How Absolute Power’s Team Found Themselves ‘Nerding Out’ Over Software

If you don’t do your homework, you can’t go to recess. 

Megan Phelps got used to making this kind of “if-then” statement when she worked in elementary school education and counseling. And, although she left the school system in 2021 to join the trades, she still can’t shake that “if-then” mindset. 

Today, Phelps serves as the contract and billing specialist for Absolute Power, a commercial and residential electrical and solar company in Pasco, Washington. She frequently tells her team, “if we want (to make) money, then we need to be efficient.”

In Phelps’ eyes, the best way to increase efficiency—and revenue—is to automate manual tasks and reduce the steps involved in tasks like invoicing, reporting and job costing.  

It’s why she is such an advocate of ServiceTitan, the all-in-one software built for the trades. 

By the time Phelps joined Absolute Power in November 2021, the company had been using ServiceTitan for just over a year. It didn’t take long for her to see more ways for the company to harness the software’s capabilities to move faster. 

Her observations came at the right time: After spending 15 years building up the business at Absolute Power, the company’s owners are now looking to take a step back from the day-to-day operations.

“And if they want to continue to step out of the business and let things run, then we need to utilize (ServiceTitan) as efficiently as possible,” Phelps said. “Again, if we want money, then we need to be efficient.”

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Phelps sees ServiceTitan as a tool to not only solidify Absolute Power’s current success, but to continue building on it. Last year, the company pulled in around $12 million in revenue. This year, with a little help from faster processes, Phelps hopes to see that number grow to $15 million. 

“I never thought that I would be nerding out about a computer program (like ServiceTitan),” Phelps said.

Software worth getting ‘embarrassingly excited’ about

On Phelps’ computer, she always keeps a window open in ServiceTitan where she can survey Absolute Power’s current projects at a glance. It comes in handy when she’s putting together progress billings for customers, which she does often, thanks to Absolute Power’s focus in construction.

“Being able to go in and know exactly what has been built out (at a job site), see what's left and know exactly where we are just by that one page is phenomenal,” she said.

Phelps also keeps a close eye on announcements of new ServiceTitan features so she can continue moving faster. One of her favorite software updates allowed her to create schedules of value (SOVs).

“I actually rebuilt a couple of our ongoing projects to see how it would look compared to what I already had,” she said. “I was embarrassingly excited about it, actually.”

Now, instead of manually drafting SOVs in Excel, Phelps can create them quickly in ServiceTitan. The software allows her to easily itemize completed work, track materials and bill customers progressively—with just a few clicks of a button.

“(ServiceTitan) cuts my progressive billing time down substantially,” she said. “Instead of taking two or three days for me to bill out up to 20 different progressive billings, I can do it in one day.”

The software has also reduced human errors, which saves Phelps time in reviewing billings before sending them out. That means bills are sent—and paid—faster. 

A click away from faster workflows

As Absolute Power leans into the full potential of ServiceTitan’s capabilities, Phelps is most  excited about implementing several procedures into her team’s workflows.

• Reporting: Phelps admitted she was “way too excited” about digging into ServiceTitan’s reporting software, which provides detailed cost breakdowns for projects and compares estimates to actuals. Eventually, she sees Absolute Power using ServiceTitan’s reporting to make data-driven decisions around pricing, inventory, even assigning specific techs to certain jobs to boost efficiency.

• Inventory: Since the pandemic, Phelps said it’s been a challenge for her team to pin down the number of parts they have in stock. In the future, Phelps is excited for Absolute Power to lean on ServiceTitan’s inventory software to make more informed decisions around when they need to reorder parts, as well as gain insights into how fluctuating market prices affect their profits.

“Some of the (tools) that (ServiceTitan is) coming out with are going to save me so much time,” Phelps said. “I'm not going to have to do (everything) by hand, which frees me up for other things.”

A bright future

It’s not easy to adapt to a completely new software system—no matter how effective it is. 

So it’s understandable that Absolute Power’s electricians were hesitant to embrace ServiceTitan at first. After all, what was wrong with the old system? 

To get them on board, Phelps thought back to her days in education.

"If you utilize this system properly,” she explained to her techs, “then you're going to get this amount (of money), your bonuses are going to look better, you're going to make more off of each job. All of us get raises."

It was a pretty compelling argument, the techs admitted. As for the software itself, it has proved to be simple enough for electricians to pick up quickly.

“Working in the trades, you get a lot of old-school guys (who may not be as) tech-savvy,” she said. “So being able to have something that is fairly user-friendly is really nice. It's easy to navigate.”

While techs may have taken a bit to warm up to ServiceTitan, Phelps said that, right away, “us girls in the office (were) sold.” And their excitement has only grown as they’ve started incorporating the platform into more of Absolute Power’s operations.

“My office manager and I talk about this all the time,” Phelps said. “(ServiceTitan) can do so much. We need to utilize it to its full potential.”