Over the past few months, I have been working on one of my biggest custom development projects yet: ServiceFlowOS.
ServiceFlowOS is a complete CRM and business management platform for trades and service businesses, designed to bring customers, quotes, jobs, staff, scheduling, invoices, payments and day-to-day administration together in one system.
Rather than building another generic CRM and expecting businesses to change the way they work, the aim has been to create a flexible platform that can be configured around the business using it.
Visit ServiceFlowOS ↗
Why I built ServiceFlowOS
A lot of service businesses still manage different parts of their operation across several systems.
Customer details might be in one place, quotations somewhere else, jobs on a calendar, invoices in accounting software and important information buried in emails, messages or spreadsheets.
It works — until the business becomes busier.
ServiceFlowOS has been built around a much simpler idea: keep the operational side of the business connected.
What can ServiceFlowOS manage?
The platform covers the workflow from the first customer enquiry through to completing the work and getting paid.
- Customers – keep customer details and history organised
- Customer contacts – manage multiple contacts where required
- Customer sites – useful when work happens across multiple locations
- Quotes – create professional quotations and send them to customers
- Quote acceptance – record when a customer accepts the work
- Jobs – turn accepted work into manageable jobs
- Scheduling – organise when work needs to happen
- Staff – assign team members to jobs
- Job notes – keep important information attached to the work
- Invoices – create invoices from completed work
- Payments – record full and partial payments
- Receipts – provide customers with professional payment records
- PDF documents – generate branded business documents
- Email automation – send important documents directly from the system
From quote to completed job
One of the most important parts of the project has been making the different areas of the CRM work together.
A quotation should not become a dead document once it has been accepted. The information already entered should continue through the rest of the workflow.
That means less duplicate data entry and a much clearer history of what has happened with each customer.
Professional quotes, invoices and PDFs
Service businesses send a lot of documents. Quotes, invoices and receipts all contribute to how professional the company appears to its customers.
ServiceFlowOS can generate branded PDF documents using the business's own details and branding, giving customers consistent documents throughout the process.
These can then be emailed directly from the system rather than generating a file, downloading it, opening an email and attaching it manually.
Built for desktop, tablet and mobile
Service software cannot only work well behind a desk.
Builders, electricians, plumbers, cleaners, landscapers and engineers are often working from vans, customer properties and job sites.
Because of that, ServiceFlowOS has been designed to work across desktop computers, tablets and mobile phones.
The aim is to make the same customer and job information available whether someone is in the office or standing at the job itself.
Who is ServiceFlowOS for?
ServiceFlowOS is not tied to one specific trade. The underlying workflow applies to a wide range of businesses that manage customers and deliver work.
- Builders
- Electricians
- Plumbers
- Roofers
- Gutter companies
- Heating engineers
- Cleaning companies
- Landscapers
- Garden maintenance businesses
- Property maintenance companies
- Window cleaners
- Pest control companies
- Painters and decorators
- Drainage companies
- Facilities management businesses
- Air conditioning and HVAC companies
And it is not limited to those industries.
If a business manages customers, jobs, appointments, staff, quotes, invoices or payments, ServiceFlowOS can potentially be configured around that workflow.
Each business can have its own branded CRM
Another important part of ServiceFlowOS is that the software does not need to feel like an unrelated third-party system.
Each installation can be configured around the individual business, including its branding, company information and document details.
The customer continues to see the company's identity throughout the CRM, while ServiceFlowOS provides the underlying technology.
A website and CRM working together
ServiceFlowOS is more than the CRM itself.
I have also built the dedicated ServiceFlowOS website , explaining the platform, its features, pricing and the types of businesses it can support.
The website has also been structured with dedicated industry landing pages, allowing businesses to see how the software applies specifically to the way they work.
This gives the project two sides: a professional public-facing website for discovering the platform, and the underlying CRM that businesses actually use to run their day-to-day operation.
Built from the ground up
ServiceFlowOS has been developed as a bespoke web application rather than assembled from an off-the-shelf CRM.
That has allowed me to control the workflow, database structure, user experience, document generation, email functionality and the way the different modules communicate.
It also means the platform can continue evolving as new requirements appear.
This is the part of development I enjoy most: taking a real business process and turning it into software that removes repetitive administration and makes the business easier to manage.
Why build a CRM instead of using spreadsheets?
Spreadsheets are useful, but they become increasingly difficult to manage when several people need access to the same information or when the business needs a clear history.
A CRM creates relationships between the information.
Instead of having a customer in one spreadsheet, their quote in a folder and an invoice somewhere else, the records can remain connected.
That makes it easier to answer simple but important questions:
- What work has this customer had before?
- Which quotes are still outstanding?
- Which jobs are scheduled?
- Who is assigned to the job?
- Has the customer been invoiced?
- How much has been paid?
- Is there still a balance outstanding?
Built and supported in the UK
ServiceFlowOS is built, hosted and supported by Michael Wood Web & Automation.
For me, that is an important part of the product. Businesses are not simply signing up to a piece of software and being left to work everything out themselves.
The system can be configured around the company and there is direct support available when something needs changing or improving.
What comes next?
ServiceFlowOS will continue to develop.
The core platform is already capable of managing the main customer-to-payment workflow, but there are plenty of opportunities to expand the automation and integrations around it.
The goal is not to add features simply to make the feature list longer. New functionality should solve a genuine problem for the businesses using the system.
Take a look at ServiceFlowOS
If you run a trade or service business and currently rely on a mixture of spreadsheets, paperwork, calendars and separate systems, ServiceFlowOS is designed to bring those processes together.
Related services
- Business automation
- View my other projects
- How I approach development projects
- Discuss a custom CRM or business system
If your business has a process that currently relies on spreadsheets, paperwork or repetitive admin, send me a message ↗. I can look at how it works now and whether a custom system or ServiceFlowOS could simplify it.