Home service business software — the stock-side truth

The key facts

• Home services = field-service software territory for scheduling, quoting and job cards; BSimple is deliberately not that.
• The stock side is real: parts in vans, equipment installed at customer sites, warranty and service history — an operations record covers these well.
• BSimple's projects layer fits installs: reserve items without consuming stock, install and consume on invoice approval, history per customer job.
• Boundary stated: no technician dispatch, no quoting/CRM, no GPS — and no claim of integrations with field-service suites.

What home service businesses actually need from software

Two records, usually kept by two tools. The job record — bookings, technician schedules, quotes, job cards, customer communication — is field-service software's territory, and for most home services it is the first purchase. The stock-and-parts record is the one that quietly bleeds money when missing: what is in each van, what was consumed on which job, what to reorder, and which equipment installed at which customer is due for attention.

The failure pattern is familiar: vans as private stockpiles, parts charged but untracked, warranty disputes settled by memory, and a parts room whose quantities are a rumour. The van-as-location pattern and the trade-installation pattern are the same machinery HVAC, plumbing and electrical businesses need.

Where BSimple fits for a home service business

We build BSimple, so weigh that. It runs the stock-side record: vans as locations with real, visible quantities and recorded transfers; parts consumed against jobs with a transaction history; the projects layer for installations — group inventory and on-site assets under a customer: reserve items without consuming stock, install and consume on invoice approval, keep warranty and service history per job; and purchasing from demand so the parts room triggers reorders before the shelf empties. Invoices push to Xero or MYOB (US integrations rolling out); plans run $180/$250/$399 per month AUD.

Stated plainly, what it does not do: technician scheduling and dispatch, quoting and job cards, customer-facing booking, GPS. If those are the burning need, a field-service platform is the right first buy — and the stock record it usually lacks is where BSimple slots in beside it, without claiming a formal integration we have not built. The bakery variant and the HVAC case show the same shape in adjacent trades.

The test for the stock side

On the trial: set up two vans and a store, move parts between them, run one installation at a test customer — reserve, install, consume on invoice — then ask the record six months of questions: what went into that van, what did that customer's job consume, what needs reordering this week. If the answers come in minutes, the stock side is solved; pair it with whichever field-service tool runs the diary. The service-contractor angle covers the wider business-management question for trades.