How to Choose the Right CRM Software for Commercial HVAC

There are a couple of main reasons why we see Commercial HVAC companies start looking for customer relationship management software (CRM): 

1. Sales-to-service workflows have become a mess, and their current tech stack isn’t cutting it anymore. Reps aren’t following up consistently, deals are slipping through the cracks, notes are scattered across emails and spreadsheets, the sales pipeline never seems to match reality, and handoffs between sales and service are fraught with miscommunication, errors, and delays. 

2. They want to prepare the business for sale and attract buyers at a higher multiple. A growing number of trade businesses are targeting acquisition by private equity (PE) firms, and HVAC business owners understand that tight, scalable, tech-enabled systems give their business an edge over the competition. 

But here’s the problem most companies run into:

Most CRMs were not built for commercial HVAC operations. They were built for software companies, marketing agencies, or generic B2B sales teams. They offer robust office functionality, but they often fall short in supporting the complex, field-connected sales cycles that winning commercial service work requires. 

In our experience, the best HVAC CRM for commercial integrates your sales process, field service teams, pricing, service agreements, and operations into a single system.

This guide breaks down: 

• The differences between general-purpose and trade-specific CRMs

• What to look for when investing in a commercial CRM

• How purpose-built software like ServiceTitan gives your team the operational backbone needed to grow commercial revenue with consistency and confidence

General-Purpose CRMs vs. Trade-Specific CRM Solutions

Within the broad category of CRM software, there are two main options for commercial HVAC:

1. General-purpose CRMs like Salesforce, HubSpot, and Pipedrive are built for a wide range of industries.

2. Trade-specific platforms that combine CRM capabilities with field service management (FSM) into one integrated solution designed for contractors.

General Purpose CRMs

General-purpose CRMs are great for tracking leads, managing customer communication, and tracking marketing campaigns, but they’re not designed to streamline operations for commercial service. This means:

• They don’t connect sales to the field, leaving reps without direct access to equipment data, photos, service history, or site conditions when building proposals.

• They require customization and bolt-on integrations just to mimic basic HVAC sales stages like discovery, site walks, asset-based scoping, and proposal creation.

• They break down during the handoff to operations, since nothing flows automatically into scheduling, purchasing, or accounting once a contract is sold.

• They don’t help you capture pull-through opportunities, because leads from inspections, repairs, technician notes, and service history never surface inside the CRM—so high-value upsell and replacement work often is lost.

• They lack multi-site, equipment-level visibility, making it hard to manage portfolios, track asset condition, or prioritize high-risk units across properties.

These systems often require costly customization, third-party integrations, and ongoing IT maintenance to integrate with key operational tools for scheduling, dispatching, and inventory management.

Trade-Specific CRMs

Trade-specific software solutions, on the other hand, combine CRM and field service management into one system. This allows contractors to:

• Tie sales directly to the field, so equipment data, photos, service history, and technician notes flow straight into opportunities and proposals.

• Increase pull-through by turning field findings and asset conditions into CRM opportunities—keeping your pipeline full of high-value replacement and upgrade work.

• Use tools built around actual HVAC workflows, with native tools for discovery, site walks, proposals, and agreement management—no heavy customization required.

• Auto-draft accurate, consistent service agreements from real equipment lists using predefined scopes, pricing logic, and margin controls.

• Ensure clean handoffs from sales to operations, with sold agreements automatically generating visits, materials, billing schedules, and technician workflows.

• Manage complex commercial customers with full visibility, including multi-site portfolios, asset condition, open quotes, service agreements, and financials—all in one place.

Once you see how much smoother your process becomes with a connected system, the real question becomes: Which CRM actually supports the way commercial HVAC sales and service work? Here’s what to look for.

Key Features to Look For in Commercial HVAC CRM Software

The fundamentals of commercial HVAC service largely follow a consistent flow: discovery → site walk → proposal → follow-up → close → long-term service. The right CRM must support each of these stages and the transitions between them.

1. Workflows Built Specifically for Commercial HVAC Contractors

Most CRM tools assume a simple workflow: Book a meeting, send a proposal, close a deal. But commercial HVAC sales are more technical, more consultative, and more field-driven.

