3rd-Party Essentials for Pool Service Businesses

As a business owner, you know first-hand how difficult it can be to keep things running smoothly. In addition to providing your services, you also manage your appointment schedule, business accounting, and marketing. This often results in things slipping through the cracks, which can cost you customers and money.

Fortunately, there are tools available that help business owners manage everything behind the scenes.

In this article, we take a look at several third-party tools that are essential to running your pool service business.

Third-Party Essentials for Pool Service Businesses

As a new pool service business owner, you will find yourself taking on all sorts of roles. You are not just servicing pools – you will be managing taxes, marketing your business, being your own accountant, and more. It is hard to fulfill all those roles and still offer excellent services to your customers. If you find you are spending more time managing the business than working on pools, you will need to do some outsourcing.

Here are some third-party essentials for pool service businesses.

Billing Services and Software

When you first start, you will be handling all your billing manually. This makes sense, right? You do not have hundreds of clients since it is just you servicing those pools. Once word gets around, though, and you are taking on more and more clients, making those invoices takes hours and hours of your time. It is time you do not have to spare. After all, you could spend a couple of hours making invoices, or you could be servicing another pool.

Instead of handling all the work yourself, you should investigate billing software. There are lots on the market, and some are targeted directly at pool servicing companies. That makes it even easier to make up bills and send them out. A couple of clicks and you are ready to go.

Bookkeeping

You are doing this job because you are not the kind of person who likes to work behind a desk. You want to get out there and meet people. That is why you will hate having to handle your accounts yourself. It is intensive work and again takes up so much precious time.

That is why having a bookkeeper is essential to your business. They will handle all your expenses for you, filing them correctly, so you are ready for tax season. You will also see they send you profit, and loss accounts every month, so you will see exactly where your money is going. Spending money on a bookkeeper is money well spent, even if you are starting.

Payroll Services

If you start and are the only person working in your business, you will think you do not need a payroll service. You are just paying yourself. Why would you even need another service? It is tough to keep track of payments for taxes if you take money as needed. It may still work if you keep receipts for everything, but how many people out there can do that?

Even if it is just you, investigate payroll services. There are again lots of software services that can easily handle this for you. You can get services that automatically pay wages to every employee and withhold taxes. They will then pay those to the state automatically on time. It takes a lot of work off your hands, as you are not dealing with organizing these payments yourself. Plus, you will not have to worry about paying taxes on time, which is a huge bonus.

Accounting

Again, as a company that is just starting, you may not have an accountant yet. Why would you if it is just you working? Many businesses hire them right away as they are the people who will be keeping an eye on taxes for you. It is so essential that you get these rights, as it is so easy for you to miss something and then find that you are hit with a fine or larger tax bill. The accountant will take care of everything and will even fix mistakes when they see them.

Now, if you have a bookkeeper, you will be able to have them handle all this. If you are starting and do not have the budget for both, you can choose to hire the bookkeeper for now. However, it is often best to have both. That means two different people are watching your accounts, and you should have fewer errors that way. It will undoubtedly bring you a lot more peace of mind.

Service Software

Currently, there are so many ways technology can help you in your business. You already use GPS to get to your clients’ homes and email to talk to those looking to use your services. You can take it one step further and investigate software that will help you make the most out of every day.

There are plenty of software suites designed with your business in mind. For example, you can use software that plans out the optimal route for you every day. Other programs can send out automatic texts and emails that let you update customers and let them know when their next servicing day is. You can even get software that keeps hold of all your records for you.

Look online now and see what software is available to you. You can usually get free trials, so test them out for a few days and see if they work for you. They may not, in which case you can unsubscribe from them and try something else. When you find something you like, you can then subscribe.

A Registered Agent

This is something you probably have not even thought about getting, but once you procure the services of one, you will wonder how you did without it.

A registered agent is someone who accepts tax and legal documents on your behalf. As they are handling this for you, it means nothing will fall between the cracks. They will handle all the tasks that will make you compliant with your state, making things much easier for you in the long run. For example, they will ensure your LLC is filed, handle filings with the state, and more. As they handle this for you, you will never have to worry about it as you deal with your business from the day-to-day.

Using these third-party services will make your life much more comfortable as a pool serving company owner. They can handle many of the background tasks that need to be done, and you will be able to get on with what you do best.