Most plumbing owners learn how their year went when the accountant sends the statements, months after anything could be done about it. A weekly scorecard fixes that. It is a single page of about ten numbers, each with a target and a person responsible, reviewed in a 30-minute meeting every week. When something starts to slip, such as the answer rate, the average ticket or the receivables, you see it within days, not quarters.
This guide explains which numbers to choose, where each one comes from, what the warning signs look like and how to run the meeting.
Why weekly, and why about ten numbers
Weekly is often enough to catch problems early and short enough that the numbers stay connected to what happened. Monthly reviews let a bad trend run four weeks before anyone talks about it.
About ten numbers is a balance. Fewer and you miss parts of the business; more and the meeting turns into a data reading. Each number should answer a question you would act on.
The ten numbers
Demand and the office
- Inbound calls (from your phone system). The raw demand. Compare with the same week last year; plumbing demand swings with the weather.
- Answer rate (calls answered by a person ÷ inbound calls). The first leak. If it drops, look at staffing by hour of day.
- Booking rate (booked appointments ÷ answered calls with real work). Office skill and how prices are explained on the phone.
The field
- Jobs completed. Capacity in use. A falling number with steady bookings points at scheduling or cancellations.
- Average ticket (revenue ÷ jobs completed). Pricing and how options are presented.
- Revenue per billable hour. Field efficiency and pricing combined.
- Callbacks (jobs needing a return visit at no charge). Quality, and a hidden cost that rarely shows up on the P&L as its own line.
Money and reputation
- Gross margin (revenue minus direct labour and materials, as a percentage). Whether prices cover the work.
- Receivables over 30 days. Cash health. Rising receivables can starve a profitable company.
- New reviews. Reputation momentum. A steady flow matters more than a burst.
Add cost per booked job by marketing channel monthly, once call tracking is in place. Our marketing strategy service sets that up.
A sample scorecard
The figures are illustrative.
| Number | Owner | Target | This week | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Inbound calls | Office manager | 160 | 148 | Watch |
| Answer rate | Office manager | 90% | 84% | Act |
| Booking rate | CSR lead | 70% | 72% | On track |
| Jobs completed | Service manager | 95 | 91 | Watch |
| Average ticket | Service manager | $560 | $585 | On track |
| Revenue per billable hour | Owner | $205 | $198 | Watch |
| Callbacks | Service manager | 3 or fewer | 6 | Act |
| Gross margin | Owner | 55% | 54% | Watch |
| Receivables over 30 days | Office manager | under $20,000 | $27,500 | Act |
| New reviews | Service manager | 6 | 5 | Watch |
In this example, three numbers need action. The answer rate dropped, probably because of a staffing gap on two mornings. Callbacks doubled, which needs a look at which jobs and which plumbers. Receivables crept up, so the office should chase the oldest invoices this week. Everything else is close enough to watch.
Setting targets that mean something
A target should come from your plan, not from a number someone quoted at a conference. Work backwards from your annual goal:
- Annual revenue target ÷ average ticket = jobs needed per year.
- Jobs per year ÷ number of working weeks = jobs per week.
- Jobs per week ÷ booking rate ÷ answer rate = inbound calls needed per week.
An illustrative example: $1.4 million ÷ $560 = 2,500 jobs. Spread over 50 working weeks, that is 50 jobs a week. At a 70% booking rate and a 90% answer rate, you need about 79 inbound calls with real work each week. Now marketing has a clear target, and so does the office.
Our growth planning service builds this chain with you and checks whether your team has the capacity for it.
Running the 30-minute weekly review
Keep the meeting short and the same every week:
- Five minutes: fill in or confirm the numbers. Ideally they were updated before the meeting.
- Ten minutes: look only at the "act" numbers. What changed? What is the likely cause?
- Ten minutes: agree one action per "act" number, with a named owner and a date.
- Five minutes: check last week's actions. Did they happen? Did the number move?
Don't use the meeting to blame anyone. The point is to find causes and fix them quickly. Teams that feel safe reporting a bad number report it sooner.
Where the numbers come from
- Phone system or call tracking: inbound calls, answer rate, calls by source.
- Field service software or schedule: bookings, jobs completed, callbacks.
- Invoicing or accounting software: revenue, average ticket, receivables.
- Timesheets: billable hours.
- Job costing: gross margin, by job if you can.
- Google Business Profile: new reviews.
If any of these isn't tracked yet, start simply. A shared spreadsheet that the office fills in every Friday is better than a perfect dashboard that never gets built. Our systems and operations service can help set up the tracking.
Warning signs to watch for
- Answer rate falling while calls rise. You are paying for demand you can't catch.
- Average ticket rising but jobs falling. Possibly a price that went up without better presentation, or the team is skipping smaller jobs.
- Revenue per billable hour falling. More driving, more callbacks or prices that haven't kept up with costs. Our labour rate guide explains how to check.
- Receivables growing for three weeks in a row. Fix collections before it turns into a cash problem.
- Reviews drying up. Often a sign the team has stopped asking, not that customers are unhappy.
Common mistakes
- Too many numbers. Twenty numbers produce a long meeting and no decisions.
- Numbers without owners. If everyone owns it, nobody does.
- Targets copied from someone else. Use your own plan.
- Reviewing monthly. By the time you see a trend, it has cost a month.
- Changing many things at once. You won't know which change worked.
Getting started this week
- Pick your ten numbers from the list above.
- Find where each one lives in your current systems.
- Fill in the last four weeks as a starting baseline.
- Set provisional targets from your annual goal.
- Book a 30-minute meeting at the same time every week.
If you want help building the scorecard and the plan behind it, see growth planning and the owner scorecard or call, text or email.
Frequently asked questions
What is the single most important number for a plumbing company?
If you could only track one, gross profit per billable hour comes close, because it combines pricing, efficiency and materials. But one number hides too much; a short scorecard of about ten is far safer.
Do I need special software for a scorecard?
No. A shared spreadsheet works. Most field service and phone systems can export the inputs; the discipline of filling it in weekly matters more than the tool.
Who should own the scorecard?
The owner or general manager owns the whole thing, but each number has its own owner: the office manager for receivables, the service manager for callbacks, and so on.
What if a number goes red?
Ask what changed and agree one action with a name and a date. Then check whether it moved the following week. Avoid changing five things at once.