Software for cold-room and refrigeration firms — installs by stage, income by contract

The quote is a build-up: panels and doors, the refrigeration unit sized to the room and its duty, controls, installation and commissioning — each named, because the client comparing two quotes is comparing equipment as much as price. Temperature range and intended contents change the engineering, and the quote should state both, so the room that was priced as a chiller is not later judged as a freezer.

Panels and units are the cost, ordered early — so the payment shape mirrors the solar pattern: advance ordering the kit, a delivery/installation milestone, balance on commissioning, all from your own price-book lines for units, panel per-metre rates and labour.

Maintenance here is not a diary nicety; a failed cold room destroys stock by the hour, so contracts sell response: scheduled preventive visits plus callout terms with response windows, and exclusions priced as extras (gas, compressors, parts). The recurring invoice generates from the contract; callouts log against the room's history, so the third breakdown of the same unit arrives with its own biography attached.

That history is the renewal argument and the replacement argument in one: when a unit's repair record says replace, the firm showing the client its own data wins the replacement job it quoted.

Commissioning readings per room (pull-down times, set points), refrigerant handling records, temperature-log handovers, and equipment serials with warranty dates across scattered client sites. Small teams lose these in van paperwork; the client audit — a supermarket group or a clinic — does not accept "in the van" as a filing system.

Filed against the client and the room in InstaJack, the commissioning pack and service history are one search away, which is what makes a ten-site client feel like one contract instead of ten favours.

Refrigeration at this specialisation is not one of the eighteen core trades, so there is no starter price book — your units, your panel rates and your contract prices form the book, exactly as your suppliers price them to you. The app's part is the structure around it: staged quotes, claims where a contractor is the client, AMC invoicing, and a room-by-room record that survives staff changes.