Flow CRM User Guide

Flow CRM runs an HVAC shop's day from the first phone call to the paid invoice. This guide follows that day in the order the biggest wins come: take the call, dispatch, work the job, quote, invoice and get paid, keep the schedule full, then the weekly routine. Setup comes last, because most of it is a one-time job. Every step names the button you tap, so keep it open on a phone in the truck or on the office screen.

1. Take the call#

The biggest win on day one: every call becomes a job in under a minute, with the customer's history on screen while they are still talking. Open Intake from the sidebar, or press Cmd+K (Ctrl+K on Windows) and pick New request.

1. Who is calling? Start typing the number from caller ID, or a name or street. Matching customers appear with their plan, open jobs and balance. Tap the right one.
2. Not on file? Tap Not on file, add as new and type the name, phone and service address. The customer is created when you save.
3. Which address? If the customer has several service addresses, pick the one the call is about.
4. The request. Give it a short title ("AC not cooling"), pick the Type and Priority, and type what they told you: symptoms, when it started, parking, pets.
5. They would like. Pick a day and a time of day (Morning, Afternoon, Any time) so dispatch knows the window.
6. How did they hear about you? Pick the lead source. This is what makes the dashboard's "Where work comes from" card worth reading.
7. Tap Save and open job to go straight to the job, or Save, next call (Cmd+Enter) to clear the screen for the next caller.

The job lands on the Jobs board in the New request column, ready for dispatch.

Tip: if the office is away from the desk, customers can also book from the portal or from the link in any reminder email. Those requests arrive in the same column.

2. Dispatch the day#

The schedule shows one lane per technician, and Flow CRM ranks technicians by drive time from where they are now, so the closest truck gets the call.

Assign and schedule a job#

1. Open Jobs. New requests sit in the first column; tap a card to open it, or drag it to Scheduled to set a time.
2. On the job, tap Edit. Under Lead technician the list is sorted by estimated drive time. Pick one.
3. Set Arrive (the date and time) and, if it matters, Done by.
4. A changeout is two people for a day: add them under Helpers. Helpers see the job on their own schedule and can start and complete it.
5. Save changes. If the customer has an email or an agreed text number, they get a "visit booked" message with the time.

Work the schedule#

• Open Schedule for today's board. Previous day and Next day move through the week; Today brings you back.
• Drag a card to another technician's lane to reassign it, or up and down within a lane to reorder the day. Helpers show as a dashed card in their own lane.
• Unassigned jobs sit in their own lane at the end so nothing is forgotten.

Tell the customer you are on the way#

On the job page, the lead technician or anyone in the office taps On my way. The customer gets a text with the technician's name, or an email if they have no text number. The button changes to On my way (sent) so nobody sends it twice.

Change a job's stage#

Every job moves New request → Quoted → Scheduled → In progress → Completed. Use Start job when the tech arrives and Mark complete when done, or Move to for any other stage. Starting and completing a job also records the technician's time on it (section 7).

3. On site#

The technician opens the job on the phone and works down the page: start, checklist, notes and photos, complete. Everything saves as it is typed, so a dead spot in the basement loses nothing.

Start the job#

Tap Start job. The job moves to In progress, the clock starts on it, and if the job is a tune-up or diagnostic the matching checklist attaches itself. Any other job can take one from the Add checklist menu.

Fill the checklist#

1. Work down the items. Numbers go in the number fields with the unit shown (°F, µF, iwc, psi), pass/fail items are two buttons, and photo items open the camera.
2. Each reading is saved against the unit the moment you leave the field, with its normal range next to it. Items marked required must be filled.
3. A reading outside its range gets an amber Out of range badge. A capacitor is compared with its rated value, so 38 µF on a 45 µF cap is flagged without you doing the math.
4. Next to any flagged reading, tap Recommend repair. The quote builder opens with the customer, job and unit filled in and a priced line from your price book (section 4). Send it from the driveway.
5. Tap Mark checklist complete when done. The progress count shows what is left. If the owner has turned on Require the checklist before a job can be completed, the job cannot be completed until the required items are filled.

Every reading also appears on the equipment page under Readings, so next spring's tech sees the trend, and on the customer's invoice as a Service report.

