Use cases · HVAC Equipment ordered March 4 · still not shipped

Most of the job is on a truck somewhere.

Before a single duct goes in, half your exposure is a purchase order for two condensers and two air handlers. BLT holds that as committed money from the day it’s acknowledged — so the ledger stops telling you the job is 41% spent when it is 92% obligated.

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The ledger

The equipment line decides the job.

Two systems in a 4,100 square foot house: a four-ton and a two-ton, priced off a Manual J run in February and ordered in March. Everything else on this sheet — duct, line sets, controls, labor — adds up to less than the gear.

HVAC · two systems Ridgeline Lot 4 $16,040 / 39,350

Line	Baseline	Current	Committed	Actual
Equipment, 2 systems	16,400	17,950	17,950	—
Ductwork, boots & fittings	6,800	6,800	1,240	5,610
Line sets & refrigerant	2,100	2,100	—	2,480 ↑
Thermostats & controls	1,450	1,900	900	1,010
Rough-in labor	8,200	8,200	—	6,940
Startup & commissioning	2,400	2,400	—	—
Contract total	37,350	39,350	20,090	16,040

Line sets went $380 over because the attic handler moved 24 feet north after the truss layout came back and two runs got built long. A number that small stays invisible until closeout. It is red in June instead.

In the field

Priced by the run, built in an attic.

Duct gets bid off a takeoff and installed in 130-degree air by two men who will not be filling out a form afterward. What gets captured has to happen while they’re standing there.

Photograph the trunk and the branch runs before insulation — hangers, straps, the plenum connection, the damper positions
Shoot the supply house ticket for boot and fitting pickups; BLT posts each line to ductwork or controls
Clock to rough-in, set, or startup so the three visits don’t collapse into one labor number
Record the equipment tag and serial off the data plate at set, attached to the job
Attics and mechanical closets have no signal. Everything queues and uploads on the drive out

In the office

Committed is the number that matters.

On an HVAC job the invoice arrives long after the decision. If the ledger only shows actual, you are reading a report about February in the middle of June.

Equipment posts to committed the day the order is acknowledged, with the PO, the lead time, and the promised date
A substitution is a logged change with a who, a when, and a why — not a new number that appeared
Progress billing per phase: rough-in complete, equipment set, startup outstanding
Stored-material billing supported with the invoice and the photo of the gear on the pad
BLT flags a committed line that has been open past its promised date instead of waiting for you to remember

Committed money

Eighty-nine days and no invoice.

Nobody forgets they ordered equipment. They forget what it does to the margin report every month it sits between the order and the delivery.

Committed, aging 6 min ago

Ridgeline reads 41% spent and it is 92% obligated. PO 2214 to Gustave Supply — two condensers, two air handlers, $17,950 — was acknowledged March 4 with a 14-week lead and has been open 89 days. Actual on the job is $16,040 of $39,350. Add the $20,090 committed and $36,130 of a $39,350 contract is already decided. Your April and May margin reports both read 41%.

Open PO 2214

Morning recap · 6:02 a.m.

Gustave moved the Ridgeline ship date to July 8, third revision. Startup was scheduled for June 24 and now has nothing to start up. The planner has the conflict.

What equipment is on order and where is it? ⌘K

Ask BLT answers from your POs and your transactions, not a template.

Three places the money moves

Load, substitution, startup.

Manual JLoad

The calc is the reason the equipment is the size it is. Keep it on the job with the plan revision it was run against, so when the window package changes in April you can price what it did to the number instead of eating it.

HeldCalc, plan revision, and date on the job file

LinksEquipment line, submittal, and the sizing decision

+$1,550Substitution

The two-stage 96% you bid is on allocation and the distributor offers a variable-speed in its place. The swap is a real number against a locked baseline: $1,550 more equipment, one fewer control board, and a thermostat that isn’t the one on the submittal. All three get logged together.

BeforeBaseline 16,400, submitted February 11

AfterCurrent 17,950, logged with reason and approver

StartupClose

Charge, static pressure, temperature split, airflow per register, and the photos. Six percent of the contract, and the only phase whose paperwork gets asked for eleven months later on the warranty walk.

RecordReadings, serials, and photos per system

ClosesThe phase, the retainage, and the final billing

Scope

Four phases, months apart.

The gap between rough-in and startup is where the job’s margin quietly changes. Each phase carries its own hours, its own material, and its own percent complete.

Load & submittals

Manual J, equipment selection, and the submittal package. Two days of office work that sets the biggest line on the job.

Rough-in

Trunk, branches, boots, line sets, and low voltage. Priced by the run, photographed before it disappears above the ceiling.

Set

Pads, hangers, condensers, and air handlers. The day the committed line finally becomes an actual one.

Startup

Charge, balance, commission, and hand over the readings. The phase that releases the retainage.

Questions from the shop

How it handles the awkward parts.

The unit I bid is unavailable. How does the swap get recorded?

Baseline stays where it was — that is what you priced and what the builder accepted. Current moves to the new number with a reason, a date, and a name attached. Both stay visible on the same row forever, so when you bid the next twelve of these houses you know what the substitution actually cost you instead of guessing.

We bill for stored material. Does that work?

Yes. The equipment invoice posts as actual with the photo of the gear on the pad or in your warehouse, and the pay application line carries both. The committed balance drops as the actual rises, so the job never double-counts the same condenser.

Can hours split across three systems in one building?

The crew picks the phase at clock-in and can switch mid-day. On light commercial you can run a phase per unit or per floor — six rooftop units, six lines, six sets of hours — and still see which one ran long.

What happens to the schedule when the equipment slips again?

Startup is a scheduled phase with a crew on it. When the ship date moves, the planner shows what else moves with it and BLT says so in the morning recap rather than letting two techs drive to a house with no equipment in it.