Your CRM needs to reflect that. Look for:

• Pipelines that support: Discovery → Site Walk → Proposal → Follow-up → Closed

• A place to store equipment details, photos, and site conditions tied to a deal

• Proposals and scopes built around actual HVAC workflows, not generic templates

• Space for reps to track decision-makers, budget cycles, and multi-stage approvals

If a CRM can’t mirror the workflow your best salespeople use, your team will resist adopting it—and getting full utilization and ROI from the CRM system will be an uphill battle.

2. Deep Connection Between Sales, the Office, and the Field

Commercial HVAC service work begins and ends with the equipment. Yet in most CRMs, equipment data lives in a completely separate system.

That disconnect creates massive friction:

• Reps don’t have the data they need to build accurate proposals.

• Site-walk photos are lost in text messages or cloud folders.

• Field technicians can’t easily flag upgrade needs or pull-through opportunities.

• Sales and service operate with two different views of the customer.

A great commercial HVAC CRM bridges the field and the office. Look for:

• Technician-driven equipment capture (model/serial scanning + photos via mobile app)

• Automatic syncing of assets into the CRM

• Easy creation of pull-through opportunities from the field

• Visibility into service history, equipment age, notes, and recurring issues

This is the foundation for strong proposals, repeatable sales processes, and long-term customer relationships.

3. Seamless Integration Between CRM and Service Agreements

Generic CRMs help you track pipeline activity and customer interactions… but fall short when it comes to building HVAC service contracts and proposals. 

That’s where commercial deals often break down:

• Reps rebuild scopes and equipment lists manually.

• Pricing mistakes are too common.

• Negotiations stall because proposals take too long.

You want a CRM that builds maintenance contracts from your site-walk data, not one that forces reps to copy and paste between tools.

Look for:

• Service agreement templates with pre-set terms, durations, billing schedules, and rate sheets

• Auto-drafting based on actual equipment documented at the site

• Margin-based pricing built into the CRM-to-proposal workflow

• Automated generation of precise, professional proposals 

This keeps pricing accurate, scopes consistent, and deals moving with a fraction of the effort and time it would normally require of your team.

4. Clean Handoffs to Operations, Purchasing, and Accounting

A CRM is far less valuable if only sales can use it. It becomes exponentially more powerful when it connects to the rest of your service business operations.

Once a contract is signed, look for a CRM that automatically:

• Handles job scheduling and dispatching for maintenance visits

• Creates material lists for purchasing (filters, belts, etc.)

• Establishes billing schedules and payment terms

• Logs everything in an audit trail

• Syncs agreement status back to the CRM in real-time

• Automates invoicing 

• Updates accounting with the correct revenue recognition rules (and integrates smoothly with your accounting software)

This eliminates one of the biggest breakdowns in commercial HVAC companies: the sales–operations handoff.

All job history and customer data is in one place, and everything flows automatically from one step in the workflow to the next.

5. Tools for Managing Complex Commercial Accounts

The best commercial HVAC customers aren’t one-off jobs—they’re long-term partnerships with multiple buildings, stakeholders, and recurring service needs.

Generic CRMs treat every lead like a simple contact record. But commercial contractors need:

• Multiple locations under one customer

• Multiple contacts and decision-makers per account

• Equipment lists tied to each property

• Historical visibility into service calls, proposals, agreements, individual job details, and projects

Very few CRMs meet all of these requirements. ServiceTitan is one of the only platforms designed specifically to support the full commercial HVAC lifecycle, from opportunity to long-term agreement management.

ServiceTitan’s Commercial HVAC CRM: End-to-End Workflows From Sales to Service

A Command Center for Tracking and Managing Opportunities

In ServiceTitan’s commercial CRM, your team manages dedicated pipelines for Service Agreements, Projects, and Jobs. Sales leaders can:

• See how many agreements, jobs, and projects are sitting in each stage (New, Qualify, Propose, Follow Up, Closed Won/Lost).

• Filter by account owner, business unit, or source.

• Quickly spot deals that need a proposal or follow-up.

For account executives, this means they’re living in one workspace: They prospect, qualify, and work opportunities inside the CRM, instead of bouncing between tools.

