As someone with years of project management experience, Susan Vanderwerff knows how to use software to not only make her job easier, but also to help others succeed.
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When she became President of House Call Company four years ago, she knew one of the first things she needed to do to help the Virginia-based service company right the ship toward better profitability was to deploy the full capacity of its existing ServiceTitan field management software.
“They really weren’t using ServiceTitan as it’s designed to be used,” Vanderwerff says. “It was more of a way to get a job onto a tablet for the technician to see. Piece by piece, I’ve tried to get Pricebook Pro and Marketing Pro going, and I’ve tried to understand the way the [ServiceTitan] logic is built for the success of people in the trades.”
Her relentless pursuit to learn everything about ServiceTitan led to a special request from our product management team to give Payroll Pro a try, as one of the first alpha users to test the new software.
“When they reached out and asked if I would be willing to come on as sort of the guinea pig for Payroll Pro, I was like, ‘Well, that’s fantastic,’” says Vanderwerff, a self-proclaimed newbie to the trades.
Since one of her main roles at House Call focused on calculating payroll for the 40-employee company (at that time), Vanderwerff knew how much time it took to run reports in ServiceTitan, convert the numbers into spreadsheets, and then re-enter the information into QuickBooks payroll.
“There were a lot of steps, and to be honest, the history of our company, there were errors, human errors, just running the reports and then keying stuff,” Vanderwerff explains. “So, I thought, ‘Well, this would be great.’ I mean, if it's all integrated...I really focus on keeping my time sheets accurate and clean. I'll be interested to see how this goes. So I agreed.”
Payroll Pro, a new all-in-one payroll software, eliminates the need for data exports, commission calculations, and data entry into your payroll processor. It not only automates the processing of benefit and tax deductions and direct deposits for employee pay, Payroll Pro also automatically files and pays federal, state, and local business tax liabilities.
As the first real-time user of ServiceTitan’s Payroll Pro, Vanderwerff agreed to share her experience with the new product and provide feedback, so we can make improvements to the software as we move closer to the closed beta stage (you can volunteer to try out the software, but we choose who gets in), followed by open beta (anyone who wants to try it can), then general release.
Vanderwerff says she used to lock herself in her office for more than half the day to calculate the company’s payroll, but now Payroll Pro helps her get the job done in just 30 minutes.
Here’s how:
Deploying the full power of ServiceTitan software
Even though House Call added ServiceTitan software to its arsenal about a year before Vanderwerff arrived, the company was only scratching the surface when it came to using the full power of the field service management software. For instance, the staff tracked external data on Google sheets and never even opened the pricebook to add tasks, products, or costs.
To determine payroll, overtime, bonuses, SPIFs, and memberships sold each cycle, it took Vanderwerff more than a day to run the necessary reports, comb through those reports to find the information she needed, then enter that info into an Excel spreadsheet to determine payroll through QuickBooks.
“I had to do all of that manually,” Vanderwerff says. “They were really making things much more complicated, because they weren’t using ServiceTitan and all of its functionality.”
When House Call converted to ServiceTitan, they continued using QuickBooks for payroll, which often resulted in data entry errors, Vanderwerff says. As the Payroll Pro guinea pig, Vanderwerff wanted to see if those errors could be removed from the equation.
“I went straight from that spreadsheet format, re-entering into QuickBooks, straight into Payroll Pro. We ran payroll inside ServiceTitan, but we actually repeated it still in QuickBooks, just to see if they tied and matched,” Vanderwerff explains. “Once they matched for three consecutive payrolls, then we flipped to go live and actually pay out of ServiceTitan payroll.”
Calculating payroll now only takes about 30 minutes, Vanderwerff says, with most of that time spent checking to make sure the Payroll Pro numbers match the numbers in QuickBooks. To clarify, Vanderwerff uses ServiceTitan’s core payroll features, such as timesheets and performance pay, to calculate payroll, but processes the payroll using Payroll Pro.
Some bugs in the Payroll Pro software she noticed included:
Payroll detail report inside the timesheet shows only one week, instead of two.
Payroll for salaried employees must be entered manually.
Some bonuses, such as added pay for being on-call, may not calculate automatically.
