Stop Guessing: top-20% benchmarks for air conditioning, heating & refrigeration businesses

Air conditioning, heating and refrigeration (often called HVAC) businesses aren’t guessing—the top 20% run on data. Accountants are uniquely placed to turn that data into action.

Top-20% targets at a glance

• Revenue bands: small $500k–$1.2m · mid $1.2m–$3m · leaders $3.5m–$5m+
• COGS 27–33% · Subcontractors 10–12% · Rent 2–5%
• Wages 20–25% · Overheads 8–13% · Owner’s salary 4–6%
• Inventory turns (spares) 8×+ · Mix: 50% service / 50% installs · Quote win rate 60%+

Turn benchmarks into advisory (fast):

• Track profit by job type (install vs service vs maintenance) and optimise the mix.
• Use real-time job costing (ServiceM8 / SimPRO / Fergus) to stop margin bleed.
• Push maintenance contracts for recurring revenue and higher valuation.
• Review pricing annually (hourly, callout, markups) to keep pace with costs.
• Lift technician utilisation by tightening scheduling and reducing non-billables.
• Take deposits/progress payments on installs to protect cashflow.
• Benchmark vehicle costs and warranty/call-back rates monthly.
• Validate the owner’s salary so profit isn’t artificially inflated.

At TaxFitness this is a workflow: pick the industry → run Top-20% benchmarks → get prescriptive actions → export a client-ready report in minutes.

👉 Start your 14-day free trial and run the Air Con & Refrigeration benchmark today.