The cash flow reality for plumbers
Plumbing is a cash-flow-intensive trade. You pay for parts upfront, pay your technicians every week, and then wait 30-90 days to collect from customers. For emergency calls (burst pipes, no hot water), customers are highly motivated to pay quickly. For non-emergency work (drain cleaning, fixture replacements), it's easy for payment to drift.
The typical residential plumbing company loses 2-4% of revenue to uncollected invoices and spends 5-8 hours per month in manual follow-up. Automating that follow-up process typically pays for itself within the first week.
Building a follow-up system that runs without you
The most effective collections system for a plumbing company has three components: a same-day payment link sent via text after job completion, an automated SMS reminder sequence for any invoice that doesn't get paid within 7 days, and an AI voice call for invoices past 14 days.
Surety handles all three. When a job closes in your system, the payment link goes out via SMS. If it's not paid within 7 days, a polite follow-up is sent automatically. At 14 days, Remi places a call. You don't think about it — it just happens.
Handling the commercial vs. residential split
Most plumbing companies have a mix of residential (net-0, pay immediately) and commercial (net-30, net-60) customers. Your automated collection system needs to handle both without calling your commercial accounts on day 7 when they're still within terms.
Surety's protected list handles this cleanly. Add your commercial accounts once, and they're excluded from all automated reminders. The system only contacts customers who are genuinely overdue, not ones on longer payment terms.
What plumbers actually say about automated collections
The consistent feedback from plumbing contractors who use automated collection tools is the same: 'I can't believe I was doing this manually.' The time savings are real, but the more important benefit is psychological — you're no longer dreading the end-of-month collections calls. The system handles it. You focus on the work.
Surety's success fee model (12% of what Remi collects) is particularly appealing for plumbers who are skeptical about adding another monthly software cost. If it doesn't work, you don't pay. If it does work, you keep 88 cents of every dollar recovered — plus all future business from customers you didn't alienate.