Better decisions with automated reporting
Automated reporting means the numbers you run the business on come from the work you already record (jobs, invoices, payments, hours) instead of being rebuilt in a spreadsheet at the end of the month. You don’t need more reports. You need a few numbers, checked on a schedule, each tied to a decision.
By Business Genie, Mesa, Arizona · Published · Updated
First Monday of the month
Start from decisions, not reports
Before you pick a report, list the decisions you make again and again: whether to hire, what to charge, which jobs to take, when to chase money, when to buy another truck. Every report you keep should inform one of them. A report that doesn’t change a decision is noise, however good the chart looks. Six numbers cover the decisions most contractors make; the table shows which of them informs which decision.
The numbers to check every week
Three numbers are worth checking every week: money owed to you, work booked for the next two weeks, and revenue compared with the same week last year. Each one points to something you can do that week.
Money owed to you, oldest first
Money owed is every invoice you have sent that hasn’t been paid. Sort it by age, oldest first, not by amount: the longer an invoice sits, the less likely it is to be paid, so a small invoice at 45 days needs your attention more than a large one sent last week.
Decides: Who gets a call this week
–
unpaid, oldest first
Draw one line and hold to it. Thirty days is a common one. Everything past the line gets a phone call this week, not another emailed reminder; everything newer stays on your normal reminders. Watch the total as well as the ages. If it keeps climbing while revenue stays flat, customers are paying you more slowly, and the fix is earlier in the job: ask for payment when the work is done, or take a deposit on larger work. The guide to collecting payments faster covers both.
On the sample sheet, seven unpaid invoices add up to $4,870. Two are past the 30-day line, Harper at 41 days and Ortiz at 34, with $1,340 between them. The action written against it: call Harper and Ortiz this week.
Work booked for the next two weeks
Work booked is the share of your crew’s working hours already on the calendar. Look two weeks ahead, not one. By Monday, next week is mostly decided; the week after is still yours to fill, and there is time to fill it.
Decides: Room for more jobs, or fill the calendar
–
of crew hours booked
The shape to watch for is a full first week and a thin second one. That is the day to act, not the Friday before: follow up on open estimates, call customers who are due for seasonal work, and open more times for online booking. The opposite shape matters too. If both weeks are close to full, Monday after Monday, lead times are stretching or work is being turned away, and that is the first real sign you need more capacity.
On the sample sheet the crew is 61% booked across the two weeks, but the average hides the shape: this week is nearly full and week two is only 33% booked. The action: send the follow-ups today.
Revenue against the same week last year
Compare this week’s revenue with the same week a year ago, not with last week. Most trades are seasonal, so a week-on-week comparison mostly measures the weather; the same week last year has the same season built in.
Decides: Growing, or just busy
–
this week
Then ask what changed in between. More revenue with the same crew and the same prices means the business is growing. More revenue because you added a tech means you are bigger, and the question becomes whether each job still pays, which is what profit by job type answers. Less revenue in a week the calendar looked full usually means the jobs got smaller or discounts crept in. If the business is less than a year old, compare with the average of the last four weeks until there is a last year to compare with.
On the sample sheet, this week brought in $9,360 against $8,240 in the same week last year: $1,120 more, up 14%, with no change to the crew. The action: nothing to fix; the business is growing, not just busy.
The numbers to check every month
Three numbers are worth checking once a month: profit by job type, hours per tech, and repeat customers. They inform the slower decisions, such as your prices, routing and hiring, and which follow-ups to push.
Profit by job type
Profit by job type splits each kind of job’s price into labor, materials and what is left over. An overall margin can look healthy while one job type loses money on every visit; the average hides it.
Decides: Your prices, and which work you advertise
–
margin on a service call
Short jobs are the usual suspect, because the drive and the setup cost the same whether the work takes twenty minutes or four hours. Find the job type with the thinnest margin and decide one thing: change its price, or stop advertising it. Then find the one with the widest margin and ask whether you advertise it enough. Once a month is often enough, since prices shouldn’t move every week. Job costing in Business Genie tracks labor and materials job by job; the profit margin calculator works a single price through by hand.
On the sample sheet, drain cleaning keeps 40% of its price and water heater installs keep 22%, but a service call keeps only 12%, with labor taking 82%. The action: raise the trip charge.
Hours per tech, on the job and between jobs
Hours per tech splits each tech’s paid day into time on the job and time between jobs. Drive time is paid time that nobody bills for, so it is the first place to look when payroll grows faster than revenue.
Decides: Routing and hiring
–
Maria’s drive, per day
Compare techs with each other, not with an ideal day. When one tech drives far more than the rest, the cause is rarely the tech: it is a territory that is too spread out, or jobs taken in the order they were booked. Fix that before you decide you need another hire, and hire when every tech’s day is full of billable hours and drive time is already tight. Business Genie records hours with GPS time tracking, and route optimization orders each tech’s day automatically.
On the sample sheet, Alex drives 1.6 hours a day and Dev 1.9, but Maria drives 3.0. The action: tighten Maria’s area before you hire.
Repeat customers
Repeat customers are the share of this month’s customers who had booked with you before. The number measures what happens after the job: whether customers remember you, and whether your follow-ups reach them.
Decides: Which follow-ups to push
–
booked again
Read it against your trade. In work that comes back on a schedule, such as HVAC servicing, pest control or pool care, a low share usually means the reminders aren’t going out, and a recurring maintenance plan is the usual fix. In one-off work such as roofing it runs lower by nature, and reviews and referrals do more of the work; the guide to getting more Google reviews covers those. Either way, a business that needs a new customer for almost every job is paying to find work it could have kept.
On the sample sheet, 15 of the month’s 40 customers had booked before. The action: most came once, so push the maintenance-plan reminders.
Make the data trustworthy
A report is only as good as what goes into it. Three habits keep it accurate: close out every job in the app on the day it happens, start every invoice from its job instead of from a blank form, and record every payment against its invoice. When the office retypes data, reports drift away from what really happened: a payment that never gets entered makes the week look short, and nobody notices until the books don’t match. If you use QuickBooks Online, Business Genie syncs with it, so invoices and payments reach your books without being entered twice.
Recorded once
- 1
Job closed out
in the app, the day it happens
- 2
Invoice
started from its job
- 3
Payment
recorded against its invoice
Your numbers
$9,360
Retyped by the office
Job notes
on paper
Invoice
typed up from the notes
Payment
never entered
The report
$8,915
$445 short
The Business Genie app, drawn with its own sample figures, not the sample week’s.
Review on a fixed day
Pick a set time each week (Monday morning suits most businesses) and look at the same numbers in the same order: money owed, work booked, revenue. Write down one action for each, and start the next review by checking that last week’s actions were done. On the first Monday of the month, add profit by job type, hours per tech and repeat customers, and change one price or one process. Twenty minutes is enough; a review that takes an afternoon stops happening.
Next review
Monday
Numbers 1 to 3
One action written against each.
Weekly
Monday
Numbers 1 to 3
Weekly
Monday
Numbers 1 to 3
Weekly
Monday
Numbers 1 to 3
Weekly
Monday
Numbers 1 to 3
Run the business on numbers you already record
Jobs, invoices, payments, job costing and GPS time tracking in one place, synced with QuickBooks Online. Free for a month, and no credit card to start.