How to track HVAC equipment from sold to installed
Every unit you sell moves through four states: sold, ordered, received, installed. We connect your FSM with the supplier and purchasing processes you already run so you can see what's missing, without a call to the warehouse.
Answered in short
4 things that decide this
- 01Tracking HVAC equipment from sold to installed means treating every unit as moving through four visible states: sold, ordered, received, installed. A unit can stall at any one of them, and each stall needs a different fix.
- 02Truck stock and job-specific equipment are different problems. A furnace ordered for one address isn't the same tracking question as a box of thermostats sitting in a technician's van.
- 03Distributor portals hold the order and shipping status for most equipment purchases. Some expose that data cleanly. Others only show it to a person who logs in and checks.
- 04We connect sold jobs to your existing supplier and purchasing processes, and write status changes back into your FSM or purchase order, without forcing your purchasing team onto a new system.
Sold, ordered, received, installed. A unit can stall at any of them
Think of every unit you sell as moving through four states. Sold means your comfort advisor closed the deal, and the FSM has a job record with a model number attached. Ordered means someone placed the purchase order with your distributor. Received means the unit physically arrived at your warehouse, or shipped direct-to-site with confirmation. Installed means it's in the customer's home and the job is closed.
A unit can get stuck at any point in that chain, and each stall needs a different fix. Sold-but-not-ordered usually means someone forgot, or a financing approval hasn't cleared yet. Ordered-but-not-received usually means a supplier delay, and the fix is a phone call, not a system update. Received-but-not-installed often means a scheduling gap, separate from the supply chain entirely. Most shops only learn which state a job is actually in when the install date arrives. By then the crew is standing in an empty spot in the warehouse.
- 01Sold but not ordered: usually a forgotten step, or a financing hold nobody flagged.
- 02Ordered but not received: a supplier delay, which needs a phone call, not a dashboard.
- 03Received but not installed: a scheduling gap, separate from the supply chain entirely.
- 04Installed but the PO never closed: a bookkeeping loose end that skews your job costing later.
Truck stock and job-specific equipment aren't the same question
Truck stock is the box of thermostats, capacitors and common fittings your technicians carry for repairs nobody can predict in advance. Nobody counts it precisely, and that's usually fine. A slightly over-stocked van costs you far less than a second truck roll for a missing part.
Job-specific equipment is the opposite problem. A furnace bought for one address, on one sold job, needs tracking by that job, not by a general stock count. Mix the two and you get the worst outcome. Your warehouse looks stocked because truck-stock parts sit on the shelf, while the specific unit a customer is waiting on hasn't shipped. Keeping them as separate tracking questions, each tied to its own trigger, is what stops that confusion.
What we can pull automatically, and what stays a phone call
Most equipment purchases run through a distributor portal, and how much of that data we can pull automatically depends entirely on what your distributor exposes. Some portals offer a clean feed of order and shipping status. Others show that same information only to a person who logs in, checks a screen, and reports back.
We connect to whichever kind you have. Where a clean feed exists, the sold job's status updates automatically as the order moves through it. Where it doesn't, that check becomes a tracked manual step with a reminder attached. Someone gets prompted to look instead of the job silently going stale. Either way, the state your job is in stays visible against the job record itself, not buried in a dashboard purchasing owns alone.
- Order placed with the distributorWritten to the job's status field in the FSM or PO system
- Shipping or receipt confirmationPulled automatically where the portal exposes it
- A short-shipped or substituted modelFlagged for purchasing to review, not auto-approved
- A genuine supplier shortageYour purchasing team calls the distributor and decides what to do
The system tracks state and flags what's stuck. The call on a shortage or a substitution stays with your purchasing team.
Some of the systems we have shipped
Related questions
01Does this force our purchasing team onto a new system?+
No. It connects the sold job to the distributor portal or purchasing process your team already uses. The purchase order still gets raised the way it does today; we're adding visibility, not replacing the workflow.
02What if our distributor's portal doesn't have an API?+
That step becomes a tracked manual task with a due date and a reminder instead of an automatic feed. It's still visible on the job, just not pulled live. We confirm what each distributor exposes during the audit.
03Can this track truck stock too, or just job-specific orders?+
The four-state model is built for job-specific equipment, since that's where a stall actually delays a customer. Truck stock is a different tracking question with different stakes, and we'd scope it separately if it's a real problem for your shop.
04Who decides if a substitute model is acceptable?+
Your purchasing team, every time. The system flags a substitution against the job so someone sees it before the install date, but it doesn't approve the swap on its own.
05Does this work with a spreadsheet-based purchasing process instead of a formal system?+
Yes, as long as there's a consistent place the order status gets recorded, whether that's a spreadsheet, an email thread or a dedicated system. We confirm the specifics during the audit rather than assuming a particular setup.
