How one regional, multi-service operation reclaimed visibility, control and profit gains.

You know that feeling when everything looks like it’s running — but something still feels off?

That was the case here.

A solid, regional, multi-service operator in infrastructure and technical services. 12 technicians, 4 admin, delivering safety compliance, supply contracts, and communications across a high-demand area. But the truth? Their Simpro had started working against them.

It wasn’t obvious at first. But once we got under the hood, it was clear: what looked like a working system was masking a tangled reality.

What We Found — and Why It Mattered

From the outside, it looked like a working setup.

But dig a little deeper, and things weren’t lining up:

Jobs were all flowing through the same status path. Leads, quotes, booked work — all mixed together. Techs were turning up to quote requests thinking they were there to start the job. Dispatch was messy. Schedulers couldn’t triage properly, and handovers were missed.

Estimators were quoting from scratch — using bloated or inconsistent prebuilds. Margins varied wildly. Forecasting was guesswork. No one was confident in what the job would actually earn.

Mark-up logic was all over the place. One estimator applied a flat 20%. Another “padded” quotes with no benchmark. Simpro was applying overheads automatically, but no one knew how. Cost visibility was muddy. No one could clearly explain why margins didn’t match up — or why a job that “should have been profitable” broke even.

Labour rates didn’t reflect reality. No overtime. No public holiday multipliers. Invoices were manually re-coded after hours to catch up — but that still didn’t make reports accurate.

All revenue flowed into a single cost centre. There was no way to know if comms was profitable, or if supply was leaking margin.

Stock barcodes were “switched on” — but not linked to jobs. Techs were chasing gear. Admin was cleaning up the mess.

Test & Tag and QA were still on paper. Compliance was hard to audit — and risky.

Reporting was there — but meaningless. Teams didn’t know what to look at. No one could see margin, utilisation, or future pipeline. The dashboards existed, but weren’t helping anyone lead.

Simpro and Accounts weren’t aligned. Charts of accounts didn’t match. Overheads were misapplied. Financials looked off — because they were.

Internal jobs weren’t visible. Training, admin, support work — none of it showed up. Admin was drowning in work no one could see or measure.

What We Did — and How It Changed the Game

We sat with the team — schedulers, estimators, techs, admin, leadership — and reconfigured the setup to match their reality.

Job flows rebuilt by service stream. Safety, comms, and supply now follow clean, distinct workflows. Leads are separate from quotes. Quotes are separate from booked work. Everyone knows what’s next.

Prebuilds optimised and standardised. We cleaned out the bloat. Built standardised prebuilds with margin logic baked in. Now quoting is fast, repeatable, and accurate — with clear margin logic and real benchmarks.

Mark-up logic rebuilt from the ground up. We switched off overheads in Simpro. Replaced guesswork with a structured cost-plus model. Trained the team on margin vs mark-up — and how to quote for risk, labor, and materials properly. Now, quoting is consistent. Margins are real — and reliable. Leadership can trust the data and make decisions with confidence.

Cost centres split by revenue stream. We split cost centres by stream — supply, comms, and safety. Each now tracks its own income, costs, and margin. Cost Centres are now clear and actionable. Reports now show what’s working, what’s not and why.

Labour rates aligned to the real world. We updated all labour rates with accurate multipliers. Now quotes reflect real hours. Labour Rates Are Accurate — and Automated. Invoicing is fast — and clean.

Stock linked to jobs and purchasing. We linked barcoding to job activity and integrated the maintenance planner. Barcoded items now flow through the maintenance planner — so techs leave with what they need, and purchasing is clean.

Internal jobs now tracked and costed. We added internal job types. Structured task flows. Admin, training, setup — it’s all visible. Resource capacity is accurate. No more overestimating what the team can handle.

Digital forms rolled out across compliance. We digitised the lot. Built custom forms inside Simpro. Test & Tag, QA, safety reports — now completed in-field, signed, timestamped, and audit-ready.

Custom dashboards built for each team. We built role-specific dashboards with clear KPIs. Clean margin visibility. Job profitability by stream. Pipeline, utilisation, forecasting. Trained the team to use them. Now leadership sees real-time profitability. Schedulers see workloads. Now Admin sees what’s costing time. Everyone sees what matters.

Simpro & Accounting now speak the same language
We mapped Simpro and their financial platform. Now financial reports reflect operational truth — and leadership can make confident calls.

The Outcome

Today, the business runs with clarity.

Schedulers are structured. Techs know where to be and why. Admin is finally visible — and supported. Stock is traceable. Compliance is digital. Quotes are faster and consistent with the actual work.

And the Owner? They can finally see what each part of the business is delivering — with clarity, accuracy, and control.

That’s what happens when your Simpro matches your business model and operation.

No more crossed fingers. No more guesswork. Just a business that runs clean, clear, and profitably.

Getting your Simpro right is one of the most powerful, cost-effective ways to unlock performance and give your team their evenings back.

When structure fits, growth flows.

Book a free Simpro System Health Check with me.

We’ll walk through your live system together, flag what’s working, what’s not, and what’s possible—and show you what aligned could look like.

https://www.resultsgroup.io/simpro_system_health_check

We’ll walk through your live system together, flag what’s working, what’s not, and what’s possible—and show you what it looks like when your setup actually fits how you operate.

It’s your business. Let’s make Simpro fit it — not the other way around.

Read it here