PlumbingBossPro Blog — Property Managers & Commercial

Routing a Commercial Plumbing Van: Jetting, Backflow Tests and Building Calls in One Day

Once a plumbing company has a handful of commercial accounts, a pattern shows up. There is recurring work — restaurant jetting, backflow tests, water heater flushes — that comes due on a schedule. And there are calls from managers and landlords that come whenever something breaks. Fitting both into a van's day, without driving across town four times, is a routing problem.

Two Kinds of Commercial Work

Scheduling Commercial Plumbing Work Around Business Hours covered when each business can take a visit. Routing is the next layer: in what order, on which van. The two kinds of work behave differently:

• Recurring work is predictable. You know weeks ahead that a restaurant's jetting comes due on the 14th and a building's backflow test is due this month.
• Calls are not. A manager texts about a leak at a rental, and it needs to fit in today or tomorrow.

A good commercial route is built from the recurring work first, with room left for calls.

Start From the Waiting List

Recurring visits in PlumbingBossPro are set by minimum days between visits: 14 or 30 for grease-line jetting, 365 for a yearly backflow test or water heater flush. When each one comes due, it shows on the Waiting List, a live map and list of every visit ready to schedule. Pins are colored not due yet, due now, and overdue past a 7-day grace.

Looking at the map, the office can see clusters: three restaurants due this week on the east side, two apartment buildings with backflow tests near each other, a landlord's rentals in one neighborhood. Those clusters become routes.

Building the Day on the Dispatch Board

The dispatch board shows jobs by day and lets you filter by van. The office assigns the clustered recurring work to a van and a day, then sets the order:

• By hand when hours matter. The restaurant that must be done by 9am goes first.
• Auto-route when they do not. Closest First or Furthest First from the shop puts the stops in a sensible driving order.

Saved views let the office flip between, say, “Commercial van this week” and “All service calls today” without rebuilding filters. Route sheets print for anyone who wants paper on the dash.

A Sample Commercial Day

Here is what a mixed day on one van might look like:

• 6:00 — Grease-line jetting, burger restaurant, back door. Kitchen quiet until 9.
• 7:15 — Grease-line jetting, second location of the same group.
• 8:30 — Backflow test, dental office, before patients arrive.
• 10:00 — Backflow test, apartment building riser room. Manager has the key.
• 11:30 — Open slot for a manager call.
• 1:00 — Water heater flushes at two of a landlord's rentals, same street.

Notice the open slot. A commercial route packed to the minute breaks the first time a manager calls with a leak. Leaving room for one or two calls a day keeps the recurring work on time and lets the office say yes to a manager without moving a restaurant.

On the tech's phone, that order is the order of the cards. Each card has a navigation button, the saved equipment and the access notes for that address.

Fitting Calls Into the Route

When a manager texts about a running toilet at a rental, the office opens the dispatch board, sees which van is closest — crew GPS shows on the office map — and drops the call into that van's day. The tech's phone updates with the new card in its place.

Many shops split the work across vans: one van runs recurring commercial work in the mornings, and another handles service calls for managers, landlords and homeowners all day. That keeps the jetting schedule from being blown up by every leak in town. An owner who runs one van can do the same thing by keeping mornings for recurring work and afternoons for calls.

What Happens After Each Stop

When the tech taps Complete, the office sees it on the board. Photos and notes are attached. For card-on-file clients, the invoice is created and the card can be charged. For monthly clients, the job goes on that month's statement. The recurring visit resets, and the next one will come due on the Waiting List at the right time.

If the tech cannot get in, Skip with a reason tells the office why, and the job goes back on the board. More on calls coming in from managers is in Handling Property Manager Plumbing Requests: From the Manager's Message to a Scheduled Job.

For the full commercial picture, visit the commercial plumbing software page.