Field Service Data Consultancy
Your job system shows a margin on every contract. Finance has a different number.
I’m David Laws, an independent data consultant based in Nottingham. I work with UK field service and engineering maintenance businesses where the job management system, the finance system and the HR system each hold part of the picture, and none of them agree with each other.
I join those systems together, so the numbers your board sees stand on something you can trust.
No prep needed. Just bring the problem.
Who I work with in field service
You’ll recognise this if you run a field service, engineering maintenance or facilities business somewhere between £5m and £30m turnover. There’s enough operational scale that the reporting problem costs real money, and not enough internal data capacity to fix it alongside the day job.
The people I usually work with are operations directors, performance directors and finance leads. Very few of them have a head of data. None of them want to hire one full-time yet.
What usually needs fixing
Three questions come up in nearly every first conversation.
Which contracts are actually making money?
Your job system will give you a margin per contract. It’s built from the hours and parts recorded against each job, not from what those engineers actually cost you through payroll, or from the supplier invoices finance posted after the job closed. So the real margin gets rebuilt by hand each month by the one person who knows how the rules work, and it takes days.
What did overtime really cost us?
Your job system may already produce an overtime figure. The trouble is that nobody quite agrees with it. It knows when engineers were on site, but your overtime rules, on-call arrangements and the way they differ between contracts get applied somewhere else, often by hand and often from memory. Engineers query their pay, and nobody can say for certain which number is right.
Does the invoice match the work behind it?
Work completed, parts used and what was billed live in different places. Reconciling them is manual, so it happens late, or not at all.
None of these are dashboard problems. They’re rule problems. The rules that connect your systems have usually never been written down, sometimes not even agreed inside the business, and automating dirty data just automates the errors.
Why your field service platform’s own reports stop short
Field service software is built to run the work: schedule the job, dispatch the engineer, record what happened. It does that well, and most platforms will report job and contract profit from the data they hold.
Those reports are only as complete as the data inside them. Payroll cost, late supplier invoices and contract rules nobody has written down all sit outside the job system. That’s a data layer problem, not a software choice problem. Switching platform doesn’t fix it.
Read the full argument: why FSM software falls short on reporting
Which platform do you run?
Joblogic
What the built-in reports cover, the three routes for getting data out, and the checks worth running first.
BigChange
Getting from BigChange data into reporting your finance team can work with.
simPRO, Commusoft, or something bespoke
The pattern repeats whatever the platform. The extraction route changes; the underlying problem doesn’t.
Where to start
Data Strategy Roadmap
For businesses that know the reporting has to improve but don’t yet have a plan. A roadmap you can act on, in two to four weeks.
Warehouse QuickStart
For businesses moving off spreadsheets and manual month-end. One or two systems joined up properly, so your core reports stand on something reliable. Weeks, not months.
Data Platform Build
For businesses ready to invest properly. Several systems brought together into a platform you keep, so reporting stays reliable as the business changes.
Fractional Head of Data
For businesses that need senior data leadership without a full-time hire.
Not sure which fits? Book a free call with David and I’ll help you work it out.
Proof
Linaker
Linaker’s engineers recorded their time in Joblogic, but overtime was still calculated by hand from paper timesheets. The payroll rules behind it had never been fully written down, so agreeing and documenting them came first. That freed two full-time positions in their accounts team and gave the board management reports every month.
“The information David helped us access allowed us to make informed strategic decisions we couldn’t make before.”
Jennie Davies, Performance Director, Linaker
Flow-Right
Payroll and job data joined up, so overtime could be calculated from the work that actually happened rather than rebuilt by hand.
“I knew there had to be a better way and David was exactly the right person to help us find it.”
Chris Eland, CEO, Flow-Right Commercial Plumbing & Drainage
Common questions
Do I have to replace my field service software?
No. I connect the systems you already run. No rip-and-replace, and no dashboard bolted on top of data nobody trusts.
How long before we see anything useful?
A Data Strategy Roadmap takes two to four weeks. A Warehouse QuickStart is measured in weeks. A full platform build takes longer. Working out the right starting point is what the free call is for.
We’ve already got Power BI and it isn’t working. Is this the same thing again?
Usually not. If the reports underneath aren’t trusted, the tool isn’t the problem. I check the data and the rules behind it before anything gets automated.
Do you only work with field service businesses?
No, but it’s where I see this problem most often. The same pattern shows up in property and in sports governing bodies.
Ready to talk?
A straightforward conversation about where your reporting is letting you down, and what would need to happen to fix it. No preparation needed. If I’m not the right fit, I’ll tell you that too.
No prep needed. Just bring the problem.