Home-services portfolio reporting across trades
By Derwin Lucas ·
Home-services portfolio reporting gets harder when a private-equity-backed platform owns brands in more than one trade. An HVAC company, a roofer, a restoration contractor and a bath remodeler all report a close rate, a sale and a margin, but the work behind those words follows different paths. Some measures can be compared across trades once they share a basis. Others only mean something within a single trade.
This guide covers why trades don’t share a funnel, which measures travel across trades and which don’t, and how to structure reporting for a multi-trade platform. All figures are illustrative.
Why trades don’t share a funnel
Each residential trade moves work through its own sequence of stages, so the same label sits at a different point in each one.
- HVAC, plumbing and electrical: booked calls, dispatches, completed service calls, estimates, replacement opportunities, memberships, sold work and installed revenue. Service, replacement and membership work each form their own population.
- Roofing and exteriors: inspection, claim, contingency, supplement, contract, production milestones and completion. Retail and insurance jobs take different routes, and windows, doors and siding have sales and installation cycles of their own.
- Restoration: loss, emergency response, mitigation, authorization, insurance approval, remediation, reconstruction and collection. Water, fire and mold losses can each take their own route through these stages.
- Bath and home remodeling: lead, appointment set, confirmed, issued to a rep, demonstration, contract, rescission, financing, retention, production and completion.
Where the sale happens differs by trade
Each trade has a different point at which work counts as sold, and some trades have several.
A bath remodeler might count the sale at the signed contract, after the rescission period, once financing is approved, or only when the job reaches production. A roofer doing insurance work may treat the claim, the contingency or the final contract as the sale. A restoration contractor may count authorization, or wait for insurance approval. An HVAC company has at least three kinds of sale: a service call, a replacement and a membership.
The choice changes the number even within one brand. In one illustrative brand’s month, the same records produce close rates of 33%, 27%, 20% and 13%, depending on what counts as the sale and what it is divided by. Across trades, the problem goes further: the stages being counted are different stages altogether.
Common mistakes in multi-trade reporting
Multi-trade reporting goes wrong when a measure built for one trade is applied to all of them.
- Comparing close rates across trades. A remodeler’s demonstration close rate and an HVAC company’s replacement close rate measure different events with different denominators. Neither tells you which business sells better.
- Pooling contract values across trades. A portfolio average ticket that mixes restoration jobs, roof replacements and service calls describes the mix of trades, not the performance of any of them.
- Reading revenue as performance. Revenue shows how large each brand is, not how well it performs.
- Sending every brand the same template. One template for every trade either leaves out the stages that matter to some trades or forces brands to fill boxes that don’t fit their work. Why a template doesn’t hold a definition →
A close rate is a trade’s measure. Margin is the portfolio’s.
Measures that travel across trades
Financial measures stated on one portfolio basis can be compared across trades; operating measures usually can’t.
- Gross margin and brand EBITDA, once every brand books costs the same way and carries its share of shared-service costs. Without that basis, where financing fees, installation labor and sales commissions are booked can put one P&L’s gross margin anywhere from 29.9% to 62.0%. EBITDA comparability across portfolio companies →
- Receivables and cash, aged from the same event in every trade, such as completion.
- Revenue, as a measure of size, never as a measure of performance.
- Reporting coverage: how many brands, in which trades, sit inside each total. A total that covers 22 of 25 brands should say so, and say which trades are missing. See the reporting coverage case →
Measures that belong to one trade
Operating measures should be compared only among brands in the same trade, and within a trade, among brands doing the same kind of work.
- Bath and remodeling, windows and doors: demonstration close rate, rescission and cancellation rates, financing approval, installation backlog.
- HVAC, plumbing and electrical: dispatch-to-completion, replacement close rate on service-generated opportunities, membership sales and renewals.
- Roofing and exteriors: for insurance work, claim, contingency and supplement outcomes; for retail work, contract close rate. Keep the two apart.
- Restoration: authorization to insurance approval, cycle time from loss to collection, by water, fire or mold.
Group brands by trade, and by work type within a trade, before any operating comparison. A group with one brand in it has nothing to be compared with, and that is worth saying plainly.
How to structure reporting across trades
Report financial measures across the portfolio on one basis, and operating measures within trade groups, with the population stated on every figure.
1 · Classify every brand
Record each brand’s trade and the kinds of work it does.
A roofer that also installs windows and siding, or that does both retail and insurance work, belongs in more than one group. Where its records separate the lines of work, report them separately.
2 · Define the portfolio-wide measures on one basis
Agree one financial basis for margin, EBITDA, receivables and cash that applies to every brand in every trade.
These are the measures a board can compare across the whole platform.
3 · Define trade measures trade by trade
For each trade, agree what counts as the sale and what it is divided by, and apply that definition to every brand in the trade.
A definition that suits remodeling won’t suit restoration. Each trade gets its own.
4 · State the population on every figure
Every figure should say which brands, trades and periods it covers.
A portfolio figure without its population can be correct and still mislead.
Where to start
Start by listing every brand with its trade and work types, then pick one financial measure to put on a single basis.
That list alone shows which comparisons the platform can make today and which it can’t. Goverisyn’s Portfolio Measurement Review does this across selected brands. The first step is a free 60-minute Portfolio Review, which needs no data in advance. For comparisons within a trade, see How to compare performance across acquired companies.
Start with a Portfolio Review.
60 minutes. No data needed in advance.
By Derwin Lucas, founder of Goverisyn, with nearly three decades in management and information systems in home services. Published . About Goverisyn →