HVAC Software for Jobs, Service Contracts and Invoicing

Running an HVAC or refrigeration business in Australia means juggling more admin than most techs signed up for. You're quoting ducted retrofits between rooftop callouts, logging refrigerant charges against your ARC licence, managing service contracts for a dozen commercial fridges, and then coming home to reconcile ServiceM8 jobs against Xero invoices. Many HVAC techs pay for ServiceM8 or Tradify, then from $37/mo for Xero on top, then a third bill for a booking page and CRM, yet none of those tools were designed to handle refrigerant logs, ARC licence printing, or per-unit asset history. You end up keeping a paper logbook for the regulator and a spreadsheet for service contracts.

OneBookPlus replaces that patchwork with one platform built for how Australian HVAC and refrigeration techs actually work. Create detailed quotes for split installs, ducted retrofits, and commercial refrigeration jobs right from your phone. Log refrigerant type, quantity charged or recovered, and cylinder serial against every job, your ARC licence number prints on every quote and invoice automatically. Set up recurring service contracts per cool room or ducted system so the next visit auto-creates and reminds the customer. Track expenses against each job so you know your true margin, not just your revenue. And when BAS time rolls around, your GST summary is already waiting.

Your Daily Workflow

It's 6:30am and your phone buzzes: a panic callout through your OneBookPlus booking page. A walk-in cool room at a Brisbane cafe has dropped temperature overnight. You flag it as urgent and head out. On arrival, you diagnose a blocked condenser and a low charge. You build a quote on your phone: $290 emergency callout, $185 for cleaning and recharge, refrigerant logged as 600g R134a recovered and 750g recharged from cylinder #BR-3192. The cafe owner accepts on the spot. Job done by 8:30am. You snap a photo of the nameplate and the cleaned condenser, and convert the quote to an invoice before you're back in the van. Your week view shows a residential split install at 10am and a service contract visit to a supermarket cool room after lunch. Your apprentice has two service jobs assigned and can see his schedule on his own device.

Expenses & Accounting

When the cafe owner pays the emergency callout invoice, record the payment and the invoice clears, so what is still owed is always the number on screen. Purchases from Reece HVAC-R, Beijer, or Heatcraft go in as materials expenses and refrigerant cylinder buys and recovery cylinder swaps land against the right job. Drag in the supplier invoice as a PDF or a photo of the docket and the scanner reads the supplier, date, GST and total for you. Van fuel, ARC licence renewal and recovery equipment are coded once to vehicle expenses, compliance and assets, and stay coded. Come BAS time, your GST collected on sales and GST paid on purchases are already tallied. Export the summary in one click and forward it to your accountant, or lodge it yourself in minutes.

Getting Started

Sign up free. No credit card, no lock-in contract. Select “HVAC / Refrigeration” as your business type and OneBookPlus pre-configures your account with HVAC service categories, typical install durations, and invoice templates that include your ARC licence number. Import your customer list and asset register via CSV from ServiceM8, Tradify, or a spreadsheet. You can have your first quote sent the day you sign up, and your jobs, invoices and expenses running by the end of the first week. The switch from ServiceM8 and Xero is designed to fit in a single evening.

Nobody buys HVAC service management software on a good week. The test of it is what is still on the record after the tech has driven away.

Two businesses stapled together

An air-conditioning business is two businesses sharing a van. Installs are quoted jobs: a split or a 14kW ducted retrofit priced by equipment, copper, ductwork and labour, closed out with a commissioning record and a warranty. Service is a contract: scheduled attendances, a history per unit, and an invoice that has to be right without anyone digging out the job card.

Most HVAC contractor software does one half of that well and bolts the other on. What HVAC business management software has to hold, and a calendar never will, is the equipment standing on the site, the refrigerant that moved through it, the licence number on the paperwork and the money on the job. Software for HVAC companies should mean one account, not three that agree only when somebody retypes something.

Work orders: what a service call has to leave behind

Judge HVAC work order software on the artefacts, not the workflow diagram. By the time the tech leaves the supermarket car park, this should already exist: the job record with photos of the nameplate and the finished work; the refrigerant entry against that job, gas type (R32, R410A, R134a), quantity charged or recovered, cylinder serial; your ARC licence number printed on the quote and the invoice, with your Refrigerant Trading Authorisation held on your business profile; the customer's signature on any variation, taken before the extra work started; and the invoice, already sent.

The free Customer Photo Upload app texts the customer a link, so shots of the fault code and the nameplate reach the job before the tech leaves the depot, which usually decides whether the right TX valve is on the van. The free Job Templates Library starts a split-system service from a preset: scope, hours, materials and a pre-start checklist ticked off on arrival. Good HVAC service technician software means less typing than paper.

Getting a technician through a day of scattered sites

A November day is a booked ducted install, two contract services across town and a dead split that rings in at 10:40; HVAC job scheduling software has to absorb that without a phone tree. The dispatch board and scheduling calendar give each technician a column with an unassigned lane beside it, so the breakdown drops onto whoever has the gap; conflict detection warns you before it lands on someone already committed; the next-available finder answers the customer while they are still on the phone; and each tech opens a daily run sheet.

The free Live Customer Tracker keeps the customer posted with a tokenised link that refreshes every 30 seconds from on the way to arrived, and alerts the dispatcher when a tech is running 15 minutes or more past the promise. What this HVAC appointment scheduling software will not do is sequence the day for you: the GPS Route Optimizer is listed in the marketplace at $15/mo with the status coming soon, and we would rather say so.

HVAC billing, and the contract billed quarterly

Every invoice works out 10% GST per line, with an inclusive or exclusive toggle, and carries your ABN and your ARC licence number. Recurring invoices run weekly, fortnightly, monthly, quarterly or annually from Starter ($29/mo), so a quarterly agreement across eight cool rooms bills itself on the day it should. Reminder schedules chase before, on and after the due date, and the Pay Now card link sits on the invoice, both from Starter.Tap to Pay on iPhone is built but stays switched off in the public app until Apple grants the distribution entitlement, so plan on the payment link.

The half that HVAC invoicing software usually leaves out is the ledger underneath. From Starter, those same events post to one double-entry accounting ledger producing the profit and loss, the balance sheet, the cash flow statement and the BAS-ready GST summary. ServiceM8, Tradify, simPRO and AroFlo all still need Xero or MYOB bolted on for that, which leaves two sets of numbers to reconcile.

HVAC software for a small business, and the asset history behind it

HVAC small business software should be priceable without a sales call. Four base tiers, AUD and GST inclusive: Free $0, Starter $29, Plus $49, Growth $69, with 14 days free on the paid plans and no card. Free is a plan rather than a trial: 10 invoices and 5 quotes a month, 250 contacts, one booking page, one user, uncapped jobs, the job calendar, the dispatch board and the contact record. simPRO, by contrast, aims at trade businesses of twenty or more staff, quotes on request and carries a real implementation cost, and AroFlo publishes no pricing at all.

One timeline per client and site holds every quote, job, booking and invoice, which is what HVAC CRM software means in this trade: the pub in Toowong has three cool rooms, the middle one was regassed in February, and its condenser service is due. For a bigger estate, the Asset Register app, from $29/mo and scaling with the number of sites you manage, extends that record into asset identity, site, custodian, condition, criticality, warranty and maintenance due dates, with a per-site stocktake.