In Denver, CO, Derek F runs a 6-tech plumbing operation. Fifteen years of trial and error produced one exact way to run a job — and once a tech left the shop, he had no idea if any of it was happening.
What was actually bleeding
Derek spent fifteen years working out the exact sequence that produced the best result and the happiest customer — his process was the product. But once a tech left the shop, he had no idea if any of it actually happened. New guys skipped steps because nobody stopped them; senior guys drifted into their own habits. He trusted one eight-year tech completely — until a customer mentioned he’d been dropping the invoice on the table and walking to the truck, probably for two years. The SOP sat in a three-ring binder collecting dust.
What Derek asked us to build
“Build my process into the app as a gate — you can’t move to the next step until the last one’s done, can’t submit without the photos and the customer’s signature, and I can pull up any job and see exactly what happened and when.”
— Derek F, Plumbing — Denver, CO
What we built
We built a conditional, dynamic checklist that adapts to what the tech finds — log a specific failure and the right inspection steps branch off automatically. Photos are gated: the tech can’t proceed past certain stages without uploading the required image. The customer walkthrough and signature happen inside the app before the invoice appears, every step is timestamped, and a review request fires right after the signature while the tech is still at the door.
requires a live photo · requires a sign-off. Changes publish to the field instantly.
Tap each step. Photo steps open the live camera — the job isn’t done to standard until every step is checked.
Edit a step on the left — it updates the tech’s runbook on the right instantly.
How the tool works
The two screens below are linked. On the left you build the procedure — add steps, reorder them, and gate the ones that require a live photo or a sign-off. On the right, your tech runs that exact procedure in the field. Edit a step on the left and watch it change on the right.
- You author the job the way it should always run, and gate the steps that need a live photo or a sign-off.
- The tech runs the identical procedure on their phone — photo steps open the live camera, not the gallery.
- The job isn’t “to standard” until every step is checked, so a day-one hire runs it like your best tech.
- Every step is timestamped, so you can pull up any job and see exactly what happened and when.
An SOP that lives inside the job — not a binder — is one module of the Service OS we build. It turns the process you spent years perfecting into something your whole team runs the same way, every time, whether you’re watching or not.
What came back
Every job is now built the way Derek’s best tech would build it — a day-one hire moves through it the same way, because the app won’t let him do otherwise. He can pull any job and see the checklist, the photos in sequence, and the signature timestamp. Review scores climbed within two months, on consistency alone.
That’s not a projection — it’s what changed after we shipped the build.
The tool you just used isn’t a mockup — it’s the kind of thing we build inside our Service OS, one module of a system made for your trade and owned by you. If you’re carrying a version of this problem, the fastest way to see what a system would catch in your operation is to run your own numbers.
The takeaways
- A binder SOP is a suggestion; an SOP built into the job is a gate.
- Gate the steps that matter — no next step, no submit, until the photos and signature are in.
- When the app enforces the sequence, a day-one hire runs the job like your best tech.
Ex-Microsoft operations and fractional COO for $5M+ field service operations. He writes about the systems that let trade companies scale without the owner holding everything together by hand.
These are the things we build inside our Service OS.
Every tool in this story is one module of a custom operating system we build for trade businesses — built for your trade, owned by you. Spin up a free OpsVault account and run your own operation through it: the Live Bleed Calculator, the Journey Map, the whole Vault. No credit card, no sales call.