Written by the EasyDone team. Last checked 10 October 2026.
The right job management software for a Perth trade business is the one that still works in your worst week: a January heatwave, a full diary and a commercial job running at the same time. Judge it on the twelve points below, from booking against who's actually free to support in Perth hours, not on how calm the demo felt. Then see how the local favourites line up on them, and where EasyDone fits.
To keep it concrete we'll run the checklist on a made up example: Parker Air Conditioning in Midland. Owner Reece Parker, seven techs, two in the office, split systems and ducted for houses out through the hills, plus a growing pile of commercial maintenance in Hazelmere and Kewdale. In summer the phone doesn't stop.
The 12-point Perth checklist
1. Does it survive the summer rush?
On a heatwave Monday, Parker Air takes calls from Mundaring to Ellenbrook. The software has to let the office book against who's actually free and close by, see who's overloaded before adding one more job, and move a whole afternoon when a tech gets stuck on a ducted job in Stoneville.
Main Roads WA's travel map shows roadworks and closures in real time.1 Plan around today's roads, not the clean run the salesperson did in the demo.
2. Does it know who's paying and who's opening the door?
Property manager pays, tenant lets you in, owner approves anything over the agreed limit. Three people, one job. If the software only has room for "customer", the office ends up ringing the wrong one.
3. Can a tech run the whole job from the phone?
Address, access notes, the unit's make and model, last service, photos, a timer, the checklist, and capturing serial numbers on site. If he has to ring the office for any of that, it fails.
4. Does "while you're here" get its own quote?
The tenant asks about the second unit. That's a new quote to the person who pays, not a line quietly added to today's invoice.
5. Does it handle the gear?
Ducted systems, condensers, copper, brackets. Stock has to be priced from supplier costs, reserved for the job it's going to, ordered on a purchase order and counted. A spreadsheet in the back office doesn't count.
6. Can it run a commercial job as a project?
A Kewdale warehouse fit-out isn't a callout. It needs stages, variations, a labour budget against hours burned, and progress claims.
7. Does recurring maintenance run itself?
Quarterly filter cleans for the commercial clients should land in the diary without anyone retyping them.
8. Does the invoice come from the finished job, and chase itself?
If someone retypes the job into the invoice, you'll be doing it at 9 pm. And overdue reminders should go out without anyone remembering.
9. Does the AI actually do any work?
Everyone has AI now. Ask what it does. Answering questions about your jobs is handy. Booking the job, quoting it and chasing the invoice is the bit that gets you home.
10. Will it still fit at 15 staff?
Check what happens as you grow: job caps, minimum users, setup fees, the moment you need the "enterprise" plan.
11. Can the paperwork be made non-negotiable?
Refrigerant handling and electrical work both carry licence obligations. WA's electrical licensing rules say electrical work is done by appropriately licensed people.2 The software won't hold the licence for you, but it should make a required step impossible to skip.
12. Who picks up the phone, in Perth time?
When the app falls over at 7 am our time, is anyone awake? And where does your data live?
How do the local favourites stack up?
ServiceM8 and AroFlo come up in nearly every Perth conversation, so here's the straight version. ServiceM8 covers jobs, scheduling, customer messages, quotes and invoices.3 AroFlo covers job and field work, quoting in the field and a lot more besides.4 Both are established. Both feel their age. We've worked in AroFlo ourselves: it can do almost anything, and it makes you work for every bit of it. ServiceM8 is easy to pick up, but it's built for small crews.
