service contracts?

[jmac00]

Any you guy's using them, not the kind from a warranty company, the kind you make up yourselves. Been thinking about these lately ( yes , i put the hampster back on the wheel) How do you structure them. Do you have pro's and cons. like'm, don't like'm??

[JAMES 3528-old]

I have been thinking about starting a filter changing service and keeping it away from my Company. (year round work)
I could use the filter change guy to feed work to the company when he spots a problem.
I was thinking about dropping the trip fee when they use the referrals from the filter service.
I also have been thinking about net working with people who do other services at commercial buildings for referrals

[diceman]

does you head hurt from all that thinking you been doing? I do PM but not service contracts. Like they are betting the systems will fail and you are betting they won't. If you do, don't include major items as part of it such as compressors, heat exchangers etc. and limit the amt. of emergency calls especially at night. Also pm work is taxable now and the irs wants their money from it. you may be able to re-phrase it.

[JAMES 3528-old]

james
does you head hurt from all that thinking you been doing?


Yea. I have been thinking that you are mildly retarded:p

[Breeze]

I sell PMA's (Planned Maintenance Agreements) name changed from preventive>planned since some lawyer out in CA found a way of suing a contractor and won.

I give customers a 10% discount off all repairs and usually 5% off equipment.
This year I have been giving 10% off the $90 pma if they have had a new piece of equipment installed by me.

I don't push the PMA but if they are having 2 checks a year at $55 each then I just show them what it will save um.

Almost every hvac co. here has them so I really don't have a choice.

We can't sell service contracts (labor/parts) here in Texas with out having a lot of money. You need another lic. to sell them. The TDLR here in Texas has more info on that. Now selling 3rd party contracts is ok but I wouldn't doubt it if you have to register for that too!

I had to register just to offer 3rd party financing, ie. Trane-A/S, Wells Fargo Financial etc.

[Breeze]

Originally posted by diceman
does you head hurt from all that thinking you been doing? I do PM but not service contracts. Like they are betting the systems will fail and you are betting they won't. If you do, don't include major items as part of it such as compressors, heat exchangers etc. and limit the amt. of emergency calls especially at night. Also pm work is taxable now and the irs wants their money from it. you may be able to re-phrase it.

Taxable? Is that comm - Res or both?

Can they tax labor on Residential where you live?

If not, you could call it a PMA: Prepaid Maint. Agreement

[diceman]

I know a few years back they started taxing maintenance work. Some bigger co's. that got hammered because of it. check it out. They want you to collect the tax, put it in a special acct and give it to them at the end of the year, like retail sales.

[Breeze]

From there web site: http://www.window.state.tx.us/taxinfo/questions.html

Is labor taxable?
Well yes and no. Labor may be taxable if it is part of the price of goods sold, rented or leased. For example, manufacturing, assembling and fabricating are all examples of "taxable labor." Products of "taxable labor" include: photographs, artwork, engraving, printing, calligraphy, custom sewing or tailoring, catering or assembling products like toys, furniture or equipment. Installation labor is also taxable when the item is installed by the person who sold, rented or leased it.



Kind of miss leading. I was told that residential labor was not taxable? Atleast the part that would pertain to me and the hvac business.
Any thoughts on this?

[diceman]

is i never collect tax and when I buy stuff I pay the tax. I roll the cost of the tax into the job. You can do this because you are working on something that is attached to the permanant real estate or propery. Same is true with general contractors, say, installing windows or doors or siding. You have to be careful if you work on appliances. But I know for sure that over and above anything else that planned maintenance was dropped from that scenario and it is taxable. I do some, and just word it as service. If you do a lot of it and big money is involved then you need to get it straightend out, call your acct. to check.:confused:

[Breeze]

Originally posted by diceman
sniped...If you do a lot of it and big money is involved then you need to get it straightend out, call your acct. to check.:confused:

Thank You dice but everytime I call my account my phone rings.....ring ring, I answer it but all I here is myself talking.

I did call a fellow hvac contractor and asked him about it... he never heard of it but is going to check. He did ask another company, large a/c firm, and they don't have to collect for pma's even on commercial... well i have my question in to the comptroller so maybe I will get an answer soon from them.

[jmac00]

Originally posted by breeze
From there web site: http://www.window.state.tx.us/taxinfo/questions.html


Kind of miss leading. I was told that residential labor was not taxable? Atleast the part that would pertain to me and the hvac business.
Any thoughts on this?
doesn't this come under the heading of capital improvemnt, therfore not taxable to the end user??

[Breeze]

Sure hope so!

[jmac00]

Originally posted by breeze
I sell PMA's (Planned Maintenance Agreements) name changed from preventive>planned since some lawyer out in CA found a way of suing a contractor and won.

I give customers a 10% discount off all repairs and usually 5% off equipment.
This year I have been giving 10% off the $90 pma if they have had a new piece of equipment installed by me.

I don't push the PMA but if they are having 2 checks a year at $55 each then I just show them what it will save um.

Almost every hvac co. here has them so I really don't have a choice.

We can't sell service contracts (labor/parts) here in Texas with out having a lot of money. You need another lic. to sell them. The TDLR here in Texas has more info on that. Now selling 3rd party contracts is ok but I wouldn't doubt it if you have to register for that too!

I had to register just to offer 3rd party financing, ie. Trane-A/S, Wells Fargo Financial etc.
you do 2 service calls at $90, that does not include any parts right, if you find something wrong, you blame diceman and charge extra right??

