How a 12-person HVAC company eliminated cash flow gaps and saved 15 hours weekly on admin work
HVAC Contracting
12
Austin, TX
Company Overview
Comfort Zone HVAC is a residential and light commercial HVAC contractor serving the greater Austin, Texas area. With 12 employees including 8 technicians, they handle installations, repairs, maintenance contracts, and emergency service calls.
Services: HVAC installation, repair, maintenance, emergency service
The Challenge: The Cash Flow Roller Coaster
Tom Rivera’s HVAC business was profitable on paper, but cash flow was a constant struggle.
The Delayed Billing Problem
“We’d finish a job on Monday, but the invoice wouldn’t go out until the following week—sometimes later,” Rivera explains. The bottleneck was manual:
The Old Process:
- Technician completes work, fills paper form
- Form sits in truck until end of day
- Gets turned in to office (sometimes next day)
- Office manager deciphers handwriting
- Calls tech to clarify unclear items
- Looks up material costs from receipts
- Manually creates invoice in QuickBooks
- Reviews and sends to customer
Average time: 8 days from job completion to invoice sent
The Cash Flow Impact
With 40-50 jobs monthly and 8-day billing delays, Comfort Zone was essentially providing interest-free financing to customers. On $150,000 monthly revenue, that meant roughly $40,000 was always delayed.
“We’d finish big installation jobs and not get paid for three weeks,” Rivera says. “Meanwhile, we had to pay our suppliers in 10 days and meet payroll every week. I was constantly juggling credit lines to cover the gap.”
The manual process created other problems:
- Forgotten charges: Lost receipts meant unbilled materials
- Data entry errors: Transcription mistakes led to under-billing
- Customer disputes: Delayed invoices = forgotten details = arguments
- Admin burden: Office manager spent 20+ hours weekly on invoicing
The Breaking Point
During summer peak season, Rivera maxed out his credit line. Despite being booked solid with profitable work, he couldn’t make payroll because invoices were 2-3 weeks behind.
“That’s when I realized the problem wasn’t our business—it was our billing process,” Rivera recalls. “We were drowning in our own success because we couldn’t invoice fast enough.”
“We went from QuickBooks chaos to complete business visibility in three days. Best $2,000 we spend every month.” Tom Rivera – Owner, Comfort Zone HVAC“
The Solution: Unified Project Management in 3 Days
Why Sitewise?
Rivera considered ServiceTitan but balked at the $4,800/month price tag for 12 users. “That’s $57,600 annually. For a business our size, that’s a lot of profit.”
Sitewise offered the same core capabilities at $1,668/month—a $3,000+ monthly savings.
Implementation Speed
Day 1: Company setup, service catalog configuration, QuickBooks integration
Day 2: Mobile app training for all 8 technicians, practice jobs
Day 3: First real jobs processed, go-live complete
“I couldn’t believe it,” Rivera says. “Three days from signup to running our entire business through it.”
The Results: Immediate Cash Flow Relief
Same-Day Invoicing
The impact was immediate. Jobs completed Monday morning had invoices in customer inboxes by Monday afternoon.
New Process:
- Tech completes work on mobile app
- Logs materials used (auto-priced from catalog)
- Captures customer signature
- Marks complete
- Invoice auto-generates
- Office reviews and sends (15 minutes)
New average time: Less than 1 day
“The first week, we sent 11 invoices the same day the work was done,” Rivera marvels. “That had never happened in our company’s history.”
Cash Flow Transformation
The 7-day improvement in billing speed freed up $35,000 in working capital:
Before: Average 38 days from work to payment (8 days to invoice + 30 day terms)
After: Average 31 days from work to payment (1 day to invoice + 30 day terms)
“We paid off our credit line in six weeks,” Rivera says. “Just from invoicing faster. Same work, same margins—we just got paid for it quicker.”
The Hidden Profit Finder
Real-time job costing revealed surprises. Comfort Zone’s maintenance contracts, which Rivera thought were profitable, actually had 12% margins after accounting for all costs.
“We were charging $399 for twice-yearly service,” Rivera explains. “Sitewise showed us the real cost was $351 when you included drive time, overhead, everything. We raised prices to $499 and customers didn’t blink.”
Similarly, emergency service calls (their most profitable work at 58% margins) weren’t being prioritized enough in scheduling.
“We rebalanced our focus based on actual profitability data,” Rivera notes. “That alone improved our overall margins by 8%.”
Administrative Time Savings
Office manager Maria Garcia’s weekly hours on billing-related tasks dropped from 20 to 5:
“No more deciphering handwriting, chasing down techs for clarification, or manually entering data,” Garcia says. “Everything flows automatically. I spend my time on customer relationships now instead of paperwork.”
15 hours weekly × $25/hour × 52 weeks = $19,500 annual savings
Key Takeaways
“Billing speed equals cash flow.” The 40% improvement in invoicing speed had bigger financial impact than Rivera expected. “Getting paid a week earlier every single job completely changed our cash position.”
“Real-time data reveals truth.” Sitewise’s job costing showed which services were actually profitable. “We thought we knew our margins. We were wrong.”
“Mobile app adoption was easy.” Rivera worried about tech resistance from field techs. “Turns out, everyone has a smartphone. They picked it up in an hour.”
“ROI was immediate.” At $1,668/month, the admin time savings alone justified the cost. The cash flow improvement and margin gains were pure upside.
Conclusion
Four months after implementing Sitewise, Comfort Zone HVAC has transformed from a cash-strapped business struggling with delayed invoicing into a well-capitalized operation with clear visibility into profitability.
“Sitewise gave us something priceless: financial breathing room,” Rivera reflects. “We’re not juggling credit lines anymore. We know exactly where we stand financially. And we’re making better decisions because we have real data.”
Total Investment: $6,672 (4 months)
Cash Flow Improvement: $35,000 freed up
Admin Savings: $6,500 (4 months)
Margin Improvement: 8% on $1.8M = $144,000 annually
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