I have been building ServiceFlowOS, a complete CRM and business management platform for trades and service businesses to manage customers, quotes, jobs, staff, invoices, payments and more from one system.
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.
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.
The platform covers the workflow from the first customer enquiry through to completing the work and getting paid.
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.
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.
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.
ServiceFlowOS is not tied to one specific trade. The underlying workflow applies to a wide range of businesses that manage customers and deliver work.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
Send the issue, URL or rough idea. I’ll tell you what I think the sensible next step is.
