RunHank is not another system for the shop to run. It sits on top of QuickBooks and the field software already in use (Jobber today, with more field systems to come), reads from them, and gives the owner the back office view those systems were never built to show: real margin on every job, an invoice pipeline that runs from approval to sent, and a collections list a person actually works. Nothing about getting started involves moving history out of one system and into another.
Getting started means connecting what already exists. There is no signup form and no free trial. The engagement begins with a demo call, and if it moves forward, onboarding is included in the engagement and is measured in days, not months.
What you need on hand
A few things make the first week faster.
- QuickBooks Online admin access, so the connection can be authorized.
- The field software login, if the shop runs one.
- A short answer to who does what in the office: who assembles invoices from completed jobs, who approves them, and who works collections when an invoice goes unpaid.
- The shop's burdened labor rate per person, or at least per role. If that number has never been computed, that is fine; the arithmetic is covered in Know what every job actually made, and it can be worked through during onboarding rather than before it.
Nothing on this list requires a change to how the shop already works. It is information RunHank needs in order to read the systems correctly from day one.
The first week
QuickBooks connects first. A read sync pulls customers, invoices, and payments into RunHank. Nothing is written back to QuickBooks without a person approving it first.
The field software connects next, if the shop runs one. Jobs and their line items arrive read-only. RunHank never writes to the field software, does not touch scheduling or dispatch there, and never becomes a second place to manage a job.
Seats and roles come next: an owner, the office staff who assemble and approve, a bookkeeper if one is involved, and a field role limited to capturing labor hours and receipt photos against jobs, with no access to invoicing or company settings.
The dashboard is live by the end of the week, and it is honest from the first screen. Where cost data has not started landing against a job yet, the dashboard says "margin awaiting cost data" instead of showing a number that looks like a real margin but is not one.
The second week
The first invoices move through the approval pipeline. Drafts are assembled from completed jobs, reviewed and approved on a phone, then created in QuickBooks and emailed automatically the moment approval happens. A guard checks the total against what was approved before anything sends, and refuses to send if the two no longer match.
Crews or the office begin capturing labor hours and receipt photos against jobs, which is what turns "margin awaiting cost data" into a real number over the following weeks.
The receivables list gets worked for the first time: open invoices ranked by age and balance, with contacts and payment promises logged against each account as the office reaches out.
By the end of the second week, the shop has seen its own numbers move through the system once, which is a better test than any demo.
What RunHank never does
RunHank never moves money on its own. It drafts, ranks, and reminds; a person approves anything that changes an invoice, contacts a customer, or records a payment.
RunHank never contacts a customer without a person approving it first.
RunHank never writes back to the field software. The field system stays the source of truth for scheduling and job creation; RunHank only reads it.
Every action taken in RunHank, by a person or by the system, lands in an append-only audit log. Nothing is edited or deleted out of that record.
The shop's data is exportable at any time, and the shop owns it. The software is licensed; the data and the configuration belong to the shop, not to RunHank.
Where to go from here
Three other guides go deeper on the arithmetic behind RunHank:
- Know what every job actually made covers direct cost, burdened labor rates, and why margin during the job matters more than margin at year end.
- Working receivables without automation covers what a ranked collections list looks like and how a person works it without sending anything automatically.
- The arithmetic of getting paid faster covers the two stages of days to cash and what one day of delay is actually worth.