Notes and photos#

• Add note: type what you found and what you did. Tick Customer-visible for the part the customer should see in their portal; leave it on Internal only for the rest.
• Add photos: tap, choose or take photos, JPG, PNG or WebP up to 10 MB each. Photos on completed visits show in the customer portal.
• Equipment: the job shows the unit's model, serial, warranty and filter size. Tap it to update the record or add a data-plate photo.

Complete the job#

Tap Mark complete. The job's time stops, the agreement visit (if this was one) is ticked off, and the page says Next up: create the invoice. That is section 5.

4. Quote the repair or the changeout#

A quote with three options closes more replacements than a single number, and the customer signs it on their phone before you have left the street.

Build the quote#

1. Open Quotes and tap New quote, or press Cmd+K and pick New quote. From a job page or a customer page, New quote fills the customer in for you.
2. Pick the Customer, the Service address if they have several, and the Equipment the quote is about. If that unit is still under parts warranty, a callout says so before you price a part the manufacturer should cover.
3. Give it a Title ("Furnace replacement") and a short Message to the customer.
4. Turn on the options you want to offer: Good, Better, Best. Each has a Name, What is included, and either a Price or line items. Tick Mark as our recommendation on one; it gets a badge on the customer's page.
5. Add line and start typing. Items from your price book appear as you type; pick one and the price fills in. Free text works too for anything not in the book.
6. Load template fills all three options from a saved good/better/best set in one tap. Set these up once in Settings → Price book.
7. Ask for a deposit on acceptance if you want money down: a percent of the option price or a fixed amount. It is collected by card the moment the customer signs.
8. Send to customer, or Save draft to finish later.

What the customer sees#

The email (and text, if they allow texts) carries a link to a clean page with the options side by side. They pick one, type their full name to sign, and tap Accept this quote. If a deposit is due, Stripe Checkout opens next and the deposit is recorded on the quote. They can also tap Not now or Decline quote with a reason.

After it is accepted#

• The quote page shows Accepted with the signature, time and IP address. Tap Schedule install to create the job with the option's amount, or Create invoice to bill it straight away.
• Any deposit paid is applied automatically when the invoice is created, so the balance due is right.
• Quotes nobody has opened or answered show up on the dashboard under Quotes needing follow-up. Tap Resend on the quote to nudge, or Copy link to send it another way.
• Quotes expire after the number of days set in Settings → Company, and the customer's page says so.

5. Invoice and get paid#

The invoice builds itself from the job or the accepted quote, goes out with a Pay now button, and the money lands in your own bank account through Stripe. Flow CRM adds no fee.

Create and send the invoice#

1. On a completed job, tap Create invoice at the top of the page. The customer, job, service address and amount (or the accepted option's lines) are filled in. You can also start from Invoices → New invoice or a quote's Create invoice.
2. Check the Line items. Price-book items fill their price and whether they are taxable; labor is usually exempt. Discount takes a percent or an amount off.
3. The Due date, tax rate, footer and the Message to the customer come from Settings → Invoicing. Change them here for this invoice only.
4. Tap Save and send. The customer gets an email (and a text if allowed) with the total and a link; the invoice page shows when it was opened.

How the customer pays#

• By card: the customer taps Pay now on their phone and pays through Stripe Checkout. The payment is recorded within seconds and they get a receipt. They can tick Save my card so a future agreement renewal can be charged without asking.
• Check or cash at the door: on the invoice tap Record payment, enter the amount, method and date. Partial payments are fine; the balance updates.
• Through the portal: customers see every open invoice under their sign-in with the same Pay now button.

Chasing, refunds and mistakes#

• Unpaid invoices get a reminder 1, 7 and 14 days after the due date on their own. Turn that off in Settings → Invoicing if you prefer to call.
• Record refund returns a card payment through Stripe, or logs a cash refund.
• Void cancels a sent invoice (the number is kept for your records); Write off balance closes a small remainder; a draft can simply be deleted.
• The dashboard's Needs invoicing card lists completed jobs with no invoice, and Outstanding shows who still owes you.

