How Professional Plumbing Group built a brand on BuildOps

Co-owners Jonathan Carter and Andrew Morrison didn't start Professional Plumbing Group (PPG) to be another commercial plumbing shop in Toronto. They set out to raise the standard for the trades, and they bet that the software behind the work would be as much of a factor in that mission as the work itself.

Customer snapshot

The challenge

At their previous company, the team gained experience working across established systems and processes for quoting, reporting, purchasing, and field communication. Preparing a quote, for example, involved several applications, including SharePoint, Excel, Word, PDF documents, and email.

That experience gave them a strong appreciation for how technology can bring different parts of a service business together. When building PPG, they saw an opportunity to create a more integrated operating model — one where quoting, job information, reporting, purchasing, and field communication could be connected within a single workflow.

The goal was to build a system suited to the way they wanted PPG to operate: connected, responsive, transparent, and easy for both office and field teams to use.

"We really wanted to set a new standard within the commercial industry,” Carter said. “A lot of guys were just there to do the work and go home — we really wanted to up that level of service." 

The solution: One system, built for commercial

PPG launched on BuildOps. Their choice was deliberate: most alternatives felt residential-first, and commercial sets a different bar. In a downtown tower, a job isn't an address, it's a specific tenant, floor, and tower. A note like "14th floor, fixed the kitchen sink" isn’t enough details when the client has four tenants on that floor. And a misidentified job means a rejected invoice.

“Everything else out there was built for residential,” Carter said. “For a commercial company like us, BuildOps is the gold standard." 

The results

Today, invoicing, dispatching and quoting are managed through an integrated workflow supported by a part-time administrative role. Completed quoted work can move quickly into invoicing, helping maintain strong cash flow while allowing the team to stay focused on customers and field operations. Each invoice is also supported by a detailed, photo-rich service report, giving clients clear documentation of the work completed.

Reporting: Not a feature, the brand

Ask PPG what sets them apart and the answer isn't a plumbing skill — it's the report. Every closed job sends the client a summary with before-and-after photos the moment the work is done.

"The reporting is almost as important as the job you're doing,”  Morrison said. 

The payoff compounds. Clients have written reference letters singling out the reporting. After-hours emergencies explain themselves — clients arrive the next morning already knowing what happened instead of calling to ask. PPG is even featuring a sample BuildOps report on its new website, because reporting is what sets them apart.

"It is a partnership,” Carter said. “You don't feel like you just signed on the dotted line and then you're basically left to fend for yourself." 

Looking ahead

Less than a year in, PPG plans to lean harder into dashboards for margins and receivables, and eventually reward its most profitable techs. 

"BuildOps is a key component of our success,” Carter said.  “It's what gives us a leg up on the competition." 

The goal: become the shop where "the best of the best come to us and say, we want to come work for you." The through-line hasn't changed — raise the standard, prove it with the report, and let the system take the friction out of the work.