We get it, the pen and paper and file cabinet you have been using for over a decade haven’t steered you wrong yet, but the more time you are spending in your office instead of out at a jobsite, you are losing money.
Based on a recent survey, more and more lawn care and landscaping contractors are using software to help manage their businesses. Job costing and estimating software in particular can help manage a company's costs and improve revenues. Job costing and estimating functionality is offered in many all-in-one software systems that landscapers are using to help run almost all aspects of their business. In this day-in-age, if you aren't using software to better streamline your business development, then you have fallen behind your biggest competitors.
Let’s break down the basics of what this software does, how it can benefit your business, the cost and which software may be best for you.
What Does Job Costing Accomplish?
If you want to get a better grasp on your profitability, it all begins with accurate job costing. This is the process of reviewing all associated costs on a job. For landscapers, there are a few main cost categories that are important to track:
- Materials: All materials associated with the job, such as pavers, mulch, gravel, etc.
- Labor: Every hour that every employee spends on the job, including the drive time, site prep and clean up, as well as subcontractor labor costs.
- Equipment: Include purchase cost, repair maintenance and any rental equipment.
- Overhead expenses: Rent, supplies, utilities, advertising and other costs.
This is a lot to track. As a business owner, you're tasked with not only running the business, but also making sure it's profitable.
“With our virtual estimating feature, users can respond to customer inquiries with accurate estimates within minutes from any location, at any time of day, in any weather, increasing the chances of closing the sale and eliminating the need to visit a property in-person to measure and estimate,” says Tim Robinson, COO of WorkWave, which produces Real Green Lite.
Benefits of Job Costing
In case you don’t believe job costing is important or benefits your company, ask yourself which jobs are earning, and which are losing? Job costing software can help you as a business owner plan for your company’s future based on the answers to those questions. In other words, you can make adjustments that can help increase your company’s revenue and ensure profitable jobs. This will ultimately help you decide whether you need to raise prices. Job costing software can help you decide if equipment requires too much maintenance, or if a client is costing more than they bring in.
But that isn’t all job costing software is designed for. Take a look at your day-to-day tasks and what goals you have for your crews and your business. Some marks have to be hit for your company to make a profit. The best way to increase revenue is by establishing team goals and track the results with job costing software. If you don't know what you need to do to make a profit, then it's difficult to increase revenues. In other words, you're doing the work, but can't be sure whether that work is generating profit? The software will relieve you of this guessing game by providing you with real data on estimated costs and actual costs and where you can make changes.
How Much Does it Cost?
Here comes the million-dollar question: how much does it cost? The answer that depends on what you are looking for, but the cost doesn’t have to break the bank. The total cost will depend on the size of your company and the features you need.
According to ICSTD.org, 9% of small business's revenue is spent on information technology, while medium-sized businesses spend 4% and large companies spend 3%.
This price is dependent on your crew size and the number of software systems you subscribe to. For software, you have to calculate the amount it costs per user per month. If you are using more than one software program for different management tools, then the annual cost can increase. The good news is that many platforms allow for a free or discounted trial period so you can determine if it is going to be of benefit to you and your business.
According to ICSTD.org, businesses need the following software:
- Accounting software
- Time tracking software
- Project management software
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software to manage customer relationships
- Communication software
- Payment transaction software to make payments online
- Software for sales, marketing, and public relations
- Fleet management software
Features to Consider
Don’t neglect the other aspects of your business, however. There are software features such as fleet management, customer relationship management (CRM) features, and more that can be offered in its individual software or be featured in all-in-one software that offers multiple business management features.
“Fleetio provides value in many areas to landscaping business owners/contractors-the biggest being vehicle and equipment tracking, in addition to maintenance,” says Ashlee Biggs, head of marketing at Fleetio. “Specifically, our customers tell us they value the ability to easily perform daily vehicle inspections from their mobile phones, create work orders to capture needed maintenance for vehicles, as well as integrate the data from their existing GPS / telematics providers into Fleetio.”
Software is consistently being redesigned and innovated to better bit the needs of landscapers in the industry and with that, are more all-in-one platforms and software that offer more than one function with the feedback of its end users. These are things to consider when choosing the right software for your business.
“With Real Green Lite, users can run every aspect of their business including scheduling, routing, invoicing, payments and even customer communications, from any device, any location, 24/7,” says Robinson,