QuickBooks Online#

Once QuickBooks is connected (section 9), every customer, sent invoice, payment, refund and void is created in QuickBooks as it happens. There is nothing to do day to day. Settings → Integrations shows the last sync and lets you retry a push that failed.

6. Keep the schedule full#

Maintenance agreements and seasonal reminders are the shoulder-season business. Set them up once and the reminders, bookings and renewals run on their own.

Sell a maintenance agreement#

1. On the customer's page tap Create agreement, or Agreements → New agreement.
2. Pick the Plan (set up in Settings → Reminders; for example a two-visit Comfort Plan), the Starts date and the Price. Visits per year and the term fill in from the plan.
3. Service address and Units covered: for a house, leave the unit as the one AC or furnace. For a commercial site with several rooftop units, tap Add unit for each, or Add all equipment at that address. Price per extra unit comes from the plan.
4. Billed: yearly, quarterly or monthly, and the day of the month. A monthly agreement on the 1st invoices itself on the 1st.
5. How it gets paid: Manually (you send the invoice), Automatically (the invoice is emailed with Pay now), or card on file (charged without asking; needs online payments and a saved card for this customer).
6. Renew automatically starts a new term the day after this one ends. Create agreement. Visits are spread across the term and the seasonal reminders are scheduled.

What happens on its own#

• Reminders go out by email and text on the dates in your reminder rules: spring tune-up, fall furnace check, filter change, renewal. Each carries a booking link.
• When the customer taps the link and picks a day, a job appears in Jobs under New request, tied to the agreement visit. The visit is marked booked.
• Billing creates the invoice each period and charges the card or emails it. The agreement page lists the Billing history.
• Renewals email the customer before the term ends; they renew on the public page or you tap Renew now.

The customer portal#

Every customer email ends with a link to your portal. Customers sign in with a one-time link sent to their email or phone, no password, and see their equipment and readings, visits with photos and service reports, quotes, invoices with Pay now, their plan, and Book a visit. Portal bookings land in Jobs like any other request. Turn the portal on or off and copy your branded address in Settings → Customer portal.

Schedule a visit yourself#

On the agreement page, each visit has Schedule visit. It creates the job with the customer and address filled in; dispatch it like any other (section 2).

7. Friday and Monday#

The weekly routine takes ten minutes: payroll on Friday, the digest and the dashboard on Monday.

Technicians: clock in and out#

The clock sits in the sidebar (and at the top of the phone screen) for anyone marked as a technician.

• Clock in at the start of the day, Break and End break at lunch, Clock out at the end.
• Time on each job is automatic: it starts when the job is started and stops when it is completed or cancelled. Nothing to tap.
• Forgot to clock out? A shift left running past 16 hours is closed automatically, and the office can fix the time.

Office: the timesheet and payroll CSV#

1. Open Timesheets. It shows the current week, one block per technician, one row per day: clock in, clock out, break, time on jobs, total, and the job numbers.
2. Previous week and Next week move around; This week comes back.
3. To correct a day, tap Edit day. Add time adds a shift, break or job entry; Edit time and Remove fix what is there. Technicians can only see their own week.
4. Tap Export CSV for the week. Columns are Technician, Date, ClockIn, ClockOut, BreakMinutes, JobMinutes, TotalHours and Jobs, in your company's timezone, ready for your payroll service.

Monday morning#

• The weekly digest email lands at 7 am local time for owners and admins: revenue collected, outstanding and overdue balances, agreements expiring within 30 days, jobs that still need invoicing, quotes going stale, and the week ahead. Turn it off per person under Settings → Profile.
• The Dashboard shows the same live: jobs today, open and aging quotes, active agreements, outstanding and paid this month, and Where work comes from by lead source over the last 90 days.
• Quotes needing follow-up and Needs invoicing are the two cards worth clearing every Monday.

Reviews#

When an invoice is paid in full, the customer gets a short email or text asking for a review, with your Google link. One per customer at most every 90 days (you choose the interval). Switch it on under Settings → Messaging and paste the review link from your Google Business Profile.

8. The customer record#

Everything above hangs off one record per customer. Keep it right and the rest takes care of itself.

