HVACBossPro Blog — HVAC Software

Making the Most of a 14-Day HVAC Software Free Trial

Most free trials end the same way. The owner signs up on a Sunday night, clicks around, adds a fake customer called “Test Test,” gets pulled back into a busy week and remembers the trial on day thirteen. Fourteen days is plenty of time to know whether HVAC software fits your company, but only if you use it on real work.

Pricing Is Settled; Now Test the Fit

HVAC Software Pricing: What $59, $89 and $199 a Month Cover covered what each plan costs. The trial is where you find out whether it is worth it for your company. HVACBossPro's trial is 14 days with no credit card, so there is nothing to cancel if it is not for you.

Before You Sign Up

Spend ten minutes getting ready, and the trial goes twice as far:

• Pick 20 to 30 real customers. A mix of maintenance plan customers, recent service calls and one property manager or commercial account.
• Write down your top service prices. Diagnostic, tune-up, maintenance plan and the repairs you do most.
• Choose a tech to test with. Ideally one who is open to trying new things, with a phone they use every day.
• Block two hours on day one. On the calendar, like a job.

If you want to look around first, the live demo lets you click through a sample HVAC company without signing up.

Days 1 to 3: Set Up With Real Data

• Add your service list with your real prices.
• Import your test customers with a CSV import, and check that their addresses landed on the map.
• Set up maintenance agreements at 180 or 365 days for the plan customers, and look at the Waiting List.
• Enter equipment for a few customers you know well: system type, brand, model, tonnage, filter size and unit location.
• Add your test tech with a PIN and a van.

The first-week plan in Setting Up HVAC Software in Your First Week: A Day-by-Day Plan works just as well inside a trial.

Days 4 to 10: Run Real Calls

This is the part most trials skip, and it is the only part that really tells you anything. Put real jobs on the dispatch board for your test tech and have them run the day from the tech app:

• Does the tech find the equipment line and access notes without help?
• Do customers get the on-the-way and arrived texts?
• Does Complete create the right invoice?
• Can you send an estimate from a service call and have the customer approve it online?
• Does a due tune-up move cleanly from the Waiting List to the board to the tech's phone?

Even two or three days of real calls will show you more than a week of clicking around.

Days 11 to 14: Decide

Near the end of the trial, ask a few honest questions:

• Did the tech use it without being chased? If yes, the rest of the crew will too.
• Did the office get fewer calls from the field? That is the clearest sign it is working.
• Did it handle your odd customers? The property manager, the commercial building, the house with the furnace in the crawlspace.
• Can you see yourself running the whole company on it? Not perfectly on day one, but within a season.

If the answers are mostly yes, pick a plan and roll it out to the rest of the crew. If not, you have lost nothing but some time, and you know what to look for elsewhere.

Put Yourself in the Customer's Shoes

Add yourself, or a family member who does not mind a few texts, as a customer during the trial. Put your own address on a tech's route and see the whole thing from the other side: the night-before reminder, the on-the-way text, the live map in the customer app, the estimate on your phone and the invoice with its online payment.

This is the quickest way to find out how your company will look to the homeowners you serve. If the messages are clear and the payment is simple, your customers will notice.

Common Trial Mistakes

• Fake data. “Test Test at 123 Main St” tells you nothing about real routes or real equipment.
• No techs involved. The owner likes the office side, then the crew refuses the app a month later.
• Waiting for a slow week. There is no slow week. Start now, with a small group.
• Testing everything at once. Focus on the five things that matter: equipment, tune-ups, dispatch, the tech app and billing.

For a wider list of mistakes when choosing software, read Mistakes HVAC Owners Make When Choosing Software. To see the full system, visit the HVAC software page.