B.B.G Refrigeration now bills for every job that was carried out, thanks to Praxedo.

Tell us briefly about your company and what you offer.

Our company specializes in refrigeration, air conditioning, ventilation, and heating in the commercial, industrial and residential sectors. We have more than 30 years of extensive experience in the HVAC industry and 10 field technicians that carry out service calls in the province of Quebec, particularly the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean area.
 
We install and even design custom refrigeration equipment, air conditioning units, ventilation and heating systems therefore can spend anywhere from a few hours at a client premises to a few weeks. We have a large inventory of used refrigeration equipment and offer maintenance programs as well as 24/7 emergency service whenever necessary.

Can you describe B.B.G Refrigeration’s pain points before implementing Praxedo software?

A modern, digitized work order management system was needed

100% of our work orders were on paper like many other companies like ours, I would imagine. There were 3 copies to manage, to be exact. Our technicians filled out their work order reports once the work was completed, gave one copy to the client on site, handed over another copy to the service manager who would complete the missing information for billing purposes, and the final paper invoice was sent to the customer by mail. This process was time consuming and increased the risks associated with errors and of course, monetary losses.

Our data wasn’t reliable
 
We were looking to be more efficient in our operational processes starting from the moment the call came in, to the moment we sent out the invoice. Oftentimes, work order reports were lost or misplaced, leading to customers not being billed for the work that was carried out. Technicians would also forget to report on additional services, resulting in missed quotes to certain customers. Even parts were not always being ordered for residents, leading to incomplete repairs in some units.

Of course, these data losses didn’t occur every single week, but presented a risk nonetheless. In addition, automating the process now allows us to ensure that as soon as the work order is complete, it is given to the service manager who can double-check the work, order the necessary parts, and send to the billing department for invoicing.

What led you to Praxedo to solve these challenges?

It was a field service management solution with lots of configurable capabilities
 
What made the Praxedo solution stand out was that they left room for configuration, so that the tool can work for our specific needs. That was really important to us. As we had several types of work orders that needed to be developed depending on the type of job (service, installation and inspection), the solution had to be flexible.
 
We sought a best-of-breed solution to integrate to our accounting system

Integration with our accounting software was also critical and together, the Praxedo and Bamboosoft teams developed a suitable “bridge” for our software to produce invoices that met our exact needs.

How do you use Praxedo?

We use both the web platform and mobile application in different ways.

Web platform for scheduling and dispatching

Our in-house service team uses Praxedo for scheduling jobs and dispatching field technicians to various customer sites. It is used to keep track of our technicians’ activities and to properly plan out their day. The service team also utilizes it to identify any incomplete work orders whereby spare parts still need to be ordered. Thanks to real-time business indicators these jobs can be flagged in the system. Additionally, costs are entered for each part that is installed by our technicians so that work orders can be validated on time and sent out for invoicing as soon as possible.

Web platform for the residential air conditioning team

Our residential air conditioning team will use the web platform to carry out quality control for installations using photo capture. We make photos mandatory in all of our work order forms so that work for a greater number of facilities can be easily verified. Before, it was not humanly possible for us to visit every facility in person. Photos simplify the quality control process for us. We can now order the missing pieces so that installations can be finalized sooner.

Web platform for administration

Our admin team uses the web platform to obtain certain information required for invoicing including unit serial #s, model types, among others.

Mobile application for technicians

Each of our 10 technicians use the mobile application for every one of their service calls. This gives them 100% access to data on job history or previous work performed by their fellow technicians, which considerably reduces the research required to diagnose a problem. In the past they were forced to call the main office to validate the work done by their colleagues and everything was done using paper work orders.

How does using Praxedo benefit your organization?

It integrates to our current accounting system

Thanks to Praxedo and Bamboosoft, the 2 have been successfully integrated, enabling us to transform work orders into purchase orders in our accounting system. This facilitates the last step of verification for our accounting team during the invoicing process. Everything is already entered on the order and created automatically by the system. These integration capabilities save us a considerable amount of time at the administrative level.

It offers robust work order management

The quality of information captured on our work orders has been improved. Technicians now include photos of every problem and detailed descriptions of the work carried out, which makes everything more visual for the customer.

The risk of data loss has been reduced to 0. By eliminating the process of having technicians hand in their work orders on paper, we can now say that 100% of our reports turn into invoices.

Staying on top of incomplete work orders is a big improvement. Previously, we needed to double check everything which wasted so much precious time, but now we can guarantee that nothing is overlooked with our nifty business indicators that help filter them out. We respond to our customers’ needs to much faster now.

It has done wonders to our billing cycle

The billing cycle has been significantly reduced. Before Praxedo, it could take 15 to 20 days for the invoice to be generated and sent to the customer, after the work was complete. Today, the maximum delay is maybe 5 days. The faster the customer is billed, the more rapidly we get paid, so accounting is pretty happy.

How do you envision your future collaboration with Praxedo?

As our needs change over time, customizing Praxedo for adaptation is essential. From the beginning, the programmers and other Praxedo employees responded to us in a clear and concise and prompt manner, which gives us confidence that in the future, our needs will continue to be met and that we will be able to evolve this solution at the same rate as our business grows. When that time comes, we know that we will be well supported.

If you could summarize the Praxedo solution in 2 ways, what would they be?

Efficiency

Praxedo allows us to save as much time as possible from the moment the technician receives the service call, to invoicing. In our field where we bill for hours of work, every minute counts in order to maximize the time of our technicians.

Precision

Praxedo enabled us to create work orders specific to our different types of field activities, to add photos to support the work carried out, to communicate better internally and externally, and avoid any loss of information by digitizing our processes.