The phone answered around the clock with the questions your trade would ask, visits booked, estimates and invoices out the same minute, receipts filed, the money followed up, and the whole business on one screen. Email it, text it or call it, in your own words, in your own language. $149 a month, flat.
An answering service takes a name and a number. Deana asks what your office would ask: for each kind of job, the two or three questions that let you price it, bring the right parts and send the right person, never a list. The questions change with the trade: remodels and additions for a general contractor, no-heat and no-cooling for HVAC, breakers and panels for an electrician, water heaters and drains for a plumber. Two calls, as the office takes them today.
If you can send an email, a text or make a call, you can use Deana. That's the whole thing. No app to learn, no forms to fill. The dashboard is there when you want to see the whole picture, not to do the work.
Forward the calls you miss and she answers, takes the details, states your terms and books the first opening. Everything else, email her or say it: "estimate for Schmitt, new water heater, $1,850." Snap the receipt from the truck. Write it the way you'd say it, in any of six languages.
The estimate goes out on your letterhead with a one-tap approve button. Approval opens the job and sends the deposit invoice if you take one. Say "invoice Schmitt 1,450" and it goes out clean, in your name, the same minute. Receipts, W-9s, calendar changes: same thing. Tell her once.
Deana reminds the customer politely until the money lands. If they write "can I pay Friday?" she answers as your office and holds the reminder. At 7 a.m. on any day something happened, her brief is waiting: today's visits, then money, then what needs you. Usually nothing.
One office, one price. Every piece here is in the same place and talks to the others: the call becomes the job, the job carries the estimate, the invoice and the receipts, and the brief and the dashboard read from all of it.
Forward your missed calls to your Deana number, or all of them. The office answers in your business name at any hour, weekends and holidays included, takes the name, address and problem, states your minimum and terms, offers your first opening and books it. Urgent calls land in your inbox marked urgent. Every call is written down on the customer's file.
"Book Caribou Thursday at 8." It's on the calendar with travel time blocked either side, the job is open, and the customer has a confirmation with your terms. "What's on today." "Next opening." "Move Caribou to Friday at 3." "I'm off Wednesday." It all shows up on the calendar already on your phone. And the next morning, the day's drives are in the mileage log, by road, on the jobs: no app, no GPS, nothing to start or stop.
"Estimate for Schmitt, new water heater, $1,850." It goes out on your letterhead with a one-tap approve button. When the customer taps it, or just replies "yes, go ahead," the job opens with a number and a name, and the deposit invoice goes out if you take one. You hear about it. You do nothing else.
Say "invoice Schmitt 1,450" and it goes out clean, on your letterhead, never twice. Deana follows up politely until it's paid and answers the customer as your office. Deposits and balances. Sales tax, GST, HST, PST. The money goes straight to you; Deana never touches it.
Photo from the truck, screenshot, PDF from the supplier. Deana reads it, tags it to the job or to overhead, and files it. Someone asks for your W-9? Sent in minutes, signed, with you copied. In Canada, your GST/HST number is on every invoice. Throw the shoebox away.
Every call, message, approval, invoice, receipt and payment stays on the job, in order. Ask "what did I charge Johnson last time?" or "who owes me money?" and you get an answer, not a spreadsheet. The longer she runs your office, the better she runs it.
At 7 a.m. on any day something happened, one email. Today's visits first. Then money: what came in, who's late, what she did about it. Then what needs you, which is usually nothing. Fridays, the week's numbers. Read it in the truck. Know where you stand.
On the iPad in the truck or at the kitchen table, everything in one place: the calendar, the jobs in progress, the estimates out for a yes, who owes you and how late, what came in and went out this month. Every job opens to its estimate, invoices, payments and receipts and the margin so far; every client, every receipt, every document is a tap away. Nothing to type; it's the picture of what the office has done.
A remodel is a job that runs for weeks: the walk-through on the calendar, the estimate with one-tap approval, the deposit and the draws invoiced as the work goes, every supplier receipt and sub invoice filed to the job, and the margin so far on the job page. The client hears one office from the first call to the last payment.
"Add my wife Anna, anna@example.com" and she can email Deana too. "My son Max works with me, he can do drains alone" and openings come from both of you. You're copied on everything, and before anything sensitive changes, Deana asks for a code sent to your phone. Calls from a spoofed caller ID never reach your files: your line checks the carrier's stamp, or asks for your PIN.
Spanish, Polish, Ukrainian, Russian, Portuguese, tired English at the end of a twelve-hour day. Deana reads it and answers you in the same language, by email or on the phone. Everything that goes to your customer goes out in clean, professional English, signed by your office. Chicago or Toronto.
Not an answering service plus an invoicing app plus a scheduling app plus a shoebox, none of which know about each other. The phone, the calendar, estimates, invoices, receipts, the job file, the brief and the dashboard are one system, and it costs $149 a month.
30 days free, no card needed, nothing to cancel. Slow season? Pause for $29 a month, keep your number and your records, and Deana tells callers when you're back.
Payments go straight from your customer to you, by Zelle, check, cash, Venmo or e-transfer, whatever you print on the invoice. Deana never touches the money. And the arithmetic: miss 20 calls a month, close one in five at $500, and she has paid for herself in the first week. That's arithmetic, not a promise; your numbers are yours.
Call the demo line and judge for yourself: (872) 324-2965. She answers with your business name and hers, asks what your trade would ask, states your terms, and books the visit. Your customer hears an office, not a phone menu. When she doesn't know something, she says so, takes the details, and tells the caller you'll call back.
Five short steps, your terms in one line, and one forwarding code dialed on your cell. Nothing to install. Anything you don't have handy, skip it and tell her later. She's on the job the same afternoon.
You're copied on everything she sends. Estimates and invoices go out when you say so, never on their own. A wrong one is voided and a corrected one goes out the minute you reply. Before anything sensitive changes, she asks for a code sent to your phone.
Five short steps, no card. Anything you don't have handy, skip it and tell Deana later. We email you a confirmation link; tap it and Deana writes back with a sample invoice on your own letterhead, so you see her work before a customer does.