To track and schedule our jobs we have two ways to organize. The first is a large 3’ x 4’ white ink eraser board. We use 1/4” and 1/2” black tape (from the stationary store), to make a grid with room for 25 jobs on each board. The 1/4” tape makes the horizontal lines and the 1/2” the vertical lines. Across the top of each vertical row, we list the customers name, contractor, bid date, area (part of town), R-I (rough-in date), B-U (button up/finish date), equipment (unit model, generic or custom attachments, number of inlets and/or toe kicks), and comments (special needs, gate codes, misc. info). We use rotating colors — black, green, blue, and red — to write each line for easy eye distinction.
This allows us to look at the boards and see when jobs are due and what equipment is needed at a glance. Every two weeks, we look to see which jobs need to be called to confirm dates and order equipment in time. Many contractors appreciate that we are one less item to have to worry about. This is one of the many reasons we have customer loyalty. No name comes off the board until all work is completed. There are no loose ends and the final payment clears the bank. This helps us to double check/track payments.
The second way to schedule is with a plastic “at a glance” 60 day organizer from the stationary store. This has space for two months. We use the black fine point erasable marker for the month, dates and service or sales calls, blue for new construction, green for B-U, red for existing/remodel construction, holidays or days wanted off. We put the name and number of inlets and/or equipment. At a glance we can see what type of work is scheduled for the week. If three or more weeks in advance, we put the appropriate name and color on Sunday to call for that week to confirm the day. Each month is not cleaned off until we confirm that all work has been billed or rescheduled. Every once in a while we will find a job that did not get billed or rescheduled. As you can tell, we recognize that we are human and this requires a system of double check or double lose.
New construction is actually more expensive than existing. Existing is just a matter of scheduling, installing and collecting payment. New requires double payment and this equals double office/bookkeeping expense and scheduling, possibly rescheduling, one or two days for the R-I. R-Is do not generate as much cash flow. With new jobs, it’s also important to do tracking to make sure that you have equipment when needed. All this tracking and scheduling is time, our hidden cost, and “time is money.”
As mentioned in previous articles, we make it clear to our customers that if they do not get a proper presentation of their equipment they will not get the full benefits and know the ease of use of what they have paid for. Even our service customers who have had a central vacuum for 20 to 30 years learn a trick or two. We always schedule our B-Us to have the customer or house cleaner there when we finish. This is imperative to avoid unnecessary service calls, stop the bad mouthing of CVSs and ensure you get referrals. We explain that our bid was for two trips, R-I and B-U and if they want us to come back, it will cost them a minimum of $85. This is giving them a break because by the time we drive out, present and get back, we put in a good two to three hours of labor plus vehicle expense. Our hourly rate is $65. We charge an extra $20 for the first hour to cover office expense of processing each invoice. This, again, is the hidden expense. If you look at the expense to deal with the sales tax and filling for each invoice you will find that it takes approximately one hour.
