Pool builder, service round and pool shop operating system

A pool business that builds new pools often also runs renovations, a weekly service round and a pool and spa shop. Each part has its own paperwork. Builds wait on council and pool safety approvals that someone has to chase, crews and subcontractors are booked on a whiteboard that rain wipes out, and progress claims go out late because nobody noticed the shell was finished. Service technicians write readings on paper, the shop doses from a water test printout and a guess at the pool size, chemical stock runs out in the busy months, and robotic cleaners and pumps sent back under warranty sit on a shelf with no one sure whether the customer was told.

An illustrative operating system for a pool builder with a service round and a shop, with views for the owner, construction supervisor, service technician, shop counter staff and office admin.

• Build pipeline, lead to cash: enquiry, quote, design, council and pool safety approvals, dig, shell, tiling and coping, fencing and safety certificate, handover. Approvals and the safety certificate are gates: a build cannot dig without both approvals or hand over without the certificate. Quotes and follow-ups are drafted for approval, and each stage raises its progress claim as a draft invoice in the accounting system.
• Renovations: inspection, quote, booking, work and invoice for resurfacing, retiling, fences, salt conversions and equipment upgrades.
• Service rounds: recurring weekly, fortnightly and monthly visits by technician. Each visit logs free chlorine, pH, alkalinity, salt and stabiliser with a photo. Dosing is worked out from the readings and pool volume, a service report is drafted for the customer, and service plan invoices are created each month. A new pool joins the round at handover.
• Shop water-test queue: sample in, results from the testing station, a dosing plan sized to the pool, products sold through the till, stock reduced and a reorder suggested when a product hits its reorder point.
• Warranty and repairs: robotic cleaners, pumps, chlorinators and heat pumps booked in at the counter, assessed, claimed from the manufacturer or quoted as a paid repair, then a ready-to-collect text drafted for approval.
• Scheduling: a week board for build crews, the renovation crew, excavation, shotcrete and tiling subcontractors. Drag or arrow rescheduling, clash detection, rain-day warnings for weather-sensitive work, and customer notices drafted for approval.
• Purchasing: shop stock, build materials and repair parts from suggestion through approval by the role that owns that spend, purchase order to Supplier A to F, goods received with shortages, and the bill matched and sent to accounting as a draft.
• Staff: roster across builds, service and the shop with cover checks, leave and shift swaps, timesheets to payroll, licence and certificate expiries with reminders, and new-starter onboarding.
• Integrations: accounting, job management, point of sale, water-testing station, website forms, rostering and payroll, SMS and Microsoft 365, each with what flows in and out.
• Follow it end to end: a guided walkthrough takes one build from website enquiry through quote, approvals, dig booking, materials, progress claims, certificate and handover, onto the service round and into the shop.
• Guardrails: nothing is sent to a customer, invoiced or ordered without a person approving it, and every action is logged and can be undone.