Picture this. Your field services business is facing financial challenges. Expenses are rising, profits are down, and you can’t figure out why. In today’s data-hungry world where numbers rule all, the home and commercial services industry needs more than just a toolkit to get ahead. It demands a strategic approach fueled by actionable insights that address key industry challenges and accurately measure the right KPIs. Field service management software, like Power BI, Qlik, Domo, or Tableau, when integrated with ServiceTitan optimizes a field services company’s operations and plays a pivotal role in gaining a competitive advantage, improving operational efficiency, and increasing profitability. Let’s find out how.
Tracking Completed Revenue by Business Unit or Job Type
Profitability is the foundation for any successful business, but it is somewhat unique in the home and commercial services industry. Tracking completed revenue by business unit or job type, not just bookings or sales calls, helps field service companies determine if they have a sales generation problem or a fulfillment problem to earn more profit. Combining BI software with field service management software provides insights into the specific areas of the business where these challenges may be rooted.
For example, maybe you can only complete 50% of the revenue expected because your sales rep sold the HVAC equipment, but the equipment didn’t arrive in time or a technician ran long on a previous job and couldn’t install the new system that day. This would be a capacity issue and not a sales problem because the sale was made, but the job was not complete. Correctly pinpointing the issue allows you to employ targeted strategies to fix the problem. While tracking this information for a field service business with a single ServiceTitan tenant might be hard, it’s nearly impossible for a business that has multiple ServiceTitan tenants.
Like most in your industry, you likely do weekly number comparisons of revenue by business unit rather than daily checks – because daily checks may not be accurate the next day due to someone needing to edit an invoice, etc. You may be surprised (or not) that 75% of business executives do not have a high level of trust in their data. If your data isn’t reliable, how are you expected to make good decisions? Field service management software integrated with BI software provides companies with a more robust tracking system for completed revenue by business unit or job type, so you can be confident your decisions are rooted in accurate data.
Calculating Gross Margins for Each Job Type or Business Unit
Accurately calculating your gross margins by business unit, job type, location, etc. is crucial because it tells you where you’re most profitable and by how much. You’ll be better able to focus your efforts on whatever particular area needs it most. With all the data that goes into calculating your gross margin percentages and ensuring they are in check for each business unit or job type, it’s hard to get it right especially without an integrated data analytics solution. For companies who attempt to do this manually, it’s more of a finger in the wind than an accurate calculation.
We had a client recently who thought one job type was a great gross margin item for their business. Unfortunately, when we used their new business analytics tool to do the gross margin calculation (using accurate numbers), they were blissfully unaware that they were losing their shirt on all those job-type jobs. Thankfully, along with the ServiceTitan integration, we were able to help them adjust their pricing appropriately, so they didn’t continue to lose a considerable amount of money. The U.S. home services industry is estimated to generate $400 billion annually, so ensuring your gross margins are appropriate for each job or location is paramount to maximizing profitability and staying a part of this ever-growing industry.
Something else to consider with gross margins is that every company has a different comfort level depending on their size. A smaller home and commercial services company has a tighter budget and fewer resources to spend. They may prioritize higher gross margins. Whereas a larger company has a larger market share and may be more comfortable with lower gross margins. Understanding where you stand and what your comfort level is crucial to financial planning, pricing strategies, and cost management.
Analyzing Average Revenue Per Job
We hate to be the bearer of more bad news, but your average revenue per job is likely also wrong, especially if you’ve calculated it manually, which, surprisingly, many home and commercial service companies still do. With a BI platform like Domo, you can exclude or include specific jobs, like zero-dollar jobs or warranty and recall jobs because they’re part of the business and can impact that analysis. Companies want to know if they’re at a comfortable spot for their job earnings compared to the rest of the industry. It can also be a helpful benchmark statistic telling you how well you’re doing (or how not so well), so you can adjust accordingly.
To get specific how do you know if you are running enough jobs per day or every month? If you’re basing this off data that you’ve gotten from a bunch of reports in ServiceTitan and then compiled manually together into Excel, we get why you might avoid this question. Despite all our technological advancements, companies are still relying on manual work, like looking for and organizing information, and that is taking around 40% of a worker’s valuable time that could be spent elsewhere.
It’s probably obvious, but all this data you’re compiling together from a bunch of ServiceTitan reports is not in real-time. The moment it’s put together for analysis, it’s outdated. This becomes an issue for companies with a single ServiceTitan tenant, where the process is challenging, and there’s a risk of errors in calculations. It becomes an even bigger problem with companies that have multiple ServiceTitan tenants because now it’s virtually impossible to get insights across all the tenants at the same time.
ServiceTitan’s Multi-Tenant Data Management
Combining business analytics software with field service management software can address these issues and provide numbers in real time while also efficiently managing your multiple tenants from within the ServiceTitan platform. ServiceTitan integrated with a robust analytics solution (along with an experienced partner like us!) can provide a field service business with unparalleled visibility into operations. We can help you unlock real-time data-driven decision-making, optimize your resource allocation, improve your job tracking, and what every business strives for, increase profitability. If you’d like more information on how BT Partners can expand your company’s toolkit, talk to one of our executive analytics experts today.
