“There’s an app for that™,” mentioned one of many world’s largest tech firms. And garden care isn’t any exception.
In case you’re spending extra time managing employees than tending lawns you then might need an issue.
And whereas apps can’t do garden look after you, they may also help in some ways, from simplifying scheduling to calculating prices and sharing nice opinions.
Right here’s a listing of our high 10 really helpful apps on your garden care enterprise.
And, as a result of we all know small companies depend on nice individuals, we’ve began with our personal app, Homebase, which makes a speciality of scheduling, time monitoring, and workforce communication, even throughout a number of areas.
So you may spend much less time worrying about logistics, and extra time really constructing your small business.
7 methods apps may also help you handle your garden care enterprise
Listed below are some nice ways in which apps may also help your small business run extra effectively and save hours of time and stress — so you will get on with the garden care.
- Schedule employees members — Create straightforward, quick, and correct schedules on your garden care employees with apps like Homebase, so everybody is aware of the place they have to be and when.
- Simplify time monitoring — Simply file working hours, even for distant and distributed groups, to manage labor prices and keep away from time theft. Homebase and Harvest excel on this.
- Enhance buyer communication — Giving shoppers a superb first impression is essential, and you must at all times reply helpfully and promptly from the primary inquiry to the ultimate assessment. Jobber is a superb possibility right here.
- Estimate materials prices — Guaranteeing your garden care enterprise is worthwhile means appropriately estimating which supplies you want. Apps like Space Quantity Calculator and Turf Remedy may also help calculate house measurement, and purchase the correct amount of product.
- Work out pricing and revenue — Worth your providers appropriately to make sure revenue with apps like Revenue Margin Calculator. Tweak labor prices, overheads, and bills for finest outcomes.
- Establish several types of vegetation and their situation — Even consultants can use some assist typically, and apps like LeafSnap and FieldScout allow you to use your cellphone to research the well being of lawns and vegetation, so you may determine the subsequent steps.
- Share nice opinions and drum up word-of-mouth enterprise — Don’t let your garden care enterprise be the neighborhood’s best-kept secret. Apps like CamCompany allow you to take and share images and movies of your work. Whereas NiceJob collects and shares optimistic opinions for word-of-mouth referrals and on-line bookings.
The shortlist: The ten finest garden care enterprise apps
- Homebase: For scheduling, distant time monitoring, and workforce communication
- Jobber: For buyer communication
- Harvest: For time monitoring and invoicing
- Revenue Margin Calculator: For easy revenue calculations
- Space Quantity Calculator: For straightforward quantity calculations
- LeafSnap: For fast plant identification and care
- Turf Remedy: For easy fertilizer calculations
- FieldScout: For soil and plant diagnostics
- NiceJob: For buyer opinions and referrals
- CompanyCam: For subject job monitoring by way of images and video
Homebase: For scheduling, distant time monitoring, and workforce communication
Homebase is an all-in-one app designed for small enterprise homeowners who handle a workforce of hourly-based employees. It makes individuals administration a lot simpler, so you may schedule and monitor your garden care jobs, pay your workforce members precisely, and management labor prices.
How does it profit garden care companies?
Homebase is a one-stop store for all workforce administration features of your small garden care enterprise. Not like some, its cell app gives practically all the similar performance as its desktop model, so you should use it even when within the subject (or yard) on a job.
The stand-out options embrace:
- Scheduling app for automated and simple shift creation, so you may schedule employees with out clashes, on the go
- Time clock and timesheets for correct hourly monitoring, compliant working hours, much less employees burnout, much less time theft, and managed labor prices
- Payroll for fast and simple funds that take timesheets and create correct wages routinely. There’s no want for a separate device, and it’s all performed on the identical platform.
- Hiring and onboarding together with pre-written job templates, jobs board posting, job promotion, and applicant monitoring.
