If You Want to Build a Profitable and
Thriving Service Contracting Business,
Your Operation Must Run Like a Well-oiled Machine.

Here’s How to Get There Quickly and Easily

By: Mr. HVAC – James R. Leichter

As a contracting business owner, I realized that we needed software that was specifically designed to manage a service business. Here is my story on how we did it.

Thousands of service contractors struggle year after year.  Their operations are not finely tuned.  Profits never seem to climb.  The stress level is always high.  And their owners never seem to have enough time for relaxing vacations or much-needed family time.

To make matters worse, many of these businesses are completely dependent on its owner’ daily involvement for its survival.  On any given day, if the owner is not on a service call, he or she is out somewhere fighting a “fire.”

But now there’s a solution to this common dilemma:  Total Office Manager® is the only software application designed to help run all aspects of a service contracting business from full accounting, payroll, dispatching, scheduling, work orders, contact management to equipment tracking, inventory management, service agreements, purchase orders, and proposals and estimates.

I have Been in Your Shoes Twice!

I’ll tell you more about Total Office Manager (and how it could help your business) in a minute.  But first, I should tell you a little about myself so you’ll understand why I’m writing you.

My name is James R. Leichter, president of Aptora.  I’m better known as “Mr. HVAC” to thousands of contractors who have visited this website, heard me speak at industry events, or used my software or other specialized contractor business tools to make their contracting businesses more profitable.

Like many of you, have done my time in the trenches.  My career in the contracting industry began 25 years ago as a $5/hour helper for an HVAC, electrical, and plumbing contractor.  Eventually, I went out on my own and launched two very successful mechanical contracting companies.

We started out using QuickBooks®.  Although we really liked QuickBooks®, we always wished it could do a little more.  (For example, we really wished it had a powerful dispatch & scheduling board, the ability to track service history on customer equipment, serial numbers, inventory by truck, and mobile smart phone software.)

I continued to confront the same problem after I started my contractor consulting firm:  No software package out there could do everything my service contractor clients needed to run their operations well.  Most had outgrown QuickBooks®.  Others were tired of maintaining 3 or 4 different software packages, none of which were even tailored for the construction industry.

Ten years ago we set out to create the ultimate accounting, dispatching, and scheduling software program for service contractors. Our hope was to create a program like QuickBooks®, but with a dozen or more must-have features my clients really needed and wanted. QuickBooks® is a registered trademark of Intuitâ„¢.

So I assembled a “dream team” of folks that truly understood the service business.  A team that consisted of QuickBooks® experts, accountants, service technicians, owners of contracting businesses, business consultants, electrical engineers, refrigeration specialist, and even a noted tax attorney.

For years we used Total Office Manager to run our own business. After fine tuning it and perfecting it, we released it to the industry in 2004 and they absolutely loved it.

One Software Package to Run Your Entire Service Business

By creating a comprehensive office management software for the service contractor, we’ve done something no one else has ever done before.  We have thought of everything to make this software tool as comprehensive and as user-friendly as possible.  And we’ve included all the tools you need to manage virtually every aspect of operating your contracting business whether you use them all right out of the gate, or gradually implement them as your business grows.

Here’s a list of just some of the features you’ll find in Total Office Manager:

• iPad, iPhone®, BlackBerry® Mobile
• Dispatching and Scheduling
• Personal and private appointments
• Reminders and alarms
• Work orders and call slips
• Customer relationship management
• Contact logs for customers, vendors, and employees
• Detailed marketing source tracking
• General ledger
• Industry specific chart of accounts
• Accounts receivable and accounts payable
• Credit management
• Fixed asset management, including tracking of company property, depreciation
• Inventory control, including multiple locations
• Serialized equipment tracking
• Multiple markup and costing methods
• Service agreements
• Warranty tracking & vendor returns
• Remote access
• Purchase orders
• Proposals and estimates
• AIA® Billing
• Bill To Warranty Company
• Payroll with commissions, including  performance-based compensation
• Job costing with progress billing
• Cash flow management
• Comprehensive customer service history
• Comprehensive customer financial history
• Flat-rate pricing
• Bar code labels
• Telephone messaging
• Email/Text work orders
• Detailed reports
• Automated backups with reminders
• Order Entry
• Technician tool tracking
• Track callbacks and efficiency
• Sales and marketing
• Direct deposit
• Credit card processing
• Financial ratio analysis
• Departmentalized general ledger
• Customizable reports and report writer
• Custom software programming
• And much more!