Out-of-the-Box Reporting & Dashboards

Sales managers can finally skip building custom reporting solutions with Power BI or Excel. Our CRM offers built-in dashboards designed to support:

• Weekly or monthly team meetings

• Win/loss tracking

• Individual rep performance

• Pipeline health monitoring

No configuration required—just open the dashboard and start managing.

Agreement Templates to Standardize What You Sell & Streamline Proposals

When a prospect is ready for numbers, the AE opens the opportunity and creates a quote directly from the CRM screen. That’s the bridge into the proposal builder.

Once an AE launches a new quote, they’re not staring at a blank form. They’re selecting from admin-defined templates that represent the packages your business wants to sell — for example:

• “Gold HVAC Planned Maintenance – 12 Months”

• “Multi-Site Commercial Maintenance”

• “Premium 24/7 Service Plan”

Behind each template, your admin has pre-set:

• Agreement duration (e.g., 12 months)

• Billing schedule (monthly, quarterly, annual, etc.)

• Payment terms (e.g., net 30)

• Preferred rate sheet for extra work tied to the agreement

• Default pricing mode (agreement-level price vs. price-per-visit)

• Target gross margin (e.g., 30%)

• Standard start date rule (e.g., “first of next month”)

• Auto-renew on/off with the right legal language included in the agreement document

The result:

• Admins/office staff get standardization and control over what gets offered.

• AEs skip repetitive data entry and start from intelligent defaults that are right 80% of the time, only tweaking when a customer requires something special.

Automated Equipment Capture That Directly Integrates with Quotes, Agreements, Purchasing & More

The next step is defining what you’re maintaining.

From the agreement quote, the AE selects the customer location(s) and then adds equipment to be covered. ServiceTitan pulls from the equipment already captured in the field (via techs or sales walking the site), so the AE can:

• Filter equipment by type, status, tags, or other criteria.

• Select individual assets or “select all” for the site.

This step is where ServiceTitan’s equipment-centric approach shines. If your team is using our mobile app to scan equipment (model/serial capture and OCR), that rich data flows straight into this list. No retyping. No manual spreadsheets.

Once the AE confirms which equipment should be covered, they hit Auto Draft.

Auto-Drafted Agreements: Visits, Labor & Materials in One Click

Auto Draft uses your maintenance defaults to generate the entire scope of work for the agreement, based on:

• The types of equipment included.

• The maintenance schedules you’ve defined per equipment type.

• The materials (filters, belts, etc.) associated with each type of service.

In a single click, ServiceTitan:

• Creates the recurring visit structure

  • Example: 1 annual visit for deep inspection, plus a visit every 2 months, plus a quarterly filter change

• Applies the time estimates for each visit type (from your defaults).

• Calculates the estimated labor cost using the labor rate set on the template.

• Pulls in estimated material costs ( filters, belts, etc.) for the equipment that requires them.

The AE lands on a fully drafted scope that would otherwise take 10-15 minutes (or more) to build manually. They still have full control: They can adjust frequencies, add or remove tasks, or customize specific visits as needed — down to removing defaults altogether for a one-off, complex deal.

Control Profitability with Built-In Margin Targets 

Once the scope of work is defined, ServiceTitan moves to pricing.

Because it already knows:

• Estimated labor hours, multiplied by your default labor cost

• Estimated material costs tied to the visits

…it can calculate a total estimated cost for the agreement.

From there, your default gross margin target (e.g., 30%) is applied to suggest a price. The AE sees:

• Estimated cost

• Target margin %

• Suggested agreement price

They can then:

• Adjust the margin up or down (e.g., sharpen the pencil for a marquee account).

• Lock in a specific price and see the resulting margin.

• Change the billing schedule (upfront vs. monthly/quarterly).

• Modify payment terms if the customer has specific requirements.

Under the hood, admins can also choose how revenue recognition works for that agreement (immediate, deferred percent-complete, or straight-line deferred), but the AE doesn’t have to wrestle with accounting logic. They just see a clean, consistent pricing and billing experience.

Manage Versions and Negotiations Without Losing the Thread

In commercial service deals, customers negotiate. They ask for options.

From any agreement quote, AEs can:

• Duplicate an existing agreement version.

• Make changes (scope, frequency, pricing, terms).

• Keep multiple options tied to the same opportunity in CRM.

