These guides are written for HVAC owners who want to understand their own numbers, whether or not they ever work with us. Each one walks through a single topic with example figures, step-by-step calculations and the mistakes that most often spoil the result. The example numbers are illustrations, not benchmarks; swap in your own.
None of them is accounting or tax guidance. We are not accountants, and your own CPA remains the authority on your books. We are also not an HVAC contractor; these are business guides, not technical ones.
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The HVAC cash-flow calendar: finding your low point before you reach it
A cash-flow calendar plots twelve months of cash in, cash out and month-end balance. For an HVAC company, its main job is to show the shoulder-season low early enough to do something about it.
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The monthly owner dashboard checklist
Twelve numbers, reviewed once a month, give an HVAC owner a reliable read on the business. This checklist explains each one, how to calculate it and what usually goes wrong.
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Technician-hour maths: what a paid hour on the truck really produces
Divide field revenue by every paid technician hour, compare it with what that hour costs you fully loaded, and you have the most honest productivity check an HVAC company can run.
The monthly owner dashboard checklist
The owner dashboard checklist lists the twelve KPIs we suggest every HVAC owner review each month, grouped into revenue and margin, labour, agreements, marketing and cash. For each line it gives the formula, where the data usually lives in your software, and what to watch for.
What you will learn:
- How to set up a one-page dashboard in a spreadsheet, with targets and same-month-last-year comparisons.
- Worked examples for average ticket, utilisation, renewal rate, booking rate and weeks of cash.
- A five-step monthly review routine that ends with one action per problem.
Start here if you only read one guide. It ties together everything else on the site.
Technician-hour maths
The technician-hour maths guide is a worksheet for the most honest productivity measure in a service business: revenue per paid hour on the truck. It goes further than most owners do, by calculating a break-even revenue per paid hour and mapping where unbilled hours actually go.
What you will learn:
- Why dividing by billed hours flatters every crew, and what changes when you divide by paid hours.
- How to estimate a burdened hourly cost and a break-even figure for your service team.
- How to test the value of cutting drive time, halving callbacks or lifting average ticket, one lever at a time.
- Why install crews should be measured per crew-day instead.
Read this if your technicians seem busy but revenue per head is not moving.
The HVAC cash-flow calendar
The cash-flow calendar guide shows how to build a twelve-month cash map from bank statements, set a cash floor in weeks of fixed cost, and find your seasonal low point months in advance.
What you will learn:
- Why HVAC cash is lumpier than most businesses', and how the pattern shifts by region.
- How to separate fixed and variable outflows, and why weekly fixed cost is the right unit.
- A worked eight-month example, including the forgotten annual bills that move the low point.
- Six operating levers, from deposits to agreement timing, and how to test each one.
Read this if you have ever had a tight spring.
How the guides connect to our services
Each guide matches one or more services, for owners who would rather have the work done and reviewed with them:
- The checklist matches the monthly owner dashboard.
- Technician-hour maths matches revenue per technician-hour.
- The cash-flow calendar matches cash-flow seasonality planning.
The other three services, covering job-type margin, service agreements and marketing cost per booked job, are explained on the services overview, with worked examples on each page.
How to use them in a busy season
The guides are long because the arithmetic needs room, but you do not have to finish one in a sitting. In peak season, pick a single section, such as the agreement lines in the checklist or Step 2 of the technician-hour worksheet, and run it on last month's numbers. Twenty minutes is enough to learn something specific. Save the full builds for a quieter week in spring or late summer.
A note on accuracy
We check every calculation in these guides, and every example can be reproduced with a calculator. If you find an error or a step that is unclear, call, text or email and tell us; we would rather fix it than leave it.
Frequently asked questions
Are the guides really free?
Yes. Read them, print them, use the definitions in your own spreadsheet. There is nothing to sign up for.
Are the example numbers industry benchmarks?
No. They are illustrations chosen to make the arithmetic easy to follow. Replace them with your own figures and set targets from your own history.
Do the guides cover tax or bookkeeping?
No. They cover operating KPIs only. Tax, payroll remittances and financial statements are questions for your own CPA.