Turning Every Dealer Sale into Revenue Intelligence

The Need

HeatMaster sells through independent dealers, so the dealer is the first to know when a furnace sells. HeatMaster needed to know too. Dealer pricing is based on units sold, measured by warranty registrations. Every registration affects a dealer's pricing and shows HeatMaster where sales are happening. 

But registrations took three steps: a paper form, a dealer web portal, then manual re-entry into Zoho (HeatMaster's customer relationship management, or CRM, system). Leads had a similar gap. HeatMaster sent leads to dealers by email, then followed up weekly to learn which ones became sales. HeatMaster was missing revenue intelligence. It had no clear view of which leads turned into sales or how each dealer was tracking. 

HeatMaster also had a longer-term vision it called a "Carfax for furnaces." It wanted one record for every furnace, looked up by serial number, starting with its warranty registration. The project kicked off in early 2025 with a five-month target to get a minimum viable product (MVP) into dealers' hands. 

The Challenge

Turning dealer activity into revenue intelligence meant solving a few problems at once. Dealers work in the field, often without cell service. The app had to work offline, then sync once the dealer was back in range. 

The data also had to be reliable. Zoho was the source of truth for every furnace. But serial numbers weren't required or unique, and there was no formal place to store service records. Dealers find furnaces in the app by serial number. If that number was missing or duplicated, a dealer couldn't find the right furnace, and a registration could end up on the wrong record. Zoho's data had to be cleaned up before dealers could trust what they saw in the app. 

HeatMaster also wanted dealers to update leads in the app instead of replying to emails. That meant leads had to sync both ways. When a dealer updated a lead in the app, the deal in Zoho had to update too, and the reverse. Dealers also needed to see only their own furnaces, customers, and leads. 

HeatMaster chose to build step by step, so dealers could start using the app sooner and new features could be based on what dealers asked for. 

The Solution

1. Product Discovery and Planning 

Roadmap started by working with HeatMaster to decide what the first version of the app needed to do. It came down to three things: dealer sign-in, a list of each dealer's furnaces, and service logs. Roadmap then set up weekly demos and planning calls with HeatMaster's team. Requests, bugs, and questions were tracked in Trello (a project management tool that organizes tasks on a visual board) and prioritized each week. 

2. Mobile App Design and Development 

Roadmap built the app for both iPhone and Android. It works without cell service. Anything a dealer enters is saved on their phone, then sent to HeatMaster once they're back in range. 

Dealers can now register a furnace from their phone, right on the lot. The form fills in the serial number, model, and dealer details automatically. The paper form and the double entry are gone. Each registration becomes the first entry in that furnace's history. From there, dealers log service visits, parts replaced, and photos. Later releases added customer water sample results. Any dealer can search by serial number and see the full history of a furnace they've sold. This is the Carfax for furnaces HeatMaster set out to build. 

3. System Integrations 

Roadmap connected the app to Zoho through Supabase (a platform that stores and syncs app data). Information moves both ways. Furnace records, customer details, and new leads flow from Zoho into the app. Registrations, service logs, and lead updates flow from the app back into Zoho. Dealers see only their own furnaces, customers, and leads. 

4. CRM Data Structure 

Roadmap worked with HeatMaster's Zoho partner to clean up the data behind the app. Every furnace now has a required, unique serial number, and service records are stored in their own section of Zoho. This work also led to a fix for a duplicate serial number issue that kept some dealers from finding their own furnaces. 

5. Sales Pipeline and Reporting 

When HeatMaster sends a lead to a dealer, it appears in the app with a push notification. Dealers move each lead through four stages: New Lead, In Progress, Won, or Lost. 

Roadmap built two rules into this process that turn it into revenue intelligence. A dealer must give a reason before marking a lead as lost. Marking a lead as won prompts the dealer to register the furnace they sold. That registration closes the deal in Zoho, counts toward the dealer's pricing tier, and starts the furnace's history. Each lead also shows whether it came from HeatMaster's marketing or a trade show. 

The app also shows each dealer how many registrations they've submitted this year and which pricing tier that puts them in. It shows how many more they need to reach the next tier, and the tier they reached last year. 

The lead features went live in July 2026, ahead of HeatMaster's busiest lead season in the fall. 

6. Ongoing Support and Optimization 

Since launching on the Apple App Store and Google Play, Roadmap has released updates each quarter based on dealer feedback. Roadmap added Sentry (a tool that records what happened right before an app error), so the team can find and fix problems without asking dealers to explain them. 

The Results

The app is in active use across HeatMaster's dealer network. HeatMaster can now follow a sale from the lead it sends to the furnace a dealer registers. That gives HeatMaster a clear view of which leads turn into revenue, why others don't, and how each dealer is selling. It can improve the leads it sends, compare its own marketing against trade shows, and base dealer pricing on registered sales. 

Revenue Intelligence for HeatMaster 

• HeatMaster can see the status of every lead it sends to a dealer. 
• Every lost lead comes with a reason. 
• Every won lead prompts a warranty registration, linking HeatMaster's leads to registered sales. 
• Registrations reach Zoho without paper forms or manual re-entry. 
• Each deal shows whether the lead came from HeatMaster's marketing or a trade show. 
• Dealers update leads in the app instead of answering weekly follow-up emails. 
• leads worked through the app since July 2026, with dealer feedback on [X%] of them. 

Operational Intelligence For Dealers 

• Dealers can see their pricing tier and how many registrations they need to reach the next one. 
• New leads arrive by push notification instead of email. 
• A furnace can be registered in [X] minutes, even without cell service. 
• Any furnace's full history is one serial number search away. 
• Dealers see only their own data. 

Revenue Intelligence to Build On 

The app is the tool dealers use every day. The foundation is what sits behind it: clean data in Zoho and a connected record of every lead, sale, registration, and service visit. Every entry a dealer makes adds to what HeatMaster knows about its dealers and customers. 

That foundation makes each next step easier. [Confirm status: in-app furnace ordering and a welcome dashboard showing leads and pricing tier.] New features build on the same connected data instead of starting from scratch. 

The Carfax for furnaces started as a way to track a furnace's history. It is now how HeatMaster sees what its dealer network is selling and where to grow next.