- Workforce communication to empower employees to share helpful job suggestions and hand over notes between shifts, for a greater group, improved working circumstances, and better productiveness — even when employees aren’t working in the identical location
- Worker happiness together with shout-outs for a job properly performed, which boosts motivation, and the choice for workers to money out wages early if wanted
- HR & compliance with federal, state, and native legal guidelines, and the flexibility to handle HR documentation and delicate knowledge in a single place
- Integrations with main instruments like QuickBooks and Toast, so you may stay productive together with your present enterprise instruments
How a lot is it?
Homebase’s app, and scheduling and timesheet device, are fully free to make use of. Nevertheless, if you wish to maximize effectivity and get essentially the most out of all the software program, we provide the next worth choices.
- Fundamental: Free for one location and as much as 20 workers. It consists of fundamental scheduling and time monitoring, worker administration instruments like Messaging, point-of-sale integrations, and entry to electronic mail help.
- Necessities: $24.95 per thirty days per location. The whole lot in Fundamental, plus payroll integrations, workforce communication, efficiency monitoring, superior time monitoring and scheduling, and entry to stay help.
- Plus: $59.95 per thirty days per location. The whole lot in Necessities, plus hiring instruments, retention and efficiency monitoring, break day controls, and departments and permissions.
- All-in-one: $99.95 per thirty days per location. The whole lot in Plus, with HR and compliance, new rent onboarding, labor value controls, and enterprise insights.
Customers also can save 20% on their total value after they join an annual plan.
Accessible on iOS and Android.
2. Jobber: For buyer communication
Jobber goals to enhance customer support and communication, from preliminary inquiry to closing fee. You’ll be able to ship quotes by textual content and electronic mail, observe up simply, and save hours on invoicing.
How does it profit garden care companies?
Jobber has all kinds of options throughout shopper messaging, invoicing, and communication.
- Cell app designed to work on the go when within the subject
- On-line quote requests and jobs bookings for shoppers
- Automated garden care job scheduling to assist plan your day and embrace breaks
- Job reminders and appointment notifications for workers and clients
- Skilled quotes despatched by textual content message and emails
- Job monitoring to watch bills and ongoing notes
- Card reader and on-line fee system
- Shopper knowledge storage and full shopper historical past
- Automated follow-ups to shut jobs or remind shoppers to pay
- Batch invoicing for quick billing
How a lot is it?
Jobber has 4 ranges of paid plan.
- Lite: $19 per thirty days for one person. Limitless shopper messaging, quotes and invoices, and on-line funds.
- Core: $56 per thirty days for one person. The whole lot in Lite, plus job scheduling and administration, reporting, and on-line request type.
- Join: $19 per thirty days for one to 5 customers. The whole lot in Core, plus automated reminders and funds, customized types and schedules, and integration with accounting and automation instruments.
- Develop: $280 per thirty days for one to fifteen customers. The whole lot in Join, plus quote add-ons, automated quote follow-ups, two-way textual content message, and lead administration.
You may also attempt it free for 14 days. Available on iOS and Android.
3. Harvest: For time monitoring and invoicing
Launched in NYC in 2006, Harvest was one of many first mobile-friendly time trackers. It nonetheless makes a speciality of time monitoring (and says it ends in 80% much less admin), however now it additionally helps you to ship invoices, create studies, and monitor budgets. Harvest additionally has a rising vary of integrations and a forever-free plan.
How does it profit garden care companies?
Harvest’s options are cut up throughout three essential classes: time monitoring, studies, and invoicing.
- Cell, desktop, and browser time monitoring wherever you and your workforce are
- Device integration for seamless time clocking and integration
- Automated reminders for workers to assist guarantee correct monitoring and breaks
- Price range updates and price monitoring to maintain initiatives on monitor
- Workforce capability monitoring to make sure no-one’s over- or under-worked
- Time evaluation to see which initiatives are impacting prices essentially the most
- Detailed filters that will help you make data-driven choices
- Invoices created precisely with time monitoring
- On-line funds and easy accounting with integrations like PayPal, Stripe, and QuickBooks
How a lot is it?
