How to run a backflow testing company on Backflow Base.

Contents

1. Set up before the season
2. The season
3. Booking
4. Phone and texts
5. Scheduling and routes
6. Testing in the field
7. Filing with water districts
8. Payments
9. HOAs, property managers and commercial sites
10. Testers, hiring and pay
11. The rhythm: day, week, month, year
12. Accounts to open

1. Set up before the season

Sign up free, with no card. A new company starts in test mode: every email to customers and water districts goes to your own inbox, marked as a test. Take as long as you need.

1. Company. Settings → Company: legal name, license number, address, phone, timezone, and the working day (start, end, minutes per stop). Set where routes start each morning.
2. Prices. The first assembly, each extra assembly at the same visit, and the yearly plan, as a flat price or a percent off the whole bill. Optional: an early-bird price for bookings made before a date, and rush percentages for same-week and same-day visits. Only one discount applies at a time, and the customer gets the lower one.
3. Testers. Settings → Members: invite each tester. Record their certification number, its expiry and their test kit. Each tester draws their signature once in the app; it goes on every report they file.
4. Booking. Turn on the hosted booking page (/book/<your-slug>) with your colour, logo and tagline. Or keep your own website's form and post each booking to the API. Choose which business customers you take; each kind gets its own request form.
5. Card payments. Connect your own Stripe account. Charges go straight to it; Backflow Base takes no fee per payment.
6. Phone. Optional. Connect a Quo number and its AI receptionist (see phone and texts).
7. A dry run. Book a test on your own page, schedule it, file it from the field app and read what went out. In test mode, all of it lands in your inbox.
8. Go live. Turn test mode off. This starts the subscription ($50/month or $500/year, 45 days free). Only the owner should make this choice: from then on, customers and districts get real mail.

An AI assistant can do steps 1 to 7 for you through the API or MCP server: see llms.txt. Going live stays your decision.

2. The season

Most residential assemblies are on irrigation lines. You can test them only while the system has water pressure. So the work comes in a season, and most of the selling happens before the season starts.

• Testing season. The company has a testing season, April 1 to September 30 unless you change it. A client account can have a narrower season of its own, for example an HOA that turns its water on late.
• Peak. The first months of the season are the busiest, because many districts send their annual notices in spring. Hire and train before then.
• Off-season. Use these months to sell and to prepare. Pitch HOAs and property managers before they set their budgets. Find referral partners such as irrigation companies and plumbers. Take early bookings at the early-bird price, then hire and certify testers.
• Indoor and commercial. Indoor assemblies can be tested all year. If you take that work, schedule it in the shoulder months to keep testers busy.

3. Booking

• Homeowners book online. They give the address, a mobile number, how many assemblies, and whether they want the yearly plan, then pay by card. They don't pick a day; you route them (see scheduling).
• Your own website. If you keep your own form, post each booking to POST /api/booking/request, with a unique requestId so a retry files once. If your site charged the card already, send paidAtBooking with your API key.
• Each address finds its district. A new household is placed in its water district from the map. A household near a boundary shows "Near a boundary — check" until someone confirms it.
• Promo codes. Settings → Company → Promo codes, for mailers, door hangers and partners. Switch a code off when the campaign ends.
• Business customers ask for a quote; they don't book. See HOAs and commercial.
• Every lead counts. If your own site captures half-finished forms, call those people back within a business day.

4. Phone and texts

Many customers phone instead of booking online. An AI receptionist in Quo can answer when nobody in the office picks up, and Backflow Base turns each call into a booking.

1. Webhook. In the app, turn on phone intake to get your webhook URL. Paste it into Quo (Settings → Webhooks) with call.completed and call.transcript.completed ticked. Then save the signing secret in Backflow Base.
2. Script. Copy the receptionist script from the app into Quo. It is written from your prices and hours, and it tells business callers about the request form instead of quoting them. Copy it again whenever your prices change.
3. Texts. Register your number for 10DLC texting in Quo as a business: put the texting-consent wording on your booking form first. Then save a Quo API key in Backflow Base. After each phone booking, the caller gets a text from your number with their own pay link, sent to the mobile number they gave. If the text can't go, the office email says NOT SENT, and someone in the office sends the link by hand.
4. What the receptionist never does: take a card, promise a date, or quote a business customer.

5. Scheduling and routes

• Requested work. A booking lands as Requested. The office gives it a day, a tester and an arrival window on the schedule board. The customer gets "you're scheduled".
• Route the day. This puts each tester's stops in driving order from where the day starts. It asks you first, because it moves stops.
• Group the work. Give each tester an area on set days, so they drive less. Put large HOA, builder and commercial jobs on quieter days.
• Plan capacity in tests per day. A single home takes about 20 minutes on site, plus driving. A day at an HOA can be several times as many tests. Start hiring the next tester before the booked work fills the testers you have.
• Reminders send themselves. The daily run reminds each customer the day before. The tester taps "on the way" when they set off.