| Checklist point | ServiceM8 | AroFlo | EasyDone |
|---|---|---|---|
| Growing | Paid plans cap the new jobs you can add each month (ServiceM8, Pricing, read 10 October 2026) | Minimum of three users, setup fee on top (AroFlo, Field Service Management Software Pricing, read 10 October 2026) | Same system from a few staff to a big crew; see the pricing page |
| Projects | Built for short jobs over hours or days; no project object (ServiceM8 Help Center, Can ServiceM8 track overall project progress?, read 10 October 2026) | Projects with Gantt charts | Projects with each won quote and variation as a scope, Gantt, labour budget and progress claims8 |
| Stock | Stock levels update through your connected accounting package (ServiceM8 Help Center, Does ServiceM8 track stock levels or offer inventory management?, read 10 October 2026) | Inventory and purchase orders | Stock priced from supplier buy prices, reserved for the job, ordered and counted8 |
| The AI | Office Agent drafts quotes, invoices and follow-ups for you to approve inside a job (ServiceM8, AI quoting, invoicing and CRM for tradies, read 10 October 2026) | JustAsk answers questions; other agents brief and write up jobs (AroFlo, Lightning, read 10 October 2026) | The Assistant does the quote, the booking and the invoice when you ask12 |
| Feel | Simple, phone-first, small-crew | Deep, dated and hard work | Modern, and changed for your business when you ask8 |
Our view, plainly: if you're three blokes and a ute doing quick callouts, the small apps will do you for a while. Parker Air isn't that, and neither is any Perth outfit with a commercial book and a summer rush. That's the business we built EasyDone for.
How Reece's heatwave Monday runs in EasyDone
This is our own product, so weigh it that way. Here's the checklist run for real on a summer Monday.
At 7.10 the office manager, Rachel, opens the schedule and sees who's overloaded before she books the first emergency. A property manager's request comes in as an enquiry and lands on the right customer, with the tenant and owner on the record as contacts.8
The techs open Today on their phones. Each job shows the access notes, the unit history and the On my way button, with the customer's text shown before it goes. Time runs against the job, and the serial numbers of the new condenser get captured on site.8
The tenant's "while you're here" becomes its own quote. Reece doesn't build it. From the van outside a Midvale job, he asks the Assistant: "Quote the second split system at the Swan View rental to the property manager, usual rates, with a ducted option." It finds the customer and site, uses his saved rates, asks about anything it can't find, and shows him the quote before it goes. Reece checks it and sends it himself.12
The Kewdale warehouse is a project: the original quote and two variations as scopes, a Gantt, and hours burned against the labour budget, so Reece knows on Wednesday whether it's still making money, not three weeks after the last progress claim.8 The condensers for it were ordered on a purchase order from the job and are reserved, so nobody grabs one for a Midland emergency.8
The required checklist step on every install covers the licence paperwork; the job doesn't close until it's done.8 Finished jobs invoice straight from the record, and overdue reminders go by themselves.8
For point 12: EasyDone was started in Perth, and your business runs on its own server in Sydney.13 Our one honest limit for the checklist: EasyDone doesn't plan routes for you. Rachel still decides who goes where, she just does it with everyone's day on one screen.
What do Perth owners ask?
Does the software company need to be in Perth?
Not necessarily, but the support needs to work in Perth hours. A desk that closes at 5 pm in Sydney has gone home by 2 pm here for half the year. Ask for the hours in our timezone, in writing.
Can one system really handle callouts and commercial projects?
It has to, or you'll end up running two. Test both in the demo: a forty-minute split system service and a three-week warehouse fit-out with a variation. If the system makes the fit-out feel like forty callouts stapled together, keep looking.
How long should we trial before deciding?
Long enough to run your real work through it, including an ugly day. A week of normal jobs plus one deliberately awkward one (a changed booking, a "while you're here", a part that didn't arrive) tells you more than a month of tidy demo data.
What's the one checklist point people skip?
Number 10, growth. Everyone buys for the business they've got. Price it for the business you'll have in two years, with the extra techs and the extra jobs, and see which option still makes sense.
Where do you start?
Print the checklist. Take your worst week from last summer and run every product you're looking at through it, with your real jobs, not the demo's tidy ones.
If you want a second opinion on the bigger business picture, WA's small business advisory service gives free, confidential advice.14 And if you'd like to see Parker Air's Monday on screen, book a demo of EasyDone's field tools with your own jobs. We'll run your worst day, heatwave and all.
