Trades & home services
Replaced a $480/mo QuickBooks + add-ons stack for a 12-person trades company
12-person plumbing & heating company, Lower Mainland BC
A 12-person trades company was paying $480/month across QuickBooks Online, a job-tracking add-on, a payments processor add-on, and two per-seat add-ons nobody really used. We built a focused custom app that handled invoicing, job tracking, deposits, and basic books, sized to their real workflow.
Anonymized. Real project shape and outcome ranges, identifying details changed to protect client confidentiality.
Headline numbers
What changed
Monthly SaaS bill
$480 → $0 (one-time build)
Payback period
~14 months
Admin time saved
~6 hrs/week
Build time
9 weeks to launch
The problem
Where they were stuck
QuickBooks Online itself was fine, but they had stacked four add-ons on top of it to track jobs, route work, accept deposits, and pull custom reports.
Per-seat pricing meant adding a new tech cost roughly $35/month extra across the stack — and most techs only used the mobile job view.
Custom reports the owner actually wanted (job profitability by tech, deposit aging, parts vs labour) all needed CSV exports and manual spreadsheet work.
Invoicing data lived in QuickBooks, job data lived in the job add-on, and the two only half-synced. The bookkeeper spent a full day a week reconciling.
The approach
What we built and why
- 1
Mapped the real workflow over two discovery calls — intake, dispatch, job notes, parts, invoicing, deposit, payment.
- 2
Built a focused app with three views: tech (mobile-first job view), office (dispatch, invoicing, customers), and owner (dashboard with the four numbers that actually mattered).
- 3
Kept the chart of accounts simple and aligned with how the bookkeeper already worked. Invoicing, deposits, and expenses lived in the same app.
- 4
Wired in Stripe for deposits and card payments. Exported a clean monthly journal for the bookkeeper to drop into their year-end tool.
The result
What it actually did
$480/month SaaS bill ended. Build cost paid back in roughly 14 months on subscription savings alone.
Bookkeeper recovered about 6 hours a week previously spent reconciling between systems.
Owner gets the four dashboard numbers (revenue, deposits outstanding, average job margin, overdue invoices) on one screen, on their phone, no exports.
Adding a new tech now costs $0 in software. They've hired two more since launch.
Under the hood
What it's built on
Stack & shape
- Web app (works on phone, tablet, desktop)
- Postgres database, owned by the client
- Stripe for deposits and card payments
- Monthly export to the bookkeeper's year-end tool
Timeline
9 weeks from kickoff to launch, then a 4-week support window for tweaks.
Accounting & Bookkeeping Apps