Before BuildOps 

The work at Earl Mechanical was solid. The way it ran was not.

The team relied on Foundation for both accounting and field operations, but the mobile app was unreliable. Techs built workarounds — and ended up using the accounting dashboard instead.

That created a chain of problems:

• POs called in from the counter, written as "SD1," addresses, or initials — with the office trying to match a $12 part to the right job later.
• Tickets coming back incomplete, making clean closeouts nearly impossible.
• Invoices were difficult to get out the door. Some customers asked techs in the field if they were ever going to be billed.

Cash was slow. Office time went to chasing details instead of moving work forward.

Why BuildOps

When Chris Williams stepped into the Service Manager role, his read was simple: the problem wasn’t the quality of the work — it was the system running it.

He evaluated multiple platforms and two things mattered most:

• A system built around commercial mechanical service — not retrofitted from residential.
• A clean path off their old field tools while keeping Foundation as the financial system of record.

BuildOps checked both boxes:

• Built specifically for mechanical and commercial contractors.
• Integrated smoothly with Foundation, so the team could modernize field operations without disrupting accounting.
• One team guiding Earl Mechanical from evaluation through go‑live, instead of handing them off between multiple vendors.

What Changed

Chris didn’t just turn on a new platform. He rebuilt how service runs:

• Techs now pull their own POs in the field, tied directly to the right job with receipts attached.
• Every receipt, tax-exempt form, photo, and note lives on the job.
• Service and accounting work from the same information — no more chasing paper or guessing where costs belong.
• The BuildOps dashboard became Chris’s “heartbeat” — a daily view of revenue, margins, and pipeline.
• Technician profitability reports turned gut feel into hard numbers for coaching and staffing.

Because the system fits the way Earl Mechanical actually works, the whole team was quick to adopt:

• Oldest BuildOps user in the field: 63
• Youngest: 18
• Both working confidently on the same platform.

The Results

The impact showed up fast.

• Year 1 on BuildOps
• ~39% increase in gross revenue on only ~2,500 additional man-hours.
• Year 2
• ~57% revenue growth on just ~1,000 additional hours.
• Time-to-invoice
• Average 14.2 days from job close to invoice. In some cases, Earl Mechanical gets paid before the supplier’s invoice for the part even arrives.

Control and coaching

For Chris as a manager, BuildOps turned opinions into numbers:

• The dashboard is his daily barometer; if something shifts, he drills from department to job in minutes.
• Technician profitability reports give him a clear, unemotional read on performance when he needs to coach or defend his best people.

Team + platform growth

• Service grew from roughly 1.5 to 15 techs.
• BuildOps licenses expanded from 12 to 36+ as mechanical work came onto the same system.