Software that works
the way 11pm works.
After-hours dispatch, strata billing, change orders when the wall comes off, truck stock, and backflow test dates, in one system shaped around your shop. Fixed price, and the code is yours when it ships.
- 2.5 yr
- Break-even, worked example
- 100%
- Source and IP yours
- 15 min
- Your migration effort
- $0
- Monthly licence fees
Renting was the cheap option. It stopped being one.
Subscription software made sense when a custom build cost ten times what it costs now. That flipped. In 2026 a generic tool that fits nobody is both worse than a custom one and, over the life of your business, more expensive.
Worked example
- $12,000 a year in subscriptions is $120,000 over ten years, or about $151,000 once you allow for the 5% annual increases everyone gets.
- A $30,000 build is a one-time $30,000 over the same ten years.
- Break-even lands in year 2.5. By year ten you are $90,000 to $121,000 ahead, and the asset is on your books instead of someone else's.
Those are round numbers. Put your own subscription spend in and see where your shop lands: the SaaS cost calculator.
Plumbing breaks every assumption these products make.
Generic field-service software assumes a booked appointment, one customer, and a scope that holds. Your day is emergency calls at 11pm, a job that triples the moment a wall comes off, permits under the BC Plumbing Code, and parts that had to be on the truck before anyone left the yard.
Then there is the billing. In Metro Vancouver a large share of the work comes through a strata property manager. Someone calls, someone else approves, and the invoice goes to the strata corporation. Products built for a homeowner calling about a tap cannot model that, so it gets handled in email.
The result is familiar. The subscription covers the tidy part of the job and everything else lives in group texts, sticky notes, and the office manager's memory. You pay full price for partial coverage, then pay again in staff time closing the gap.
What you are probably running today.
01
Jobber
Built around scheduled residential service. Thin on emergency rotation, truck stock, and invoicing a strata corporation instead of the person who called.
02
ServiceTitan
Shaped for large HVAC and service operations. Plumbing workflow fits, but always as a workaround, at a price that assumes you are much bigger.
03
Group texts and sticky notes
How after-hours coverage, parts coordination, and half the change orders actually get handled today.
Six things a plumbing shop actually needs in one place.
01
After-hours dispatch and on-call rotation
The 11pm call routed to whoever is actually on rotation, with the address history and the part list already attached. The morning crew inherits a record, not a group text.
02
Strata and property manager billing
A large share of Metro Vancouver emergency work arrives through a property manager who needs a quote, an approval, and an invoice made out to the strata corporation rather than the resident who called. That chain should be one workflow, not four emails.
03
Change orders when the wall opens
Scope changes mid-job. Capture the change, price it off your real rates, get it approved on the spot, and keep the paper trail so the final invoice is not a negotiation.
04
Truck stock against the warehouse
What is on that van right now versus what is on the shelf. Fewer second trips, and a reorder that fires before the fitting runs out.
05
Backflow and testable device tracking
Cross connection control means annual test reports on assemblies, and municipalities chase the customer when they lapse. Track devices, due dates, testers, and certificates, and the renewal work books itself.
06
Invoice and payment from the driveway
Raise the invoice on site, take the payment before leaving, and have it land in your accounting without anyone re-keying it.
The closest thing we have shipped.
We have not yet shipped a system for a plumbing contractor. We have shipped one for a BC electrical contractor, and it is the same shape of problem: quotes, jobs, calendar, dispatch, inventory, price book, warranties, workers, and customers in one application that replaced a stack of five or more tools.
Saying so is more useful than implying otherwise. Judge the work on the record, then decide.
See every system currently in production, including the field-service platform above.
The tool should fit how your shop runs at 11pm, not how a product manager pictured it during a roadmap review.
What happens after the invoice.
Ownership
Source code, repositories, database, and hosting accounts go into your name on final payment. No licence, no renewal, nothing that switches off.
Support
No flat monthly retainer. Take the code and owe nothing, or keep an hourly relationship triaged by severity. Critical means now and costs more. Cosmetic gets the next available week.
Paying for it
Financing roughly matches what you already send to software vendors each month, spread over two years. At the end of it you stop paying and keep the system.
Switching over
Nobody on your crew should spend more than about fifteen minutes on the changeover. A new login and a password. Moving the data across is our job, not yours.
The worked example above uses a $30,000 build because that is a realistic figure for a system that runs an entire shop. A single workflow costs a fraction of it. Every quote is fixed before work starts, so the number you agree to is the number you pay. Tiers are laid out on the pricing page.
You check subs before they set foot on a site. Check us the same way.
- Commercial general liability
- $5,000,000
- Professional liability (E&O)
- $2,000,000
- Cyber liability
- $2,000,000
- WorkSafeBC account
- 201966367
Bound and in force.
Bound and in force.
Bound and in force.
Active. Clearance letter on request.
Certificates of insurance and a WorkSafeBC clearance letter are issued on request, usually the same day.
What shops ask first.
Can it handle strata and property manager billing properly?
Yes, and it is one of the clearest reasons to build rather than buy in this trade. The caller, the approver, and the party being invoiced are three different people, and generic products assume they are one. A custom build models that relationship directly, so approvals and invoices stop being reassembled by hand.
What about after-hours and on-call rotation?
Built to how your rotation actually works, including who is on, what they are allowed to authorize, and what the customer gets told. The record from a 2am call carries into the morning instead of living in someone's phone.
Can it track backflow assembly test due dates?
Yes. Devices, locations, test dates, testers, and certificates on file, with reminders ahead of the annual due date. Handled well, it turns a compliance obligation into predictable booked work.
Will it sync with QuickBooks?
Yes. Accounting integration is standard. An invoice raised in the field should land in your books without a second entry.
Who owns the software?
You do. Source code, repositories, database, and hosting accounts transfer into your name on final payment. No licence to renew, and nothing switches off if you stop working with us.
We are a four-truck shop. Is this overkill?
Not necessarily, and the honest answer depends on your subscription spend. If the tools you rent cost about $12,000 a year, ownership pays for itself in a little over three years. If you spend far less than that, keep what you have. The teardown exists to work that out before anyone quotes anything.
Free teardown for plumbing contractors.
Show us the on-call rotation, the strata invoices, and wherever the change orders end up. You get a written breakdown of what we would build, which subscriptions it replaces, and what it would cost. If the answer is that you should keep what you have, we will say so.
Rather write it out? Send a message.