CMMS for HVAC companies

An HVAC company runs, in practice, three businesses at once: periodic maintenance contracts, emergency breakdowns, and installation or works projects. All three share technicians and warehouse stock, and compete for the same schedule every day.

On top of that comes a documentation requirement other trades don’t have: much of the work is legally mandated, and it has to be provable.

The contract is the plan

In HVAC maintenance, the preventive plan isn’t an internal decision: it’s what was sold. If the contract says two visits a year and only one happens, the problem is contractual before it’s operational.

In GMAO Cloud the checklist gets attached to the equipment, its model or an entire family, periodicity is defined, and preventive maintenance generates work orders on its own, with technician and date, checking beforehand whether the day is a holiday and whether that person is available.

A single piece of equipment can carry several periods at once, which is how the sector actually works: the seasonal check is one thing, the filter cleaning is another, and the annual inspection is another.

And when wear depends on use rather than the calendar — a chiller running twelve months isn’t the same as one running four — the equipment can carry an hours counter with a limit and a warning percentage: once a logged reading crosses the threshold, the preventive order gets generated automatically.

Seasonality, which is the real problem

Everyone calls in July. It’s the trait that most defines this sector, and the one a paper schedule handles worst.

The calendar showing each technician’s load, and diagram-style planning, is what lets you bring forward to spring the contract checks that can be moved, and keep summer clear for breakdowns. And when something needs moving — every day — you drag it to another day: if updating the plan costs more than ignoring it, it gets ignored.

The other lever is the route. From the app, a technician can sort their orders by route using GPS and pick up unassigned work along the way. In a sector with many short, scattered interventions, travel time is the big-ticket item.

Fluorinated gases: two different things

Worth separating, because they get confused often, and in GMAO Cloud they’re two different mechanisms.

Leak control for fluorinated gases has its own module, and it’s corrective: it originates from a detected leak and records its treatment.

Mandatory periodic maintenance of those same installations is something else, and it’s done through the general preventive maintenance mechanism, by attaching the checklist the regulation requires and its periodicity. Don’t go looking for a “legal maintenance module”: it doesn’t exist as such, and it’s more honest to explain how it’s actually achieved.

The proof, in both cases, comes from the order history, completed checklists and documentation with its dates. The software records and proves; the company and the facility owner are who answer to the regulation.

Checking with values

An HVAC check with no logged readings isn’t a real check: pressures, supply and return temperatures, power draw, filter condition, airtightness.

Checklists support fields with their type, their label and a minimum and maximum value, so a reading outside range gets recorded as an anomaly right then, not as a note on the side. And on preventive orders, the app won’t let you close until the checklist is filled in.

That turns the round into a data series. When a unit starts to degrade, the readings show it before the customer calls.

The signed job report, which backs up the invoice

The most valuable thing an intervention produces isn’t the work: it’s the proof that it happened.

In the app, the technician logs time with a stopwatch right within the order, consumes material against the warehouse — with its batch when it has one, relevant for refrigerants and consumables — fills in the checklist, attaches photos and collects the customer’s signature on screen.

It works without coverage, which is normal on a rooftop, in a suspended ceiling or in a plant room. If an action fails to sync, it stays flagged with its reason instead of getting lost.

Stock that travels

In HVAC, a lot of the inventory lives in the van. Until it’s in the system, the inventory never adds up.

Setting up each van as its own warehouse is the change that fixes it fastest. Items carry their cost, minimum stock level and original reference, which lets you find the equivalent part when the manufacturer’s spare has a weeks-long lead time. And transfers from the central warehouse record who requested them and who approved them.

Quoting without retyping

Anything outside the contract needs a quote, and that’s where jobs get lost.

The quote manager closes the loop: a quote can originate from an order and generate another one once accepted, with its customer, payment method, and PDF/email template. Nothing gets typed twice, and there’s a record of what was offered and when.

Letting the customer check instead of call

Much of the calling in July isn’t asking for anything: it’s asking when someone’s coming.

With their own access, the customer opens issues with a photo, follows the status of their orders, downloads job reports and — what’s most appreciated — sees their upcoming preventive visits on a calendar, so they can arrange site access without anyone having to call them.

Since licenses are unlimited across all three plans, giving access to the whole customer base isn’t a financial decision.

Works and installation, which run on a separate circuit

The third leg of the business doesn’t fit into preventive or corrective work, and forcing it in skews every metric.

A new installation is a job with a start and end date, several operators and an associated quote. In GMAO Cloud that’s works, which spreads daily job reports across the dates so each operator records their work, with its customer, address, quote, and sale price and cost.

It’s worth knowing the real scope, so you don’t expect what it isn’t: it distributes job reports and captures work records, but there are no line items, no measurements, no partial certifications, and no task dependencies. It’s not a construction project management program, and it doesn’t try to be.

What matters is what comes after: once the installation is finished, the equipment gets set up as assets with its date and warranty, ready to enter a maintenance contract. It’s the step that almost always gets lost on paper.

What to look at afterward

The reports on hours per customer, cost per equipment, annual plan executed, and the gap between estimated and actual time.

That last one is the one that surprises people the first time: there’s almost always one type of maintenance contract being sold below what it actually costs, and it’s been that way for years because nobody had the hours measured.

More on contract management in third-party maintenance.

If you’d like to see it with one of your own contracts, you can request a demo.