The Operations Blueprint · Sample report

This is what $1,500 buys.

A real report, for a company that does not exist. Ridgeway Septic & Drain is made up; the numbers are typical for a six-person septic company in Northeast Georgia and are labeled rough, the same way they would be in yours. Your report would be about this long.

Operations Blueprint

Ridgeway Septic & Drain

Prepared by Go Rogue Digital · Sample, not a real company

Where: Northeast Georgia, four-county service area
People: Owner, office manager (part time), two pump-truck techs, a two-man install crew
Trucks: Two pump trucks, one service truck, a mini excavator on a trailer
Work: Pump-outs (about 60%), repairs and inspections (25%), installs and drainfields (15%)
Revenue: About $1.1M a year
Runs on: A paper schedule book, a Google Calendar, QuickBooks, a Square reader, and the owner's phone

1. How the business runs today

The office phone forwards to the owner after 4 p.m. and on Saturdays. About a third of calls come in during those hours. The owner writes them on whatever is nearby and enters them Monday.
A new job is written in the schedule book, then typed into Google Calendar so the techs can see it. Address, phone, and the note about the gate get typed twice. About one job a week is on the calendar at the wrong address.
Property details (lid location, tank size, dogs, where to park) live in the pump techs' memory and in a folder of old invoices. When a job goes to the other tech, he calls the first one from the driveway.
Estimates for repairs and drainfields are written in a Word template, exported to PDF, and texted from the owner's phone. There is no list of open estimates. The owner "keeps it in his head."
Techs collect cash or run the Square reader on site. Invoices are entered in QuickBooks by the office manager on Tuesdays and Thursdays. A job done Friday is invoiced the following Tuesday at the earliest.
Pump-out reminders: none. The owner said "we mean to." Repeat pump-outs come from customers remembering on their own or from a slow drain.
Reviews: the company has 31 Google reviews, 4 in the last year. Nobody asks.

2. Where money is leaking

Rough numbers, from your own records and your own estimates of time. Meant to size the problem, not to audit it.

Pump-outs due that nobody is calling

roughly $17,000 a year

QuickBooks shows about 180 tanks pumped three or more years ago with no return visit. If one in four books when reminded, at the current $375 average, that is about 45 jobs a year that are not being asked for.

Repair and drainfield quotes that go quiet

roughly $50,000 a year

The owner sent about 55 quotes over $3,000 last year and could name 19 that were won. Nobody followed up on the rest. If a follow-up call on day seven recovers two more a quarter at the $6,500 average, that is eight jobs a year.

Second trips for property details

roughly $6,500 a year

Techs estimate three visits a week start with a call to the other tech or a search for the lid. At 45 minutes each and a loaded truck cost near $95 an hour, that is a truck payment.

Invoices that lag the job

about $27,000 sitting, not lost

Average time from job done to invoice sent is nine days. That is roughly $27,000 of finished work waiting to be billed on any given day. Not lost money, but it is the line of credit.

Inspection letters typed twice

roughly $4,000 a year

Real estate inspections are done on a paper checklist, then the office manager types the letter. About two hours each, six a month.

Reviews not asked for

not priced

Four reviews in a year from about 1,400 completed jobs. Every one of those customers was standing at the truck, happy, with a phone in their hand. We do not put a number on this one, but it is the cheapest fix in the report.

3. The three things to fix first

In order. Do not start the third before the first two are habits.

Work the pump-out list, starting Monday

What: Export every job from QuickBooks with a service date three or more years old. Sort by date. The office manager texts ten a day from a script, oldest first, and logs the answer in the same spreadsheet. Booked, later, or never.

Why first: Highest dollar return for zero dollars spent. It also tells you, within a month, whether the customers you pumped in 2023 still own the house.

Cost: Nothing. Two hours a week of the office manager's time.

Fix with what you own

A list of open quotes, and a rule for day seven

What: Every quote over $1,000 goes on one list the day it is sent: customer, amount, date, next step. On day seven, if it has not been answered, the owner calls. Not texts. Calls. The list can be a whiteboard in the office; what matters is that one person looks at it every morning.

Why first: This is the biggest number in the report and it is a discipline problem, not a tool problem. The quotes are good. Nobody is asking for the order.

Cost: Nothing to start. If the list grows past what a whiteboard can hold, the estimate pipeline in an operations app does this on its own and flags the quiet ones. That would be a build decision, separate from this report.

Fix with what you own

Give the property a record, and put it on the truck

What: Every property gets one page: tank size, lid location, risers, gate code, dogs, where to park, and the photo of the open lid from the last visit. Start with the 300 properties you visit most. The techs fill it in from the truck after each job, not the office from memory later.

Why first: It ends the second trips, it makes the next tech as good as the last one, and it is what the pump-out list needs to become a real reminder system instead of a spreadsheet.

Cost: Buy or build. Any field service app will hold a property record; the question is whether the techs will use it with gloves on. We would look at Jobber or Housecall Pro first at your size. If neither fits how your trucks work, a purpose-built septic app exists and we would quote it separately.

Buy

4. Own, buy, or build

What	Which	Note
Pump-out list and reminders	Own, today	A spreadsheet and a script. Becomes part of whatever holds the property record later.
Open quote list and the day-seven call	Own, today	A whiteboard or a sheet. The habit is the fix.
Property records on the truck	Buy	Any field app at your size. Try one for a month before committing.
Invoicing from the truck	Buy	Comes with the same app. Job done, invoice sent, same day.
Review asks	Own, today	A saved text with your Google link. The tech sends it from the driveway. Your app can do it for you later.
Inspection letter from the checklist	Build, later	Worth it at your inspection volume, but not before the three fixes above are habits.
After-hours call handling	Own	A voicemail that says what to text and a Monday morning callback rule. Not a call center.

What we did not look at

Pricing. Your prices are in line with the area; whether they should be higher is a different conversation.
The books. QuickBooks looked clean and your bookkeeper is doing her job. We did not audit anything.
Your people. Both techs are good and the office manager is holding it together. We looked at the path of the work, not at who walks it.
Marketing. The phone rings. The problem is what happens after it does.

Every name, address, and number in this sample is invented. A real report is written from your records and your session, and the numbers in it are yours.

Want one with your numbers in it?

$1,500, fixed. Your documents, about 90 minutes on a call or in your shop, the report in 7 business days, one meeting to go through it.

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