Add or edit a customer#

• Customers → New customer (or Cmd+K, New customer). Name, phone, email, the service address, and notes such as a gate code or a dog in the yard.
• Tick Commercial customer for a business; its agreements and invoices use the company name.
• OK to text this number is the customer's permission for appointment, on-the-way and invoice texts. Reminder texts need the stronger Allowed, including reminders setting on the customer page; customers who reply STOP are opted out automatically and the page shows Opt back in.

Several service addresses#

A landlord or property manager has one record and many addresses. On the customer page under Service addresses, tap Add address, give it a label ("Rental on Elm"), the address and any access notes. Jobs, quotes, invoices and agreements then ask Which address?. Make primary sets the one used by default.

Equipment#

1. Under Equipment tap Add equipment. Type, brand, model number, serial, location (attic, roof, basement) and the date installed.
2. Fill the fields that save a trip later: Filter size and count, Refrigerant, Fuel, thermostat brand and model, Last filter change.
3. Parts warranty ends and Labor warranty ends, plus whether it is registered with the manufacturer. The job page, the quote builder and the customer list all show warranty status from these dates.
4. Add photos of the data plate, the unit and the thermostat. The data plate is the one the next tech will thank you for.

Tap the unit's name to open its own page: details, warranty, photos, every job on it and every checklist reading taken on it.

Timeline#

The Timeline at the bottom of the customer page is the full history: calls, jobs, quotes, invoices, payments, texts and notes, newest first.

9. One-time setup#

Do these once, in this order. The first four take an hour and cover everything in sections 1 to 5. All of them live under Settings in the sidebar.

• Company: name, phone, address, timezone and the reply-to email. Customers call the number and reply to the address shown here. Set how many days a quote stays open.
• Technicians: mark each team member who goes out on jobs, give them a colour for the schedule and a Home base address so drive times are right. Invite the office and the techs under Members first if they are not in yet.
• Price book: tap Add starter items for the usual parts, labor and fees, then edit prices to yours. Add your own items and a good/better/best Quote template or two. A CSV import is there if you have a list already.
• Invoicing: tap Set up card payments to connect your Stripe account (the money goes to your bank, not ours). Set the sales tax rate and label, payment terms, the default message and footer, and whether overdue reminders go out.
• Import: bring customers, equipment and agreements in from a spreadsheet. The wizard maps your columns and tells you what it could not read. Email support if you want help with the file.
• Reminders: tap Restore defaults for spring tune-up, fall furnace check, filter change and renewal reminders, then adjust the dates, wording and plans. Every active agreement gets its reminders scheduled when you save.
• Checklists: three defaults are there (cooling tune-up, heating tune-up, diagnostic). Edit the items and ranges to match how you work, and decide whether to Require the checklist before a job can be completed.
• Lead sources: the usual suspects are there; add your own (radio, home show, Nextdoor) so Intake can ask.
• Messaging: turn on Send text messages once your number is live, and set up Review requests with your Google review link.
• Customer portal: on by default. Copy Your portal address for your website or email signature.
• Integrations: Connect QuickBooks and sign in to your QuickBooks Online company. Tap Sync existing records once to push what is already in Flow CRM.
• Billing: the trial is 30 days with no card. Subscribe here when ready; seats follow your active technicians and office staff are free.

10. Who can do what#

Everyone in the company has a role, set under Settings → Members. Most office staff are Admins and most technicians are Members. A technician profile (Settings → Technicians) is separate from the role: it puts the person on the schedule and shows them the clock.

Role	Sees	Can do
Owner	Everything	Everything, including billing and deleting the company
Admin (office)	Everything	Run the office: take calls, create and dispatch jobs, quotes, invoices, agreements, imports, timesheets for everyone, all settings. Not billing
Member (technician)	Customers, the jobs assigned to them, quotes and invoices	Add and edit customers and equipment, start and complete their own jobs, fill checklists, add notes and photos, send quotes and invoices, record payments, clock in and see their own timesheet

If the free trial ends without a subscription, the company becomes read-only: every page, record and export is still there, nothing can be changed, and the owner's Subscribe button on the banner brings it back exactly as it was.

Getting help#

The search box (Cmd+K) finds any customer, job, quote or invoice by name, number or phone, and runs the common actions. For anything else, email support@flowcrm.com from the address on your account.