Invoicing Software for Plumbers

A plumbing service call starts before the wrench comes out. The truck rolls, the tech drives across town, and the first 20 minutes on site is diagnostics—running water, checking pressure, inspecting access panels—before any repair begins. If the invoice shows a single lump-sum charge, the homeowner questions why a leaking faucet cost $285 when the part was $18. Billed separates the dispatch fee, diagnostic charge, repair labor, and parts on every service call invoice so the customer sees exactly what each phase costs.

Dispatch fees cover fuel, vehicle wear, and the tech's drive time. Diagnostic charges cover the assessment—locating a slab leak with electronic detection equipment is a different line item than tightening a compression fitting. Repair labor is billed at your shop rate per quarter-hour or half-hour increment. Parts are itemized with your standard markup.

When the diagnostic reveals a bigger problem—a corroded galvanized supply line behind the faucet, a failing angle stop—the invoice documents the original call scope and the additional recommended work as separate sections. The homeowner approves the expanded scope before your tech starts cutting pipe, and the final invoice shows exactly what was discovered, what was approved, and what each piece cost.

Most residential plumbing shops run a flat-rate pricing book—every repair has a fixed price that covers labor, overhead, and a standard parts allowance. The customer knows the cost before work starts, and the tech does not need to track minutes. But flat-rate falls apart on older homes with galvanized pipe, concealed access issues, or scope that changes once the wall is open. That is where T&M billing covers the unpredictable work that a flat-rate book cannot price in advance.

Billed supports both models on the same job. A kitchen faucet replacement bills at the flat rate from your pricing book. The corroded shut-off valve discovered behind the escutcheon bills as T&M—actual labor time at your shop rate plus the valve at cost plus markup. The invoice separates the flat-rate scope from the T&M addition so the customer sees the planned work at the agreed price and the unplanned work at documented time and materials.

For plumbers transitioning from pure T&M to flat-rate, Billed tracks actual labor time against flat-rate jobs so you can compare book prices to real-world completion times. If your flat-rate book says 1.5 hours for a toilet rebuild but your techs consistently finish in 55 minutes, you know your pricing is healthy. If they are running 2.2 hours, the book price needs adjustment before it costs you money on every call.

Plumbing parts range from a $3 PVC coupling to a $2,800 tankless water heater. A single markup percentage does not make sense across that range—30% on a $3 coupling barely covers the time to load it on the truck, while 30% on a tankless unit adds $840 that the customer will question against online retail pricing. Most plumbing shops use tiered markup: higher percentages on low-cost consumables like fittings, tape, and solder, and lower percentages on high-cost items like water heaters, fixtures, and sewer repair materials.

Billed lets you set markup rates per parts category. Fittings, connectors, and consumables carry one rate. Pipe and tubing—copper, PEX, PVC, ABS, cast iron—carry another. Fixtures like faucets, toilets, and garbage disposals use a third tier. Water heaters and tankless units use a fourth. When you log a supply-house purchase against a job, the invoice applies the correct category markup automatically.

For jobs where the homeowner supplies their own fixture—a designer faucet, a specialty toilet—Billed separates customer-supplied items from contractor-supplied materials on the invoice. Your labor to install the customer's fixture is billed, but no markup appears on the item they purchased. Meanwhile, the supply lines, shut-off valves, wax ring, and closet bolts you provided carry your standard markup, clearly documented on a separate line.

Drain cleaning is not a single service—it is a tiered offering. A basic cable-snake clearing on a kitchen or bathroom drain is your entry-level call. Hydro-jetting a main sewer line at 3,500 PSI is a different scope, different equipment, and different price. A camera inspection after the clearing to document root intrusion, bellied pipe, or Orangeburg deterioration is a diagnostic add-on that often leads to a sewer line replacement proposal. Each tier should invoice differently.

Billed structures drain cleaning invoices by service tier. A standard snake clearing has a flat-rate line item. Hydro-jetting bills as a separate service with equipment charges. Camera inspection includes the inspection fee plus a documentation note referencing the video footage location and findings. When the camera reveals a collapsed line at 47 feet, the inspection invoice becomes the supporting documentation for the sewer line replacement estimate.

Sewer line projects—spot repairs, full-line replacements, trenchless pipe bursting or CIPP lining—bill by project phase. Mobilization and site prep, excavation or trenchless setup, pipe installation, backfill and compaction, cleanout installation, and final inspection each appear as milestone line items. Permit fees from the city or county are itemized separately. The homeowner tracks progress against the scope of work, and each draw payment corresponds to completed work, not an arbitrary percentage of a lump sum.

Water heater replacements and whole-house repipes require permits in nearly every jurisdiction. A tank water heater swap permit might run $85 in one city and $200 in the next county. A repipe permit for a 2,500 square-foot home can exceed $400 when plan review fees are added. If permit costs are buried in your labor total, the customer assumes the entire amount is your profit—and disputes it accordingly.

Billed itemizes permit application fees, plan review charges, and inspection fees as separate pass-through line items with the jurisdiction name and permit number referenced. A water heater replacement invoice shows the unit cost with markup, labor for removal and installation, gas or electrical connection work, expansion tank, discharge piping to code, permit fees, and haul-away of the old unit—each as its own line item. The homeowner sees a complete, defensible breakdown.

For repipes—copper to PEX conversions, polybutylene replacements, galvanized-to-copper upgrades—Billed supports phased billing tied to project milestones. Rough-in gets invoiced after supply and waste lines are run but before drywall closes. Finish plumbing—setting fixtures, connecting appliances, testing pressure—invoices after the trim phase. Final inspection clearance triggers the retention release. Each phase references the permit number and inspection status so the customer and any lender involved in the financing can track the project against documented completions.

Restaurants, property management companies, HOAs, and commercial buildings need scheduled plumbing maintenance—backflow preventer testing and certification, grease trap pumping and inspection, water heater flushing, PRV adjustments, and fixture audits for leak detection. These contracts create predictable revenue that fills gaps between emergency service calls and project work.

Billed automates recurring invoices for each contract on the schedule you define—monthly grease trap service for a restaurant group, quarterly backflow testing for a property management portfolio, semi-annual water heater maintenance for an HOA with a central plant. Each invoice references the contract terms, lists the specific services performed during that period, and applies the contracted rate rather than your standard service-call pricing.

When a contract customer calls for work outside the agreement scope—an emergency sewer backup, a tenant-caused fixture replacement, a new buildout requiring rough-in plumbing—Billed invoices that work separately at your standard or emergency rates. The customer sees contract-covered maintenance on one set of invoices and out-of-scope work on another, with rate differentials clearly documented. This prevents the common problem where a property manager assumes every plumbing call falls under their maintenance contract and disputes invoices for work the agreement never included.