More branches, more commercial accounts, one set of numbers.

The second location is where most field service software starts to creak. Revenue in branch two gets counted on the job date while branch one counts it on the invoice date. A property manager wants every invoice to carry their PO and never go past $1,500 without a call. Someone in the new branch quotes from the old price list because the tax and prices differ by county. None of that is hard to fix on paper. It's hard to fix when the system treats the company as one shop.

TradesWork treats branches, brands and commercial terms as real objects with rules attached, so the right price, tax, PO and limit show up on the job without anyone remembering them.

Branches and brands

A brand is the name customers see. A branch is the place work is run from. A shop that bought a competitor and kept the name has two brands; a shop that opened a second yard has two branches under one brand. TradesWork supports both.

Each branch has a short code (2 to 12 characters), a phone, an address, a tax rate, a list of service ZIPs or ZIP prefixes, and a default flag. When a CSR books a job, the service address decides the branch: longest ZIP prefix match first, then the person's home branch, then the default branch. That means "48103" lands in Ann Arbor and "481" catches the rest of the area, with no dropdown for the CSR to forget.

Prices and tax that follow the branch

Most shops want one price book. Running two invites drift: the same capacitor at two prices and two sets of descriptions. TradesWork keeps one and lets each branch override the price of any item. Member prices scale by the same ratio as the override, so if a branch is 8% higher, its member price is 8% higher too and the discount stays intact.

Tax works the same way. The branch's rate applies to new estimates and invoices, falling back to the company rate if the branch has none. A valid tax-exempt certificate on the site sets the rate to zero, and certificates carry an expiry date and can be revoked. Sales tax rules for services vary a great deal by state, and some states tax certain repair labor while others don't¹. Set the rates your accountant gives you; TradesWork applies them, it doesn't decide them.

Reporting across branches

The By branch report shows revenue, jobs done, average ticket, close rate and accounts receivable for the company, each brand and each branch. Every number comes from the same metric dictionary the rest of TradesWork uses, and every value links to the rows behind it.

That matters more than it sounds. ServiceTitan's own reporting guide warns that the same KPI may exist in several reports, calculated slightly differently, and that sales and revenue filter on different dates². Multiply that by three branches and the monthly meeting turns into an argument about whose number is right. On one dictionary, branch totals add up to the company total because they're the same calculation with a branch filter.

Every metric in the dictionary can be filtered by branch and brand, not just the five in the roll-up. Gross margin by branch, callbacks by branch and speed to lead by brand all work from the reports page or a dashboard.

For a data team, a warehouse export gives one row per job with IDs only, no customer names or contact details.

People and dispatch across branches

Each person gets a home branch and can belong to several branch teams. Turn on restricted for someone and they see only their branches' jobs, agreements, reports and dispatch board. Owners and admins are never restricted.

Cross-branch dispatch has three modes:

The mode is checked when the job is assigned, not just hidden in the UI.

Commercial customers

Commercial work runs on paperwork the residential side never sees. TradesWork stores it on the customer and applies it on every job:

• PO required: the customer needs a PO on every invoice. With the company setting on, an invoice for that customer can't be sent until the PO is entered. The setting is off by default.
• Not-to-exceed: a hard block on any invoice change that would go past the limit. Raising or removing the NTE requires a note on who approved it, and the tech sees NTE used and remaining in the field app.
• Net terms: 0 to 180 days, overriding your company terms for this customer.
• Consolidated invoicing: on by default for commercial customers.
• Contact roles: Billing/AP, Site contact, Decision maker, Property manager, Tenant and others, each optionally tied to one site. The AP contact gets the invoice; the site contact gets the arrival text.

Service agreements

Service agreements are separate from homeowner memberships. An agreement has a status (draft, active, suspended, expired, canceled), a term from 1 to 60 months, a billing cadence (monthly, quarterly, every six months, yearly, per visit or not billed), and covers one or more sites and specific equipment on them.

1. 1

   Plan the visits

   PM visits by calendar month or interval, per site, with an optional per-visit price. Visits become unscheduled jobs 21 days ahead by default, ready for the dispatcher.

2. 2

   Set the SLA

   Response hours on the agreement. Jobs at covered sites show a countdown: met, OK, due soon (the last quarter of the window or two hours) and breached.

3. 3

   Carry the terms

   Jobs at a covered site pick up the agreement's PO, NTE and SLA automatically.

4. 4

   Bill on the daily run

   One consolidated invoice per customer per month, unless consolidation is off or PO numbers differ. Short final periods are prorated; invoices missing a required PO stay as drafts.

5. 5

   Renew with numbers

   Auto-renew with a renewal uplift, and billed versus cost on the agreement page so you know which accounts to reprice.

Templates let you save a standard PM agreement and reuse it. Suspending or canceling needs a reason, which ends up in the audit trail.

Who this fits, and who it doesn't

This works well for a residential shop with two to five branches, a residential company adding light commercial work, or a commercial HVAC and refrigeration contractor with PM agreements on rooftop units and walk-ins. Pair it with warranty and refrigerant if you service larger refrigerant charges.

It's not built yet for fire and life safety inspection work (no deficiency workflow), for national facilities accounts that dispatch through ServiceChannel, or for franchisors who need royalty reporting and template push to franchisees. If that's you, ServiceTitan's commercial and enterprise tiers or a commercial-first tool may fit better today.

Mistakes we see when shops add a branch

• Copying the price book. Two price books drift within a quarter. Use overrides for the handful of items that really differ, usually labor-heavy services and trip charges.
• Restricting everyone. Restrictions are for privacy and focus, not for the CSR who books for both branches. Restrict the branch managers, leave shared staff open.
• Comparing branches on different periods. A new branch has six months of history. Compare the same months, and look at average ticket and close rate before raw revenue.
• Letting commercial terms live in someone's head. If the property manager's NTE is only in an email, the tech will blow through it on a Friday night. Put it on the customer record, where the invoice checks it.

A setup order that works