How can Jobber support time-and-materials businesses as they scale?

Great question and I feel you on the QuickBooks thing. Been running Best Handyman Boston since 2018 and have seen a lot of handymen struggle with this exact problem of how to scale a trust first time and materials business without losing what makes it work

Jobber is solid for the basics but it wont magically solve your scaling problem

What Jobber does well is scheduling crm invoicing client communication and the mobile app for your techs. For a solopreneur moving to a small team it handles the blocking and tackling stuff that QuickBooks makes painful

What it doesnt do is build customer trust for you. Thats your sales process your communication and your reputation and thats where T and M businesses live or die

Heres how Id approach this:

First get your workflows tight before you scale. Use Jobber to document every step of your customer journey from lead to assessment call to site visit to proposal to job execution to follow up to reviews. Most guys try to scale before they have a repeatable process and that kills them

Second build a trust system not just an estimating system. For T and M to work customers need to trust that your hourly rate is fair and your techs arent padding time. That means transparent communication through Jobbers client hub photos and notes from every job clear explanations of why T and M makes sense for their situation and reviews doing the heavy lifting on credibility

Third when you add people systematize the trust building. You built trust through your personality and expertise but your second or third tech needs scripts training and a process to do what you do naturally. Jobber wont give you that you have to build it yourself

Tools that help alongside Jobber include Loom for sending quick video explanations to customers before you arrive which is a huge trust builder plus obsessive attention to your Google Business Profile because reviews are everything

Real talk on the multi city dream. Going from solopreneur to multi city is a 3 to 5 year journey if you do it right. The system matters more than the software. Ive seen guys with great software and broken processes fail and guys with basic tools and tight systems scale beautifully

Great question! This is a really common challenge, glad you asked it in the community forum. 

Looping in HUGEHandyman​ ryaantuttle​ ThatHandymanVan​ here. They have shared solid insights on scaling and managing workflows and operations as things get more complex. 

Quick follow up question: When you say, "Use Jobber to document every step of your customer journey from lead to assessment call to site visit to proposal to job execution to follow up to reviews", what exactly do you mean to "Use Jobber" to do these things? Does jobber have a document or other type of repository for this type of documentation?  

Hey I spoke this in to chat GPT and had it organize my thoughts:

1) MODIFY How you think of T&M - thing I would suggest is not overcomplicating your time and materials strategy as you grow.

We bill in half-day and full-day blocks instead of hourly.

A half day is one block of time. Anything over four hours becomes a full day. If a job runs six hours, it’s still a full day because realistically you can’t schedule another job after that.

I think of it like seats on an airplane. Every seat is a half day. Once that time is taken, it’s taken.

This keeps scheduling simple and predictable as you scale.

2)  TEMPLATES Brotha - create one master “Handyman Time & Materials” estimate template inside Jobber.

Instead of building custom estimates every time, your template should already include:

• Standard scope language
• Cancellation policy
• No warranty language on repairs
• Store run policy
• Add-on work policy
• Client-supplied material notes
• Clear terms and conditions
• When a client sends me a list, I copy their wording directly into the quote and add any necessary notes. That estimate should take five minutes to build, not thirty.

3) Use Jobber automated messages to prime them as to what to expect

We send a short pre-job message (or video) explaining:

• Secure pets
• Clear work areas
• Adding work adds time and cost
• We bill in half-day and full-day blocks
• Store runs are billable

When clients understand this upfront, there are fewer on-site negotiations.

4) Get thick skin when talking to people. 

Every client hears the same thing:

“I don’t know exactly how long this will take. If it goes over four hours, it becomes a full day because we can’t schedule another job after that.”

If they ask, “What if it only takes six hours?”

The answer is simple: “It’s still a full day because that time was reserved for you.”

Jobber supports scaling by:

• Saving estimate templates
• Automating communication
• Storing standard terms and conditions
• Making repeatable proposals fast
• Keeping everything consistent across staff

Time and materials businesses don’t scale by making bigger, more complex estimates.

They scale by simplifying pricing, standardizing communication, using templates, and improving sales delivery.

We’re moving into remodeling now, so we do more custom bids. But for handyman time and materials work, the goal is speed and clarity.

That’s how Jobber supports scaling.