That makes it easy to present:

• “Good / Better / Best” maintenance packages.

• Different term lengths or billing choices.

• Alternate scopes (e.g., “all rooftop units” vs. “critical equipment only”).

Every change — system-generated or user-made — is tracked in the agreement audit trail, including:

• Who changed pricing or billing.

• When scope was altered.

• Which version ultimately got accepted.

Send, E-Sign, and Activate Contracts

Once the customer is happy with a proposal:

1. The AE sends the agreement for e-signature.

2. When the customer signs, the agreement status moves to Accepted.

3. The AE (or an authorized user) hits Activate to start the agreement.

At that moment:

• The related CRM opportunity is automatically updated to Closed Won.

• No one has to manually sync status or enter won-value — it’s handled behind the scenes.

• Billing schedules, visits, and other downstream pieces are now live in the system.

The same audit trail continues from draft into active status — there’s no separate “live” record. It’s the same agreement entity, now in a different lifecycle stage.

From Contract to Field Work: Visits and Job Execution

Once active, the agreement drives your field operations:

• ServiceTitan generates the scheduled visits based on the scope.

• Dispatchers and ops managers see those visits on their scheduling and dispatch boards like any other job.

• Techs in the field:

  • See the equipment tied to the agreement.

  • Capture additional details, photos, and notes.

  • Identify additional opportunities (repairs, upgrades, additional sites) that can flow back into CRM as new opportunities.

The agreement isn’t just a contract in the system; it’s the engine that keeps techs on-site and revenue recurring.

Automated Material Lists for Purchasing

Because materials were defined at the equipment and visit level, activating the agreement also pushes that information into inventory and purchasing.

Purchasing and inventory managers can:

• View material needs by upcoming agreement visits.

• See lists of filters, belts, and other consumables required.

• Generate:

  • Requisitions

  • Purchase orders

  • Warehouse transfers

  • Warranty orders and returns

At scale, when your team sells dozens or hundreds of agreements, ServiceTitan automatically builds the material-demand picture for those contracts — without manual spreadsheet wrangling between sales and purchasing.

Offer Self-Service Options with Commercial Customer Portal

The commercial Customer Portal improves customer experiences, allowing clients to take self-service actions from their dashboard. This includes user-friendly payment processing, accepting estimates, self-scheduling, and getting information on upcoming appointments, work order history, and service agreements. 

Accounting Automations and the Growth Flywheel

From an accounting perspective:

• Invoices are generated according to the billing schedule set in the agreement.

• Payment terms and revenue recognition rules are respected.

• All actions (invoices created, visits completed, changes made) are visible in the audit trail for that agreement.

• Seamless integrations with QuickBooks, Sage Intacct, Viewpoint Vista, and other accounting platforms ensure your financial data syncs automatically, while Touchless Integration eliminates manual batching and posting.

From a growth perspective, each agreement feeds a flywheel:

1. Equipment is captured accurately in the field (often via mobile scanning).

2. That data powers fast, accurate service agreement estimates.

3. Agreements create recurring revenue and steady, proactive site visits.

4. Techs uncover new opportunities during inspections and service.

5. Those opportunities enter the CRM pipeline and lead to more projects and agreements.

Because all of this happens inside one platform — CRM, estimating, agreements, field operations, purchasing, and accounting — the system can do more work for you:

• Less double-entry.

• Fewer integration headaches.

• More visibility into the true value and performance of your maintenance customer base.

The CRM You Choose Shapes Your Commercial Growth Engine

A CRM is more than a database—it’s the backbone of your entire commercial sales and service operation.

Choose a generic CRM, and your team may spend years customizing, integrating, and duct-taping workflows together, hoping it will eventually support the way commercial HVAC really works.

Choose a CRM built inside a trades-specific platform, and you get:

• Faster proposals

• Stronger follow-up

• Fewer dropped balls

• Accurate pricing

• Smoother handoffs

• Higher close rates

• Better long-term customer satisfaction and retention

Before you buy, ask yourself:

Is this CRM designed for our specific business needs ( how the commercial HVAC industry really works) —or am I going to spend the next five years forcing it to?

Choose the system that optimizes every step of your commercial workflow. Choose one that doesn’t separate sales, service, and operations—but connects them.