[Breeze]

sorry but its Dicemans fault... he didn't turn up a 7 or 11, so that's going to cost you ____ x what ever he did roll.
Hey I just won the lotto.... wow wee I am so lucky, after checking over 30 tickets I had one wiener for a grand total of $28.00 buck o ronies. Now lets see what spell check will do with this.

It wanted to turn Diceman to Iceman :)

Not sure how to spell roni or what ever.

[jmac00]

you better roll that money right into your IRA so the gov. don't tax it.
isn't the tax on lottery winnings 130%, which means you owe the gov. $28.00 X's .130= shit the hampster fell off the wheel again, overload, to complicated. need teqela

[Breeze]

And I know you were kidding but just in case you were not I have a bag of lotto tickets, all losing numbers of course. I have never won more than I lost.
Wonder if you can only use the ticket loss in the year played? Most likely.

Could you buy and sell bad tickets to lotto winners. Maybe sell them at .10 to .25 each then they could write off what they played??? hmmm sounds illegal.


My hamster is sitting on the wheel with his balls caught in the bearing housing. Maybe I need a picture to explain this...

[jmac00]

NO PICTURE, NO PICTURE
DON'T NEED TO SEE THAT

[Breeze]

I will never let my son have a hamster... I hope. A bit of a story goes with that but I might be edited for being OFF MY ROCKER... I mean topic!

[jmac00]

off our collective rockers lets summerize.
I should not call them Service contracts,
I should call them Preventive Mantainace Agreements or Planned Maintanace Agreements, Should include a clean and check ( inspection ) in the fall and spring, parts are extra,
now that, thats out if the way , and you started it, do i dare ask whats the story with the hampster and your kid??

[Breeze]

Originally posted by jmac00
off our collective rockers lets summerize.
I should not call them Service contracts,
I should call them Preventive Mantainace Agreements or Planned Maintanace Agreements, Should include a clean and check ( inspection ) in the fall and spring, parts are extra,
now that, thats out if the way , and you started it, do i dare ask whats the story with the hamster and your kid??

Planned Maintenance Agreement; does not imply you will prevent anything. Of course Dice may have a point on that being taxable, still waiting on the answer for that.
If it is but labor normally isn't taxable for you then maybe call it Prepaid Main. Agree. etc..... or something.

I will know more when someone gets back to me.

The hamster thingy, well, when I was young I bought 2 of them, suppose to be 1 male 1 female. My sister, older then I and much wiser wanted 2 as well. Many things happened (like them getting out) that led us to place them all in one sturdy cage. OOPS, there were really 3 males and 1 female. Can you picture that? She was also younger/smaller then the males.

to be continued.......

of course now they have safer wheels:

http://www.transoniq.com/images/action.gif

[diceman]

A hamster gangbang, I am gonna tell Allzheimer-Temp what's going on over here in the degenerate area.
Also, if you are in business you should have an acct to put your taxes together at the end of the year. I keep the books and records etc. don't let them talk you into the monthly plan, just have them do your end of year tax prep. Mine does that and anytime I have any questions he answers them. the tax laws change almost as often as the furrnace designs do, except junkatrol, they still suck.

[jmac00]

have all the fun, ALLZHEIMER-TEMP,roflol:D you know thats not true, he keeps remembering where hvac-caulk is. lets get some small furry critters and PAAAAARTAY
and right after the party, if i got any energy left, i'm going to try and put some kinda PMA togather, now wheres that bottle of mescale

[diceman]

where the hell do you live, Mexico or something? All that tequilla, of course with the lemon, salt and dead worm it's a 4 course meal. yum.
How about breeze, with the wheel vid, this site is electric, techno and and even a bit disco. if we only had some music.......breeze???????????????

[Breeze]

That would be fun. we could be the underground napster. Anyone have mp3 files to share? might have to hide in the zone.

There is one last version of this board, i hope, and then it will be time to get some good templates, so you wont see all those boring yellow colors. There is a way for each user to select there own template, board style, when i can get a hold of some.

[jmac00]

I got to power my boat with something, you really think it runs on gas, it runs on a VERY scientific mixture of rum, tequela, vodka, last years gas bill was about $400.00. the "fuel bill" was about $500.00,
I'm going to the music store and "down load" some music

[AllTemp]

I have created and modified this template using Acrobat ... If you are familar with Acrobat and have it to can customize this to your needs....

Click on the url and try it...

http://www.alltemp-hvac.com/PM.pdf

Mel.AllTemp

[jmac00]

I'll give it the once over and see if my lawer likes it ( my 'boss' said i got to run everything by him ) see if he wants to modify it, thanx again:)

[Breeze]

It has a copyright on it. Don't think I can reprint it with that on there.

[jmac00]

we don't care about any stinking copy rights ( my lawer will though ) i'll just have to copy the thing and break out my eraser:)

[AllTemp]

My Proposal and Contracts are done up the same way, makes for real easy qoutes... Everything prints out on legal size and the template even has contractor lien law and all the otehr jargon... Of course it only suits California...


If you've got a full duplex color laser things really look sharp and work great...Other wise you just turn the paper over, duh!

Hope you guys can use it or at leat come up with some of your own ideas... Anything to make our jobs a little less stessful.... C Ya


______________________
Try Our Energy Calculator
http://www.alltemp-hvac.com
alltemp@alltemp-hvac.com

[Breeze]

right on the invoice. I only sell planned maint. no service parts allowed in Texas (without huge $$$)

Maybe I will take what you have and work it on to an invoice. I really need some good ideas for invoices. They are not much to have printed in your own design. Well they were not... now they may be higher.