Service Titan Knowledge Base

Best practices for managing business unitsLast updated on 06/09/2022

Business units (BUs) allow you to track and report on different sectors of your business. These best practices help to ensure you get the most accurate information out of your reporting and metrics.

Note: While this list covers the default components in ServiceTitan, it is not an exhaustive list, and there may be other Business Unit mappings specific to your account’s configuration. We encourage you to think about any reports or documents that include the Business Units documented, and please surface that at an upcoming ServiceTitan Success Meeting with your CSM.


Things to know

  • Set up a simplified structure of the new BU in your ServiceTitan NEXT account before adding it to your ServiceTitan LIVE account to see all of the connections in action before setting up in your live account.

  • When you’re ready, set up the BU in your Live account during after hours (and have a contingency plan for on-call technicians) as the account setup changes could lead to job interruptions. The setup should be done in one sitting to minimize interruptions.

  • If you are deactivating a business unit after the reassigning processes, make sure to export any data from our Reporting for your records. (Your data from the deactivated BU will still exist in the ServiceTitan database but will not be immediately available for on hand reporting.)

  • Always talk to your CSM first before making extensive changes to the setup in the Live account. This guide is a tool to verify the settings a BU touches, but this process should be reviewed with your CSM for account-specific implications.


Create a business unit

To create a new business unit:

  1. Go to the navigation bar and click Settings .

  2. From the side panel, click Operations > Business Units.

  3. Click Add to create a new BU.

  4. Enter business unit settings as needed in each of the tabs: Tip: When creating additional BUs, you may use a lot of the same information as existing BUs, such as name, contact information, invoice fields, etc. It can be faster to open a second window and click Edit on one of the existing BUs. Then you can copy and paste the information that would be the same in the new BU. 

  5. Enter business unit settings as needed in each of the tabs: Tip: When creating additional BUs, you may use a lot of the same information as existing BUs, such as name, contact information, invoice fields, etc. It can be faster to open a second window and click Edit on one of the existing BUs. Then you can copy and paste the information that would be the same in the new BU.

    1. Details tab—Fill out information on the Details tab. Tip: It is important to fill in the settings for Trades and Divisions when creating a BU. This directly affects the Technician Scorecard on the dashboard and allows you to filter by those trades and divisions in your reports. This provides the most granular reporting. 

      1. TradesSpecialties, such as HVAC, Electrical, or Plumbing

      2. DivisionsDepartments, such as Install, Sales, Service, or Maintenance

      You can create your own custom trades and divisions on the Business Unit tab within your Reporting Settings. See Add and edit business unit categories for more information. 

    2. Address tab—Fill out information on the Address tab

    3. Payroll tab—Fill out information on the Payroll tab

    4. Quicbooks tab—If you use the Quickbooks integration, fill out information on the Quickbooks tab. Note: If you use Quickbooks Desktop, see the ServiceTitan Web Connector Setup Guide for instructions. If you use Quickbooks Online, new BUs are connected during your first export.

  6. Click Save when you're done.


Verify mapping of business unit to Technician Scorecards

The information that appears in the Technician Scorecard section of your dashboard is dependent on mapping your BUs to divisions. If a BU is not mapped to a division, the data from any job with that BU assigned (or invoice items assigned to BUs if your account is configured to use that setting) will not show in the technician scorecard. See Map business units to Technician Scorecards for more information.


Add the business unit to payment processors

If you use ServiceTitan Payments and/or Bank Accounts (ACH) for payment processing, you must connect the new BU to those processors. Your technicians will not be able to accept payments on jobs with the new BU if this step is not completed. See Payment settings for more information.


Update arrival windows

If your account is configured to use Arrival Windows, it is important to confirm that your existing arrival windows need to be readjusted for the change in BUs or if additional arrival windows need to be created. Note: This step may not be necessary as assigning arrival windows to specific BUs is optional but it is important to verify. See Use Arrival Windows for more information.


Pricebook categories and subcategories

If you use BUs in your Pricebook categories and subcategories, you may need to adjust the newly updated BU to reflect the relevant changes. This process can be used to restrict categories to technicians in Mobile by assigning the technician a BU and then connecting the BU to certain categories and subcategories. See Set up and manage pricebook categories and subcategories for more information. Tip: You can update your Pricebook categories and subcategories in bulk to make this step easier. See Add and edit items with the Pricebook Excel template for more information.


Assign all relevant job types to the new business unit

Assigning BUs to job types ensures that your CSRs don’t select the wrong BU when booking a job. You can add multiple BUs to any job type. See Set up and use job types for more information.


Adjust business units assigned to technicians

When you assign a technician to a BU, you can use the Business Unit filter on the Dispatch board to locate any technicians with that assigned BU. The technician’s assigned BU also allows the technician to see pricebook items that are assigned that BU as well. See Add and manage technician profiles for more information.

This step is important for Purchase Orders after the Purchasing module is set up as the Replenishment PO will automatically be assigned to the technician’s BU. Note: You can only assign a technician to one BU.


Assign business units to campaigns

Assigning a BU to a campaign provides assistance when filtering on the call screen. If a call comes in from a campaign, it recommends that a job be booked that’s linked to that BU. See Adding marketing campaigns in ServiceTitan for more information.


Verify customer-facing information in customer notifications

Your customer notifications may use one or all of the following tokens:

  • Business Unit Official Name

  • Business Unit Phone Number

  • Business Unit Email Address

This information is pulled from the BU settings entered when creating the BU and should be verified to ensure they reflect correctly in your customer notifications. See Customize notification message templates for more information.


Assign or reassign business units on your alerts

If you have alerts that include the BU as a filter setting, you may need to update or add an alert with the newly created BI. See Use alerts for more information.


Reassign estimate template business units

Estimate templates can have BUs assigned so that the template can only be used on jobs with the matching BU. This is to make browsing the list of available estimate templates more efficient by only showing templates relevant to the job’s BU. See Create and edit estimate templates for more information.


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Important note: Some features may not be currently included in your account and additional configuration may be required. Please contact technical support for details.


Disclaimer: Information provided in this article is for informational purposes only and it should not be construed to be legal advice. Information provided in this article may also not constitute the most up-to-date legal or other information. You should not act or refrain from acting on the basis of any information in this article to meet any compliance requirements without seeking independent legal or other professional advice.