person who can actually say yes. Texting the right people is covered in Two-Way Texting With Property Managers and Facility Contacts.

For how quoting fits with the rest of commercial and property manager service, see the HVACBossPro commercial HVAC software page.