Ole Huoletta Oy maintains detached houses: survey, quote and the work itself. At the start of June the company's sales and delivery ran on separate forms, spreadsheets and messages. I built the company its own system, in which every project carries a single ID from lead to invoice. The first version of the whole chain was in production in five days, and since then the system has evolved for five months alongside daily use.
Starting point
Profitability in a maintenance business is decided in the same place as in energy services: in the operating model, not in any single job. When the lead, survey, quote, contract, work and invoice live in different tools, information is lost at the seams. Sales enter the same thing twice, installers can't see what was sold, and management can't tell which project actually made money.
The goal was simple: one project ID, created at first contact and carried through the whole chain. It became the backbone of financial management. Every project has one deal in the CRM and its own margin.
What was built
- Mobile maintenance survey. The salesperson goes through the property area by area and photographs findings. AI suggests a finding, urgency and recommendation from each photo. The customer gets a report without prices.
- The quote comes from the survey. Measurements and findings turn automatically into a draft quote that the salesperson finalises: main products, upsell, labour and materials separated, and the Finnish household tax credit calculated.
- E-signed contract and financing. The customer accepts the quote online and signs electronically. A financing option is shown already in the quote.
- Installer work order. Work queue, shopping list, hours, materials, photos and additional work on the phone. A finished job produces an installation document for the customer.
- Management views. Sales, scheduling, working hours, invoicing and margin per project in real time.
- Invoicing straight into accounting. Invoices go to the accounting system as e-invoices, with no manual copying.
- A public website whose enquiries flow directly into the sales pipeline.
Along the way, six separate tools the business used to run on were retired. The system is connected to the company's CRM, e-signature service, accounting, calendar and financing partner.
Timeline
- 2 June First line of code
- 3–5 June Quote engine, contract, installer work order and the customer's survey report
- 7 June The whole chain from lead to completed work in production
- 8 June All 15 development points from the management team implemented, including AI image analysis
- July Invoicing, e-signature, accounting integration and a staff training section
- August Calendar, time tracking, e-invoicing and the financing partner integration
- September–October Repeat sales, site jobs, household tax credit, scheduling and an illustrated user manual
In five months the system accumulated more than 1,400 changes and around 100 server modules. Every change that affects users has been announced in a staff bulletin; there have been 20 so far.
Developed on the users' terms
The system went live unfinished, on purpose. Sales, installers and management use it every day, and most changes have come from their feedback. One example: in October the urgency scale was reversed, because in the field people naturally read 1 as the most urgent. A small thing, but exactly the kind of thing that decides whether a system gets used or worked around.
Because the system is in production during the working day, every change is checked before release and the user manual is updated at the same time. Development has used AI, Anthropic's Claude Code, the same way as in the OksaSDR app: I decide what gets done and when it's ready, and the AI writes most of the code.
Lessons
- Process first, tool second. The project ID and one deal per project were business decisions before they were technical ones.
- A custom system is no longer only for large companies. With AI, an SME can get a system that fits its operations exactly, in the time and budget that used to cover only rolling out off-the-shelf software.
- Margin is only visible if costs record themselves. When hours and materials are entered on the work order, margin per project appears without separate reporting.
- Users make a system good. A short cycle from feedback to fix builds trust, and trust decides adoption.
The common thread
The same idea I've used to build service portfolios and partner networks: the whole chain from lead generation to invoicing is designed as one, and the result is measured by project margin. What's new is that an operating model can now be turned into software in weeks rather than years.