As a plumber, you know plumbing is only a fraction of your work. You must invoice clients, purchase parts, prepare financial documents, book appointments, grow your client base, and determine if your loyal client, Mr. Smith, needs a new valve for his waterline.
Did you know the Apple iOS and Google Play App Stores are virtual goldmines for small business owners like you? They offer an almost infinite number of apps that could significantly enhance your operations.
That’s right—technology has become so abundant that engineers have designed apps to perform not just marketing and paperwork but tasks crucial to tradespeople, including plumbers.
But with dozens of new apps made available daily, how do you determine which ones to use for your plumbing business? In this article, we’ll show you eight apps that Plumbers can use to improve operations and efficiency.
The Types of Apps and What They Do
For your convenience, we’ve divided our list by the specific job the apps perform. Each app belongs to one of two categories:
- Apps that perform business processes and customer relations duties essential to your plumbing company’s operations.
- Apps made exclusively for plumbers. They work with you.
Apps for Business Processes and Customer Relations
You know how time-consuming writing purchase orders and invoices and booking appointments can be. Specialized apps manage these tasks for you, streamlining the administrative side of plumbing straight to your mobile device. Here are just some tasks these apps can perform:
- Managing and sending invoices
- Writing purchase orders
- Sending receipts
- Making bookings
- Managing your team and delegating jobs
- Communicating with clients
- Sending quotes
Using these apps can save you considerable time. Here are our top time-saving, business-process, and customer relations apps:
1. Adalo
If you want to make your own operations management app with functions similar to QuickBooks and ServiceTitan, Adalo is an excellent choice. Leveraging no code, Adalo allows the average person with no tech experience to create custom-made apps using a simple drag-and-drop interface.
Your own app can perform several business-process-enhancing features, like:
Appointment Scheduling and Management: Create an app allowing customers to schedule appointments directly. Your own app gives customers a one-stop, easy place to book their appointments or schedule maintenance.
Inventory Management: Track, date, and record new inventory that enters your storage facilities. Custom-make notifications informing you when certain parts expire or when other parts are running low. This app function will ensure you deliver quality parts and are always fully stocked.
Push Notifications: Notify customers using pre-set push notifications when they need routine maintenance. Your clients may love not needing to remember exact dates or ensuring they manually enter maintenance in their planners.
Invoicing and Payment Processing: Adalo is integrated with several payment platforms, including Stripe, Square, and PayPal. You can create an invoicing function for your app that ensures easy payment. Your app can also generate a receipt for the customer.
Your Adalo app can be easily accessible—you can put it in the Apple iOS and Google Play App Stores. Adalo also lets you feature your app for download from your website.
Pricing:
Adalo offers a free version; Plans start from as low as $36/month.
2. The QuickBooks App
Most businesses are familiar with QuickBooks as the go-to desktop accounting software suite. The QuickBooks app channels all the desktop software power and brings it to your mobile device.
Conveniently for plumbers, QuickBooks has a specialized app targeted to contractors and those in the construction industry. The similarities plumbers share with the construction industry make the app a shoo-in. QuickBooks streamlines all financial management aspects of a plumbing business, featuring the following:
Financial Management: QuickBooks financial management suite makes the following easy:
- Determining job/project profitability.
- Conducting live bookkeeping integrated with your bank account.
- Managing bills and payroll, receipt tracking.
- Creating and sending invoices and purchase orders.
- Generating financial statements.
QuickBooks provides a real-time view of how much money you have on hand by adding income and deducting expenses by integrating with any credit or debit card and your company bank account.
QuickBooks streamlines income and expenses to their proper position on all financial statements, receipt tracking, and simplifying the reporting to your CPA.
Inventory and Reporting: The QuickBooks app manages and tracks inventory. It will notify you whenever your ¾” steel-pipe stock is nearly depleted. Using the QuickBooks app will keep you on top of your inventory and decrease the chances of delays due to a lack of product.
Pricing:
Simple: $30/month.
Essentials: $60/month.
Plus: $27/month for the first three months, $90/month from the fourth month on.
Advanced: $60/month for the first three months, $200/month from the fourth month on.
*You can add 24/7 Live Assisted Bookkeeping support for any plan for another $50/month.
3. Service Titan
ServiceTitan designed its operations management software as a one-stop-shop useful for all trades, from roofing to plumbing. It features bookkeeping and other accounting functions, inventory and vehicle management, customer relationship management, and the ability to analyze and determine how profitable each project might be.
ServiceTitan specializes in leveraging customer relationship management tools and enhancing customer-employee interactions. You can use it to optimize employee performance by monitoring client interaction. and learn how to improve your team’s customer-relationship management skills.
