PlumbingBossPro Blog — Plumbing Software

Getting the Most Out of a 14-Day Plumbing Software Free Trial

Most free trials end the same way. The owner signs up on a Tuesday night, clicks around a sample account, gets busy with calls, and gets an email two weeks later saying the trial is over. They never put a real job through it, so they still do not know if it works for their shop. Fourteen days is plenty of time to find out, as long as you use them on purpose.

Decide What You Are Testing

The plans and prices are covered in Plumbing Software Pricing: What $59, $89 and $199 a Month Get You. The trial is how you find out whether any of them is worth it for you.

Before you sign up, write down the three problems you most want fixed. Maybe it is techs calling the office for water heater details, maintenance customers slipping through the cracks, and invoices going out late. At the end of the trial, those three are what you judge it on. Not how pretty the dashboard is.

Days 1 to 3: Set Up With Your Own Data

The PlumbingBossPro trial is 14 days with no credit card. Spend the first few days setting it up with your real business, not sample data:

• Build your service list with your actual prices.
• Import your customers by CSV. Addresses are placed on the map automatically.
• Set up your maintenance customers' recurring services so they come due on the Waiting List.
• Add equipment for a handful of regular customers' houses.
• Add your techs with PINs and van assignments.

A day-by-day version of this is in Setting Up Plumbing Software in the First Week: A Day-by-Day Plan. Seeing your own customers on the map is the moment most owners can tell whether this will work.

Days 4 to 10: Run Real Jobs

This is the part that matters. Put real work through the software from the first call to the paid invoice:

• A service call. Book it, dispatch it, have the tech work it from the app, Complete it, and see the invoice created.
• A maintenance visit. A yearly flush with the inspection checklist. Print the Plumbing Inspection Report and hand it to the homeowner.
• An estimate. Send one for a real repair or replacement and see how the customer approves it online and how it becomes the scheduled job.
• A commercial client. If you have a property manager or restaurant, set them up with their addresses and Monthly billing.

Do not run the old system and the new one side by side for every job. Pick at least one van and run its whole day in the software. That is the only way to feel what a real day is like.

What to Watch on the Tech Side

Ask your techs to pay attention to a few things and tell you honestly:

• Was the app easy to open and sign in to on their phone?
• Did the equipment and access notes on the card help?
• Was navigation one tap?
• Were Start, photos and Complete quick?
• Did they need to call the office less?

If your plumbers like it, it will get used. If they fight it, nothing else matters. Their opinion is worth more than any feature list.

What to Watch on the Customer and Office Side

On the customer side, see how customers respond to the night-before, on-the-way and arrived texts. Show a customer the customer app with the live route map. Watch how many “when are you coming?” calls you get compared with a normal week.

On the office side, notice how long it takes to build a day on the dispatch board, how easy it is to drop an emergency onto a van, and whether invoices go out faster. Check whether the Waiting List shows maintenance you had forgotten about. It usually does.

Days 11 to 14: Decide

Go back to the three problems you wrote down. For each one, ask: is it better, the same, or worse? If at least two are clearly better, the software is earning its keep.

Then pick a plan: Start at $59 a month for one van, Pro at $89 for two vans with billing automation and two-way texting, or Crew at $199 for three or more vans and unlimited office users. Your setup, customers and job history stay as they are.

If you want to look around before signing up at all, the live demo lets you click through a sample plumbing company first. For the full overview of the platform, visit the PlumbingBossPro plumbing software page.