Plumbing truck stock used but not billed: the 30-minute van check

How parts fall off the ticket

The gap has a handful of ordinary causes. None of them needs a dishonest tech; each one is a missing step between the van and the invoice.

• The extra fitting. A flat-rate task carries a standard material list. The job needed two more couplings, a longer supply line or a second shutoff, and the task price stayed the same.
• The “while I’m here” fix. The tech swaps a weeping angle stop next to the faucet being replaced, the customer is grateful, and nothing goes on the ticket because nobody asked for it.
• The counter purchase. A part picked up on the way to the job, on the company account, with no job number on the counter ticket. The supply-house invoice exists; the link to the job does not.
• The end-of-day ticket. Materials are typed in from memory after the last call, and the small parts drop out first.
• The return trip. Parts used on a callback, recall or warranty visit that nobody records, so the first job’s real cost stays understated.
• The swap. The part on the ticket is not the part installed — a different valve, a longer water-heater connector — and the price never changed.

Because every cause is a missing step, the fix is a step, not a lecture. That matters for how the owner talks about the finding with the team.

Margin, not theft: why the framing matters

When parts go missing, the first thought can be theft. Sometimes it is, and a reconciliation will show a pattern that no ordinary job explains. But treating the whole gap as theft turns a paperwork problem into a trust problem, and the techs who simply forget the second coupling stop volunteering what they used.

The more useful frame is job cost. A part used and not billed is a materials cost charged to the wrong place: to the month instead of the job. Once it sits on the job, the owner can see which job types give parts away, which pricebook tasks carry too short a material list, and which habits need work — without accusing anyone.

The paper trail already exists. IRS Publication 583 says supporting documents for inventory should show the amount paid and that the amount was for inventory, and it lists canceled checks, cash register tape receipts, credit card sales slips and invoices as examples. The supply-house invoices for the van are those documents. The check below reads them against the tickets the van produced.

The 30-minute check: one van, one month

Pick one van and one recent month. Choose the van of a tech the owner trusts, so the result reads as a finding about the process rather than a verdict on a person. Then gather two piles and compare them.

• Every supply-house invoice and counter ticket charged to that van or tech for the month: replenishment orders, will-call pickups and transfers from the shop shelf.
• Every ticket that van completed in the same month, with the materials billed on each, from the field-service software or the paper copies.
• A short list of ten to fifteen parts that move fast and cost real money: angle stops, supply lines, wax rings, P-traps, fill valves, faucet cartridges, PEX fittings, ball valves, water-heater connectors.
• For each part, three numbers: bought for the van, billed on the van’s tickets, and the difference.
• A set-aside column for what should not be billed part by part: shop supplies such as solder, flux, glue and tape; warranty parts the manufacturer replaces; and stock that built the van up rather than replaced what was used.

The difference column is the finding. A small difference that moves around is noise — a part still in the bin at month end, a part returned for credit. A difference that repeats on the same parts, month after month, is a step missing on site.

What the gap is worth: an illustrative count

Illustrative example: one van, one month. The supply house sold the van 40 angle stops and 28 reached tickets; it sold 30 supply lines and 19 were billed. At hypothetical costs of $15 and $12, those 23 parts come to $312 at cost. Add cartridges, fittings and a ball valve with the same pattern, and the van reaches about $600 at cost for the month. If the shop marks parts up, or prices them inside flat-rate tasks, the price the customer never saw is higher. Six vans with the same pattern would put the same arithmetic near $3,600 at cost a month, before any markup. Every number here is invented to show the method; the shop’s own invoices give the real ones.

The second number matters more than the total: which jobs the missing parts belong to. If they cluster on faucet and toilet calls, the pricebook tasks for those calls may carry too short a material list. If they cluster on one tech, it is a habit. If they cluster on counter runs, the job number is not reaching the supply house. Each answer points to a different owner and a different fix.

One rule on site: parts on the ticket before the customer signs

The fix is a step at the moment of use, not a count at the end of the month. Before the customer signs, the tech checks that every part that left the van is on the ticket, either as its own line or inside a task whose material list matches what was installed. If the task needed more than its list, the extra goes on as an add-on, or the owner decides in writing that it is included.

Three smaller rules hold that one in place:

• Every counter purchase carries a job number, so the supply-house invoice names the job it belongs to.
• Every return trip — callback, recall or warranty — records the parts it used against the original job, even when the customer pays nothing.
• Once a month, one named person repeats the one-van check on a different van, so the count becomes a routine rather than an investigation.

In a flat-rate shop the check also feeds the pricebook. When the same task keeps needing parts its material list does not carry, the task is mispriced, and the fix is a pricebook edit, not another reminder to the tech.

When the truck-stock gap is not worth chasing

An honest check can find nothing. If the difference column is small and does not repeat, the van-to-ticket step is working and the time is better spent elsewhere. A one- or two-van shop where the owner still restocks the trucks personally can run this check in an afternoon with a highlighter; it needs no software and no consultant.

Inventory software helps when the shop wants a running count by van and the techs will record parts on site. It does not help if the step at the customer’s door is still skipped. Buy it after the one-van check shows where the gap is, not before.

Outside help can earn its fee when the truck-stock gap is one of several on the same stretch from finished job to invoice: tickets closed days late, extra work agreed in the driveway, re-clears never charged to the first visit. The Revenue Review takes two weeks: read-only access to the shop’s own field-service records, supply-house statements and books, ending in a written report that puts a monthly dollar figure on each leak it finds, ranks the fixes and lays out a 90-day plan. If the records show nothing worth chasing, the report says so, and the free 20-minute call is the place to ask whether it fits at all.