6. Testing in the field

• The field app runs on a phone or a tablet in a rugged case. The steps are: the day's stops, on the way, start the test, photograph the tag, enter the readings, done. It works with no signal and sends when it reconnects. It scores pass or fail as the tester enters the readings.
• Procedures. Use the test procedures for RPZ, double check, PVB and SVB, and the failure tables on each page.
• A failed test needs a follow-up before it can be submitted. If you don't do repairs, refer the customer to a plumbing partner and book the retest.
• Submit makes the report for the district and the customer's certificate. A manager can correct a filed result. A reason is required, and the history is kept.
• Paper backup. Carry paper test forms for when a tablet dies. The tester fills one in and phones the office, and the office files the result. Hand the paper in every week.
• The kit. Have each test kit checked for accuracy as often as your state or districts require (often every 12 months). Record its details on the tester's profile. Keep spare parts and a backup kit.

7. Filing with water districts

• Every report goes to the district that serves the address. The district list is researched, not guaranteed. A filing to a district nobody has confirmed is held for the office to release. Confirm your main districts' contacts before the season.
• Booked notice. When a test is booked, the district is told. This notice waits until the month of the test, so it lands when the district starts chasing. A district that has already been told hears about a reschedule or cancellation at once.
• Results. When the tester submits, the report goes out. The Filings page shows everything that was sent, and everything held and why. Clear the held list every day.
• Next year. About eleven months after a test, households with nothing booked get a "you're due" email with your booking link.

8. Payments

• Charge at booking. Online bookings pay by card when they book. Phone bookings pay by the texted pay link. A job shows whether it is paid before you schedule it.
• Your Stripe account. Charges go to your own connected Stripe account, and only Stripe can mark a payment paid. Do refunds in Stripe. Cancelling a job doesn't refund it.
• Business customers are usually invoiced and pay by ACH, or buy a batch of tests in advance (see below).

9. HOAs, property managers and commercial sites

One HOA can bring as many tests as a month of homeowner bookings. These customers are client accounts: an account has sites, and a site has units.

1. The request. The customer fills in the request form for their kind of business (/accounts/<your-slug>?kind=hoa, and so on), or you embed the form on your own site. The contact is signed in to a portal straight away. Until you confirm the account, the portal shows only the site they typed in.
2. Confirm. Check the customer is who they say they are, then confirm the account. Until then, no household can be put under its sites.
3. Sell tests in bulk. Sell a site a batch of tests at a price per test you set. The customer pays the batch by card, or you mark it paid. The contact then books units from the portal, and each booking uses one test. If you cancel a job, its test goes back to the batch.
4. Documents. The portal keeps the site's test records and uploaded documents, such as district notices. Each upload is read and filed by type, site and unit.
5. Offer. Set one or two test days with the HOA well in advance, with a unit list and access arranged. Make it an annual agreement that renews itself.
6. Spread the risk. Don't let one customer become a large share of your revenue.

10. Testers, hiring and pay

• When to hire. Post in the winter, so new testers can be certified and trained before the peak. Look in tester certification classes, and among plumbing and irrigation workers.
• Hiring steps. A phone screen, then a paid ride-along, then background and driving checks, then the offer and the paperwork. Follow your state's new-hire reporting rules.
• Training. Free exam prep and the VR wet lab first. Then ride-alongs, then supervised tests, then solo. If you pay for certification, write down what a tester repays if they leave early.
• Employment. Seasonal testers are usually employees who are laid off and rehired each season. Ask your accountant before you treat anyone as a contractor.
• Pay. The owner's analytics page shows each technician's pay for a period: a base amount plus an amount per test, with a daily minimum. Check your state's rules for piece-rate pay, such as paying separately for breaks and time between tests. Reimburse mileage if testers drive their own vehicles.
• As the team grows, add roles in this order: a lead tester, then someone to run dispatch, then an operations manager and a commercial sales rep.

11. The rhythm: day, week, month, year

Daily

Schedule the new Requested jobs. Route the day. Release or fix held filings. Check NOT SENT pay links and call back leads. The daily run then sends tomorrow's reminders, the district notices whose month has come, and the "you're due" emails.

Weekly

Owners review the week on the analytics page, including technician pay, and compare booked work with what the testers can do. Collect paper forms. Restock kits.

Monthly

On the first of the month, the district notices for that month's tests go out. Review the month's numbers.

Yearly

Check each kit's accuracy and each tester's certification expiry. Update prices and the early-bird date, then copy the receptionist script into Quo again. Confirm your district contacts. Save cash for the off-season. Make sure your company filings and workplace posters are current.

12. Accounts to open

• Backflow Base: free to set up, with a plan when you go live.
• Stripe: your own account, connected for card payments.
• Quo: a business number, the AI receptionist, 10DLC registration as a business, and an API key for texts. Set your caller ID name (it can be at most 15 characters).
• A domain and website, with email on your own domain. A Google Business Profile, for reviews and maps.
• Payroll, a business bank account and bookkeeping, set up before your first hire.
• Your state and water districts: your tester certifications, your business license, and whatever each district needs before it accepts your reports.

The software

• Bookings from a booking page, your own website, and an AI receptionist on your phone.
• Schedule board and route for each tester.
• Field app that scores every test, even with no signal.
• Test reports sent to the water system that serves each address.
• Card payments to your own Stripe account, and yearly renewals that charge after the test.
• Client portal for HOAs, property managers and contractors.
• $50/month flat: no per-test fee, no cut of payments.

• Every feature →What the app does, part by part.
• Compare →Next to other backflow and field-service software.
• Start free →No card. $50/month or $500/year once you go live, 45 days free.
• Free exam prep →Study questions, practice exams, device tests, a VR wet lab.

Contact

hello@backflowbase.com