ServiceTitan features can be broken down into three categories:
Front Office Features:
ServiceTitan's front office features streamline operations and communication with your teams and customers. Key functions include:
- Proposal, quote, purchase order, and invoice creation.
- Real-time bank account balance.
- Automated tools for managing recurring service payments (like maintenance).
- Scheduling and handling inevitable schedule changes.
- Dispatch management for a complete overview of workforce allocation.
- A call recording feature for improving interactions with clients.
Field Operations Features:
This software enhances employee efficiency, manages costs and inventory, and saves money. Features include:
- A tracking app to maximize your employees’ productivity,
- An inventory management tool that records the age of your equipment and parts,
- Truck replenishment capabilities that notify you about routine vehicle maintenance
Client Experience Features
ServiceTitan integrates technology to create a customer-centric experience. Some main features include:
- A client portal for CRM, personalized records, and customer interaction history,
- Technician tracking to inform customers about appointment times and worker arrivals,
- An SMS system for real-time communication between the client, company office, and the worker assigned to the task.
- Payment simplification, clearly describing charges and due dates to customers.
ServiceTitan is a versatile tool for any plumbing business. With features like the SMS tool, you can stay in contact with clients and maintain cordial relationships with them, giving you opportunities to offer new services and routine maintenance.
Pricing:
ServiceTitan does not publicly disclose prices. They require you to schedule a demo and contact a sales agent to get pricing.
4. Commusoft
Commusoft is a community-based app comprising clients who request services and businesses that perform them. It’s useful for all people in all trades—but they especially appeal to plumbers, offering numerous plumber-specific apps and software.
You’ll be delighted to know that their community has almost 1 million clients. Commusoft will make your company known to clients in your area when you join, opening the door for more potential business.
Commusoft lets you create invoices, manage a customer database, and communicate with clients. Commusoft offers a few special features that make it stand out, including:
Feedback and Reviews: Clients using Commusoft can rate and review plumbers. Their site-integration tool lets you showcase positive reviews from the app on your site.
If a client left a negative review, fear not! Commusoft allows you to address any negative feedback. When you address it promptly, Commusoft will improve your reputation score. Customers may appreciate this, and you can have the ability to take ownership of your work and reputation.
Targeted Marketing Campaigns: Leverage customer data to create targeted ad marketing campaigns for clients on their app. By doing this, you can target specific demographics in your region and run seasonal promotions or release new service announcements. This feature helps you attract new clients and re-engage previous ones.
Analytics and Reporting: Analyze your business’ performance with Commusoft’s reporting tools. These tools will identify certain improvement areas, such as travel time and hours spent on jobs. It will make recommendations for improvement, which can save you time and money in the long run.
Pricing:
Commusoft has three plans: All in One, Customer Journey, and Field Automation. You must contact Commusoft directly for pricing.
5. CompanyCam
CompanyCam is an innovative app that allows you to document every second of your work using the phone on your camera. With a connection to the cloud, CompanyCam provides vast storage space, allowing you to record dozens of gigabytes of material and store it in CompanyCam’s cloud.
Besides showing clients every step of your work (and therefore building trust), you can also use CompanyCam for the following tasks and projects:
Team Collaboration: If several teams are working on a project at different periods of time, footage from work being completed will help ensure all workers are on the same page. This can prevent mistakes, accidents, and the dreaded “doing the same job twice.”
Project Management: With CompanyCam, you can create sleek photos or videos of each project and embed them into your CRM system. That way, when the Jones family needs a fixture on the drainage system you installed three years ago, you can review the visual record of it being built and make educated guesses about where problems might be.
Marketing: Condense your project footage into 10-second clips and feature them on your site and social media. Watching a crew install the latest Toto Washlet in a snappy time-lapse can capture many clients’ eyes.
Training: Before new hires begin installing waterlines to that new client’s house, let them watch a video of your veteran team doing the same installation on a job they completed two weeks ago. Enacting a training program like this might help your new hire learn their jobs quickly, give them confidence, and save you training time.
Pricing:
Pro: $24/month or $19/month billed annually.
Premium: $34/month or $29/month billed annually.
Enterprise: For 50+ users—contact CompanyCam.
Apps for Plumbing
Did you know some apps transform your smartphone into a gadget worthy of hanging from your toolbelt? Some apps use your phone's sensor and camera to ensure that pipes and fixtures are perfectly aligned and level; others are a handy reference for fittings, pipes, or anything else you need to look up.
