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Case study · Trades & field services

From the first call to the paid invoice, in one product

A software company wanted to sell job management to plumbers, electricians and heating firms, businesses that run on a diary, a van and a phone. This is how we built a multi-tenant SaaS product that a small trade business can sign up for and use the same day.

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Project overview

A multi-tenant SaaS product for small businesses.

Industry
Trades & field services
Client
Confidential
Solution
Job management SaaS
Platform
React, Node.js and React Native
Timeline
28–36 weeks
Team
7 people
Tenancy
Multi-tenant, one database
Billing
Monthly plans by number of users
Integration
Accounting and card payments

Expected business outcomes

What the client set out to achieve

The product had to sell itself, so the targets were about trial, activation and retention.

  • 25–40% Of trials converting to paid plans

    A trial business can create a quote and schedule a job in its first session.

    Target range; measured on self-serve sign-ups

  • Same day From sign-up to the first scheduled job

    Guided setup imports customers and creates the first job without a call.

    Target for a business with under ten staff

  • Under 3% Monthly customer churn

    Businesses stay once quotes, jobs and invoices live in one place.

    Target; measured after the first three months of a subscription

Business challenges

Where the client started

The market was served by tools built for large contractors, or by nothing at all.

Customers

Small trade firms running jobs from a paper diary and a messaging app.

Competitors

Products that needed a salesperson and a training day.

Prototype

A single-customer prototype that proved the idea but could not be sold twice.

Engineers

Field staff who would only ever use a phone.

Pricing

Customers who expect to pay monthly and cancel easily.

Proposed solution

What the product covers

One record for each job, from the enquiry to the payment.

  • Quotes and estimates

    Priced from a parts and labour list, sent by email and accepted online.

  • Scheduling

    A drag-and-drop diary with travel time and engineer skills.

  • Engineer app

    Job details, photos, signatures and parts used, working without signal.

  • Invoicing and payments

    Invoices raised from the completed job and paid by card.

  • Self-serve onboarding

    Sign-up, customer import and setup without talking to anyone.

  • Subscription billing

    Plans, trials, upgrades and failed-payment handling.

Project requirements

What the client asked us for

The request was a product that a five-person heating firm could adopt on a Monday morning. That ruled out anything that needed configuration by an expert.

Multi-tenancy, billing and onboarding were built before most features, because a SaaS product that cannot sign up, charge and isolate a customer is still a prototype.

What the project had to deliver

  • 01Sign-up to first job on the same day
  • 02A phone app engineers will actually use
  • 03One database, every customer isolated
  • 04Billing that runs without a finance team

Key challenges & considerations

What made it harder, and what we did

  1. Engineers working in basements and lofts without signal

    What we did

    The engineer app stored each job on the phone and synced when signal returned, so a job could be completed anywhere.

  2. Customers with no time to be trained

    What we did

    Onboarding was reduced to a guided setup with a customer import, tested on business owners who had never seen the product.

  3. Every trade pricing its work differently

    What we did

    Price lists, labour rates and job types were made configurable per business, with sensible defaults for each trade.

  4. A prototype with paying pilot customers to migrate

    What we did

    Pilot customers were migrated one at a time, with their existing jobs and customers checked after each move.

What we watched for

  • Build tenancy and billing before features
  • Watch real users before designing
  • Make the first session useful
  • Test the app where the work happens

Development process

The platform first, then the features

Working software was shown every two weeks, and pilot customers used each release.

  1. Stage 1

    Discovery

    Days spent with trade businesses, watching how a job really moves.

  2. Stage 2

    Platform foundations

    Tenancy, sign-up, roles and billing built and tested first.

  3. Stage 3

    Core job flow

    Quote, schedule, complete and invoice, end to end.

  4. Stage 4

    Engineer app

    The mobile app, tested on site with pilot customers.

  5. Stage 5

    Onboarding and integrations

    Guided setup, imports, accounting and payments.

  6. Stage 6

    Release

    Pilot customers migrated, then general release with monitoring.

Technology stack

One codebase for every customer

A single multi-tenant application, with isolation enforced in the data layer.

Front end

  • React
  • TypeScript
  • Design system

Mobile

  • React Native
  • Offline storage and sync

Back end

  • Node.js
  • PostgreSQL with row-level security
  • AWS

Platform

  • Stripe billing
  • Automated tests
  • CI/CD
  • Monitoring per tenant

Quality assurance & deployment

Tested as a product many customers share

A SaaS product is one codebase serving every customer, so a defect reaches all of them at once. Tenant isolation, billing and upgrades were tested as deliberately as the features.

  • Automated unit and API tests, run on every change
  • Tenant isolation tests: one customer can never see another's data
  • Billing, plan and permission scenarios tested end to end
  • Code review by a second engineer before anything was merged
  • Load tests at the expected number of tenants and users

Deployment

  • 01Onboarding and integrationsGuided setup, imports, accounting and payments.
  • 02ReleasePilot customers migrated, then general release with monitoring.
  • 03Releases without downtimeUpdates shipped behind feature flags, with database changes that can be rolled back.
  • 04Monitoring and warrantyUptime, errors and usage per tenant monitored from day one, and six months of free bug fixing.

Final deliverables

A product that sells without a salesperson

A trade business can now sign up, import its customers and send its first quote in one sitting, and its engineers finish jobs on a phone in a loft with no signal.

The client has a platform it can keep building on: tenancy, billing and onboarding are in place, so new features are just features.

  • Self-serve sign-up and onboarding
  • Quote-to-invoice in one record
  • An offline engineer app
  • Subscription billing built in
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Handed over to the client

  • 01Production SaaS platformMulti-tenant, deployed and monitored
  • 02Source codeIn a repository the client can access
  • 03Billing and admin consolePlans, tenants and permissions
  • 04Test suite and pipelineIncluding tenant isolation tests
  • 05Six-month warrantyFree bug fixing after delivery

Success metrics

How success is measured

MeasureOutcomeHow it is measured
Of trials converting to paid plans 25–40% Target range; measured on self-serve sign-ups
From sign-up to the first scheduled job Same day Target for a business with under ten staff
Monthly customer churn Under 3% Target; measured after the first three months of a subscription

Verified reviews

What clients say about our SaaS development work

Verified reviews from our clients on the same kind of work, published on Clutch.

5.0 27 verified reviews
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