How to automate your pool service business

Start with the admin that repeats every week

Before choosing any tool, write down the admin you do in a normal week and roughly how long each task takes. For most pool businesses the list looks similar:

• Rebuilding the week’s schedule and telling technicians where to go.
• Copying readings, notes and photos from the field into customer records.
• Writing invoices and working out which chemicals to charge for.
• Chasing payments and answering “did you come today?” questions.
• Pulling numbers together to see how the business is going.

Automate the biggest and most error-prone task first. Usually that is scheduling or invoicing, because both repeat every week and mistakes there cost money.

Recurring stops instead of rebuilding the week

A regular customer’s pool is serviced on a pattern: weekly, fortnightly or monthly. Set that pattern once and let the schedule repeat, rather than re-entering stops every week. When something changes, you should be able to change a single stop or the stop and everything after it, without losing the history of earlier stops.

Chlor’s scheduling works this way. Recurring stops build each technician’s day, and nearby stops can be ordered into a practical route.

Record every stop the same way

When every technician records readings, chemicals added, checklist items and photos at the pool, the service record is complete before they drive away. Nobody re-types notes at night, and the next technician can see exactly what happened last time.

In Chlor’s field app, saving a water test, a treatment or a photo ticks the matching checklist item on its own, and a stop cannot be completed until its required checklist items are ticked. Our pool service checklist guide covers what to include.

Invoice from completed stops

If the stop was recorded properly, the invoice already knows what was done and which chemicals were used. Invoicing should then be a review, not a writing job.

• Batch invoicing: invoice a period of completed stops for many customers at once.
• Chemical costs: carry treatments recorded at the pool onto the invoice at your price list.
• Automatic invoicing: on Chlor’s Team plan, invoices are created from completed stops on a schedule you set. They are drafts by default, and sending them automatically is a separate choice the owner must confirm.

A good system also refuses to bill the same stop twice, even when automatic and manual invoicing overlap. See how Chlor invoicing handles GST and online payment.

Get paid online

An invoice with a payment link gets paid sooner than one that asks for a bank transfer. Chlor invoices can be paid online through Stripe. Chlor takes no percentage of customer payments, and Stripe’s standard processing rates apply. When an invoice is overdue, you can send a payment reminder from the invoice instead of writing a new email.

Set clear payment terms, such as due on receipt or within 7, 14 or 30 days, and use the same terms for every regular customer. Consistent terms make it obvious which invoices are late and stop overdue amounts from quietly building up.

Keep customers informed without phone calls

Many customer calls are really requests for information: when you came, what you found and what they owe. Sending a service report after each stop and giving customers a portal with their service history, water tests and invoices answers most of those questions before they are asked. Chlor’s customer portal also lets customers pay online.

Let the numbers come to you

Reporting should not mean a spreadsheet on Sunday night. When stops, invoices and payments live on the same records, reports can show revenue, unpaid invoices, completed stops for each technician and time on site without extra work. On the Team plan, Chlor also tracks chemical spend by product and month from the treatments recorded at the pool.

Pick a few numbers and look at them every month: invoices that are overdue, average time on site for each kind of stop, chemical spend against what you charged for chemicals, and revenue for each hour worked. If one of them moves the wrong way, you will know which part of the business to look at.

Roll it out without disrupting the route

1. 1

   Pick one task

   Start with the task that costs the most time each week, not everything at once.

2. 2

   Clean up your records

   Make sure every customer, property and pool is entered once, with correct addresses and service frequency.

3. 3

   Run both ways for a fortnight

   Keep your old method going alongside the new one until the results match.

4. 4

   Show the technicians

   Walk each technician through a real stop on their own phone before their first day on the new system.

5. 5

   Switch over and review

   Stop the old method, then check after a month what still takes too long and automate the next task.

What still needs a person

Automation should remove re-typing, not judgement. Keep people in charge of:

• Pricing, and deciding which customers and routes are worth taking on.
• Water chemistry decisions and chemical safety at the pool.
• Diagnosing equipment faults, quoting repairs and doing one-off jobs.
• Complaints, and the conversations that keep good customers.
• Checking draft invoices before they go out, at least until you trust the setup.
• Hiring and training technicians.