These apps could make on-the-job tasks much easier:
6. ARPlan 3D
ARPlan 3D leverages augmented reality (AR) technology to give you accurate measurements of the room and anything inside the room. This cutting-edge app will not just reveal the various dimensions of space, the height, width, and depth, but it will give you volumetric measurements (i.e., how much a container can hold) of objects it detects, like basins, toilets, sinks, pipes, and more. These features are just the surface. Here are some more jobs ARPlan 3D can do for plumbers:
- Floor Plan Creation: Create detailed floor plans with a few taps on your screen. This feature saves time during the planning and execution stages of a project. And if you want to experiment with different designs, go ahead and find your perfect fit.
- Improved Project Visualization: During a consultation, visualize the result of any plumbing project and show the client the visual. Offering clients a literal clear picture of how the work will look upon completion can help them win more contracts.
- Efficiency in On-site Work: Quickly provide accurate measurements and layouts on the spot, reducing the need for multiple site visits and manual measurements. This action can significantly speed up installation time, allow for more accurate quotations, and save money and time.
- Professional Documentation: Use these aesthetic plans and measurements to enhance your marketing efforts. Pop up a few more cutting-edge plans on social media and your site to show potential clients you’re harnessing technology in your plumbing.
Pricing:
Free: But limited version with ads.
One Month: $19.99.
Three Months: $49.99.
1-Year: $89.99.
7. Plumber’s Handbook
All plumbers need a resource with plumbing-rich information to refer to. You’ll be pleased to know that The Plumber’s Handbook serves as an entire plumbing library, containing comprehensive information about installing plumbing systems that meet various inspection standards, diverse topics about plumbing, trade tips, and anything else about plumbing. Get the Plumber’s Handbook.
Plumber’s Handbook is the Wikipedia of plumbing. It has countless visuals and graphics to explain difficult-to-understand topics. It’s constantly updated, so it can serve as an ongoing educational tool for lasting your entire plumbing career. You’ll want to invest in the massive source of info you can access whenever you have your phone or tablet.
Here are a few topics you’ll find within the chapters of this immense work:
- The History of Plumbing: Did you know that the word plumbing comes from the Latin word plumbum, which means lead (the metal)? You’ll learn a little about ancient Roman engineering and plumbing and the not-so-safe lead pipes they sometimes used for transporting drinking water.
- Plumbing and Solar Energy: This part will teach you how to harness solar panels' power to heat water systems. Considering the high number of solar panels installed each year, knowing more about how solar panels complement plumbing might be a major business opportunity.
- Gas Systems and Regulations: For those plumbers who work with natural gas systems or those branching out into them, this chapter is for you. You’ll learn the latest technologies, codes, and regulations about gas plumbing so you can determine how they will affect your business.
- Installing Water Systems: An overview of the basics while also giving you the latest information on new technologies. Some plumbers may not be aware of the most recent technologies available, so keep up to date and be the first to offer them to your clients.
Pricing:
One-time fee: $50.95.
8. Pipe and Fitting:
While Plumber’s Handbook touches on everything plumbing, the Pipe and Fitting app is a technical guide with practical tools. Pipe and Fitting won’t tell you specific building codes for installing an effluent system, but it will provide you with several useful applications you can immediately implement for projects, including:
Pipe Fitting Measurements, to accurately measure pipe, gasket, and fitting size for specific projects so you can purchase the right materials for your next project and complete it efficiently and without errors.
Materials Overview and Management to help you determine which materials work together best for certain projects. Pipe and Fitting can provide answers when you’re wondering if you should use HDPE or PVC pipe to connect your newest housing project to the high-flow steel main line.
User-Friendliness, to make the app usable for all plumbers - even those with no technical experience, Pipe and Fitting designed an easy-to-use interface. The Pipe and Fitting designers also understand that some jobs can occur way off the grid, outside of the range of any WIFI or 5G, so they designed their app to function offline.
Pricing:
Free.
What to Consider
Carefully review each app’s features and know how to leverage each app’s power to improve your work. Ensure that you regularly use the apps you’ve downloaded. You don’t want to pay an ongoing monthly subscription for an app you never use.
Always keep your apps updated and running on the latest version. Not having the latest version of your measuring app could bring glitches that hinder your work.
Customize Customer Relations with Adalo
If you want your own tailor-made client booking system, Adalo is your best choice.
Adalo requires no technical or coding skills to get started. Find the best template that suits your plumbing company’s needs. You can integrate scheduling, push notifications, inventory control, and more. For the growing number of clients using cashless payment methods, Adalo will work with most payment software.
We know your trade is plumbing, not coding. That’s why Adalo designed its app builder for people without technical knowledge. Hundreds of plumbers like you are already tapping into Adalo’s many features. Adalo lets you freely apply your own unique brand and style to your own custom-made app.
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