“There’s still some little things that I know they’re working on,” Vanderwerff says. Once those bugs are worked out, she says, processing payroll through Payroll Pro will take even less time and only require a few clicks to complete.
“Absolutely, it would definitely work,” Vanderwerff says. “And for the larger companies, as long as a company wouldn't have to manually enter salaries, if there was a way to automate on-call pay, it would just be a matter of clicks for larger companies, to join and be happy.”
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Cutting 40 employees down to 5 creates better efficiency
When Vanderwerff joined the House Call team in 2017, she knew immediately the owner had his hands in too many pots.
“He was doing bathroom remodels, kitchen remodels, roofing, flooring, carpeting, plus HVAC, electrical, and plumbing,” she says. “And honestly, none of his business units or his divisions were operating with what I thought was a comfortable net profit.
“In 2015, he bought a company, and just merged it all,” she adds. “And financially, he was really not in a good position. He was still upside down.”
With a methodical approach, Vanderwerff began cutting services, such as bathroom and kitchen remodeling, roofing, carpeting, and flooring. The company stopped paying rent for buildings, trimmed the 40-person staff to 17, then ultimately decided to eliminate its new construction division. Today, House Call employees number only five, four of whom work as service technicians.
“In 2017, he closed June, which should be a very good month for us, at $40,000 in the hole. We closed June 2021, $40,000 in the plus,” Vanderwerff says.
How much of that efficiency does she attribute to using the full functionality of ServiceTitan?
“A tremendous amount,” Vanderwerff says. “We were doing everything outside of ServiceTitan. They were creating estimates outside of ServiceTitan...there was nothing to sell and convert. There's a huge difference, because we were using ServiceTitan properly.”
After setting a baseline for strong profitability, House Call is now ready to grow its team again.
“I would love to close 2021 by doubling my technician staff, and get to the place where [the owner] doesn't need to be so involved in our installations,” Vanderwerff says. “I would love to have a really strong install crew. Ideally, I want two installation crews, and I would definitely love to have a dispatcher.”
Working out the kinks with Payroll Pro set-up
When setting up Payroll Pro, Vanderwerff says it’s important to designate a person who knows QuickBooks well—at your own company and at ServiceTitan—so each side knows how to find the data needed for the transition.
“I would recommend Payroll Pro for other customers,” Vanderwerff says. “As long as they go in knowing, perhaps just having sort of a timeline, week one, these are the things we're going to do, and this is what we need, and these are the reports we need, and this is the data in QuickBooks.
“Asking you all, what's expected of me, and what is the timeline for when you will need X, Y, and Z from me, so I can be prepared and build that into my day,” she adds. “Just find out ahead of time what the major markers are, and what they need from you to move from step one to step two.”
Essentially, a ServiceTitan checklist?
Exactly, Vanderwerff says. “Knowing ahead of time, what's going to be expected of me, where do I get that information, and who do I give it to, would be fantastic. One of the most touchy things you can do with employees is mess with their pay.
“It’s a scary thing, when it comes to payroll,” she adds, “because it’s people’s money. And when there were 40 employees, it was a headache to do all of that stuff manually. It was a nightmare, and I dreaded it.”
And what do her “people,” or technicians, think of the new payroll process?
“They're really happy with it,” Vanderwerff says. “It's a way for them to stay connected, as well. They can see where they are, what their hours are, where their bonuses are, and all that kind of stuff. And some of them have a competitive streak, so they want to do better than they did last week.”
Before Payroll Pro, she says the techs had no transparency into the payroll process. “Unless they kept track of their SPIFs, there was a potential I could skip over something and not pay them,” she adds.
“Now, when it comes to my payroll day, I don't have any hesitation, I don't have any concerns,” Vanderwerff says. “I do go in and check everything, I do have to add on copays, and salary people, but it's just keystrokes. Keystrokes compared to four different reports being dumped into an Excel spreadsheet. So, my headache is definitely gone.
“Payroll Pro is like night and day,” she says.
ServiceTitan Software
ServiceTitan is a comprehensive software solution built specifically to help service companies streamline their operations, boost revenue, and substantially elevate the trajectory of their business. Our comprehensive, cloud-based platform is used by thousands of electrical, HVAC, plumbing, garage door, and chimney sweep shops across the country—and has increased their revenue by an average of 25% in just their first year with us.
