When you’re evaluating new fire protection software, it’s easy to focus on the operational side of the business. Can it schedule technicians? Handle inspections? Manage service calls? Work in the field?
The financial side can end up becoming accounting’s part of the evaluation. But the decisions made throughout your business affect your financial results long before they reach the accounting department.
A technician records time. A dispatcher decides who to send. Material moves from a warehouse to a truck and eventually onto a service call. A project manager watches an installation job progress. Each of those activities has a financial impact.
So when you’re evaluating software, these are questions worth asking.
1. Can I see what my service work actually costs?
A technician spends three hours on a service call, uses several parts, and completes the work. Once the order is billed, can you see what that call actually cost and what margin you made?
Ask what goes into service costing and how easily you can trace the result back to the work that produced it.
2. Can I tell how an installation job is performing before it’s finished?
Installation projects can run for months or even years. Labor, material, billing, and other costs accumulate throughout the project.
Can you compare actual performance against your estimate while the job is still active? Can a project manager see current costs, percent complete, projected margin, and available billing without building the picture manually?
3. When a technician records time, what happens to the labor cost?
A technician clocks into a service call or installation job in the field. Where does that time go next?
Ask whether approved technician time feeds job or service costing, how labor rates and burden are handled, and whether the same time records can also support your payroll process. One field action shouldn’t leave several departments recreating the same information.
4. When material moves through the business, does its cost move with it?
You purchase material for stock, receive it into a warehouse, replenish a technician’s truck, and eventually use it on a customer order.
Can your software follow that movement operationally and financially? Ask what happens to inventory value as material moves and how its cost eventually becomes part of the work performed for the customer.
5. If a margin looks wrong, can I find out why?
A report shows a lower margin than expected. Now you need to know what happened.
Can you drill into the number and see the labor, material, vendor invoices, or other transactions behind it? Financial reporting is much more useful when you can trace a result back to the activity that produced it.
6. If I bill in advance, can I recognize the revenue when it’s earned?
Some contract customers may be billed monthly. Others may be billed quarterly, annually, or in advance.
Ask whether billing and revenue recognition have to follow the same schedule. If you invoice a customer for a year of contracted service upfront, can the system recognize that revenue over the appropriate periods without requiring a separate process outside the system?
7. Does the person scheduling more work know there’s a credit problem?
A customer calls for another service visit while carrying a significant past-due balance. Does your dispatcher know? Can the system warn the user or prevent additional work based on your company’s credit rules?
Accounts receivable information can affect operational decisions, so ask whether that information is available when and where those decisions are being made.
8. Can I see which parts of my business are actually making money?
Your company had a profitable month. What produced it?
Was service profitable? Installation? Inspections? How did one branch perform against another? What about sprinkler work compared with fire alarm, extinguishers, or emergency lighting?
Ask how the software lets you break down financial performance. A company-wide P&L tells you how the business performed overall. Being able to look deeper helps you understand what’s driving the result.
9. How much control do I have over when costs hit the books?
Work can be finished and billed before every cost associated with it has been finalized. A vendor invoice may still be outstanding. Technician time may need to be reviewed or corrected. Other costs may still need to be captured.
Ask how the system handles WIP and cost recognition. What triggers costs to move from WIP to COGS? Is that timing automatic, configurable, or something your accounting team can control? And what happens when costs are added or corrected afterward?
10. How many systems does it take to get the complete financial picture?
This may be the most important question on the list. Look at everything you’ve just asked about: technician labor, inventory, service profitability, installation jobs, contract revenue, credit controls, WIP, and financial reporting.
Where does all of that information live? Which processes happen in the field service platform? Which happen in accounting software? What has to be exported, synchronized, reconciled, or put together manually?
PZ was built with operations and accounting in the same platform. The work happening throughout the business creates the financial information behind it, giving teams a connected view of what’s happening without having to assemble that picture across separate systems.
Want to run through the checklist with us? Contact our team to schedule a demo, and we’ll show you how PZ handles each question.