How does your HVAC business keep track of its finances? Are you struggling to track down mounds of paper receipts each month, or trying to decipher a huge Excel sheet that's one keyboard stroke away from crashing?
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As a small-business owner, using a pen-and-paper system or manually updating spreadsheets each month may work just fine for your bookkeeping needs. But when your HVAC company starts to grow, you'll likely need some type of accounting software to streamline and simplify several essential tasks.
Many HVAC contractors use the QuickBooks app to calculate payroll, send invoicing to customers, order inventory, and keep their chart of accounts in good working order. Problems can result, however, when companies choose HVAC QuickBooks for business software that's incompatible or doesn't sync in real time with whatever version of QuickBooks they're using.
For instance, it may just be an add-on feature that allows business owners to access their QuickBooks tools within their HVAC software, but still relies on double manual entry to get the most updated financial information. This often leads to financial misrepresentations, communication mistakes, duplicate files, and other accounting headaches.
For better efficiency and fewer mistakes, growing HVAC contractors choose to link their field management software, such as ServiceTitan, to their QuickBooks account. ServiceTitan HVAC software syncs in real time with QuickBooks (even when offline), keeps your business process organized, speeds up workflow, and eliminates the need to constantly update information between the two systems.
Here's a look at how to simplify QuickBooks setup for an HVAC service business, using the power of ServiceTitan's field management software to sync-as-you-go, improve cash flow, and grow your profit margins.
QuickBooks Online or QuickBooks Desktop?
The QuickBooks app is an accounting software package developed and marketed by Intuit. Most HVAC contractors choose to use either QuickBooks Online or QuickBooks Desktop. The two programs behave differently, says Business Consultant and Operations Expert Kathy Nielsen, and each offers pros and cons.
For instance, the desktop version offers better dial-in permission control over who logs in and gains access to your QuickBooks account. The online version doesn’t yet offer dial-in permissions and typically grants access only to the company owner or chief bookkeeper.
Bookkeepers also handle certain data entries, such as refunds, very differently in QuickBooks Online vs. QuickBooks Desktop.
“In QuickBooks Desktop, for example, you go to a customer with a credit balance, click on a button that says ‘use credit to send a check,’ and boom it’s done,” Nielsen says. “In QuickBooks Online, it’s a refund receipt."
Whichever QuickBooks small-business software you choose, just make sure your QuickBooks links to ServiceTitan or other management software. When not linked properly, Nielsen says, some companies just pull in whatever information they find in their bank account.
“In theory, that makes sense. But the reality is, what happens to all of the things that don’t hit your bank? What happens to the things like people who didn’t pay you, or discounts, or coupons? You have no way to track that if you’re just pulling in from your bank statement,” she explains.
ServiceTitan's HVAC software integrates with Intuit QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Desktop Premier, and Quickbooks Enterprise editions. With full QuickBooks integration, HVAC companies can automatically sync every transaction in the field or office, which simplifies their accounting process without the hassle of double entry.
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How QuickBooks HVAC also helps to improve field service
Our QuickBooks HVAC service software not only helps you gain financial insight into your business, it also evolves as it learns more through customer, vendor, and pricebook mapping.
It easily allows you to migrate existing customer, vendor, and pricing information, then schedule, dispatch, plan routes, manage technicians, and deploy work order information to crews via the mobile app.
ServiceTitan works in tandem with QuickBooks to facilitate faster processes, improve workflow efficiency, and maintain job costs. This HVAC QuickBooks software also allows companies to:
Manage customer database
Maintain job notes
Optimize HVAC service routes
Store customer work history
Set up recurring service appointments
Assign jobs to technicians
Manage and monitor inventory
Create and schedule job estimates
Track technicians out in the field
Track customer installations and equipment
Collect and log payments
Generate invoices upon completion of work
Receive work updates from technicians out on the job
Track employee time
Setting up QuickBooks for HVAC business in ServiceTitan
Fortunately, you don't need to be a QuickBooks expert to integrate the app with your ServiceTitan HVAC software. Our sync-as-you-go feature helps to eliminate manual data-entry errors and accurately maps customer, vendor, and price book items before sending each transaction over to QuickBooks.
In your ServiceTitan dashboard, the settings page clearly identifies each QuickBooks feature in the sidebar along the left side, such as information related to integrations, dispatch board, inventory, phones, communications, operations, invoicing, tools, and more.
The first page includes a list of your company files. With the Connect a File+ button, you can link multiple QuickBooks files, with access to records for multiple businesses all in one place.
Once you connect your QuickBooks files, you'll move to the main account page to access your Settings, Connections, and Tools.
In the Settings section, you can:
Map your existing QuickBooks chart of accounts to your ServiceTitan chart of accounts or import your entire QuickBooks chart of accounts into ServiceTitan.
Map specific business units, so they link to a specific QuickBooks class. That way, transactions group similarly in both software apps. For example, many HVAC businesses also offer plumbing or electrical services, and this setting allows you to divide revenue across all departments and track profitability for each area.
Map your tax zones to seamlessly use all of the sales tax functionality that QuickBooks offers (sales tax tracking, paying, and filing).
Map where QuickBooks records transactions. In this tab, you can choose to export transactions at the customer level, service address location, or service address name. Commercial businesses with customers in more than one location love this feature!
Map inventory tracking within both ServiceTitan and QuickBooks. With ServiceTitan, users can send inventory information over to QuickBooks to keep track of all materials, know how many jobs you can book at any given time, and restock inventory with simple drag-and-drop features.
In the Connections section, you can:
Display all active connections linked between a ServiceTitan user's computer and QuickBooks. This allows multiple people to operate in the same QuickBooks file at the same time, but prompts each user to select a specific connection before exporting a batch to QuickBooks.
In the Tools section, you can:
Automate data maintenance.
Reconcile active customers and vendor information in ServiceTitan and QuickBooks.
Validate matching items in ServiceTitan and QuickBooks by confirming they also include the same general ledger accounts and item types.
Once you modify your settings and familiarize yourself with the features available, you can start converting work orders to invoices and exporting transactions to QuickBooks.
With ServiceTitan's field service management software integrated with QuickBooks, HVAC companies can:
Easily adjust and customize their pricebook.
Provide digital invoices and estimates.
Export invoices directly to QuickBooks.
See incoming transactions in real time.
Capture check and credit card payments in the field.
And more!
ServiceTitan Software
ServiceTitan is a comprehensive software solution built specifically to help service companies streamline their operations, boost revenue, and substantially elevate the trajectory of their business. Our comprehensive, cloud-based platform is used by thousands of electrical, HVAC, plumbing, garage door, and chimney sweep shops across the country—and has increased their revenue by an average of 25% in just their first year with us.