There are two choices.
- Free: $0. Contains “one seat” (or person), and two initiatives. All options.
- Professional: $12. Contains limitless “seats” and limitless initiatives. All options.
Harvest additionally gives a 30-day free trial. Available on iOS and Android.
4. Revenue Margin Calculator: For easy revenue calculations
Revenue Margin Calculator helps service companies with hourly employees to calculate their internet revenue margin. Not strictly an app, however a web based device from communication platform Jobber, it really works on telephones, tablets, and desktops.
How does it profit garden care companies?
Revenue Margin Calculator helps you to enter 4 completely different figures after which offers you your revenue and markup. This implies you may add up prices, labor, and overheads, and see the place you’re overspending or not charging sufficient. Relying in your business, your internet revenue margin is probably going about 10-20%.
The calculator:
- Helps you to add labor, materials, and overhead prices
- Elements within the service worth you cost your shoppers
- Reveals you the way a lot revenue you’re incomes on accomplished jobs
How a lot is it?
It’s free. Jobber additionally gives a free bill template that you could full and ship to shoppers, when you’ve labored out your prices and the way a lot revenue you need to make.
5. Space Quantity Calculator: For straightforward quantity calculations
With one other clear title, this app works on smartphones and tablets, and helps you calculate the world quantity of a 3D form. That is good in case your newest garden care or landscaping job requires you to clear or fill an area. It additionally calculates by space (2D) or quantity (3D), utilizing presets. And it’s free.
How does it profit garden care companies?
The device is straightforward to make use of and works like a calculator. You sort in your dimensions, and it offers you the outcome.
Options embrace:
- The flexibility to enter depth, top, and width dimensions
- 170+ preset shapes like cylinder or dice, plus subshapes like parallelepiped (3D parallelogram)
- Swipe by classes and shapes to pick or sort to go looking immediately
- Calculation strategies for partial measurements, e.g. in the event you solely have the radius measurement
- Materials selector that features 1,500 supplies, similar to metals, wooden, soil, or liquids
- Calculations in metric and inches, from millimeters to miles
- Illustrations of the shapes and clearly labels dimensions to assist understanding
How a lot is it?
Free to obtain and use. Accessible on iOS and Android.
6. LeafSnap: For fast plant identification and care
Leafsnap is an intuitive app that turns your smartphone digicam into an analytical lens. Snap a photograph of a plant and the app identifies it, and provides you a step-by-step information on how one can maintain it. Plus, LeafSnap is aesthetically pleasing and addresses its customers as “plant lovers,” which is a pleasant contact.
How does it profit garden care companies?
LeafSnap is a straightforward however highly effective solution to determine vegetation and know what you’re coping with in a backyard. Options embrace:
- A database of 32,000 forms of vegetation from internationally
- Reminders on your every day plant-care duties
- Recommendation on the easiest way to {photograph} your vegetation
- Step-by-step care guides for every plant
How a lot is it?
There are two methods to make use of LeafSnap.
- Professional: Free to obtain and use. Contains advertisements and limits on plant identification and care guides.
- Premium: $5 per thirty days or $26 per 12 months. Removes advertisements. No limits on plant identification or step-by-step care guides. Entry to the total plant database, and superior identification.
Available on iOS and Android.
7. Turf Remedy: For easy fertilizer calculations
Determining fertilizer is essential for a garden care specialist, since getting it flawed may be costly and harmful. This app lets you calculate the granular and liquid fertilizer software charges of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (Okay), and goals to assist garden care companies prepare employees and calculate quotes. Because the app’s creator says: “Say goodbye to lengthy, drawn out, mind-numbing math!”
How does it profit garden care companies?
The app has a number of highly-focused options, together with:
- Granular or liquid calculation price choices
- A “remedy journal” to watch the merchandise utilized
- A value calculator to maintain initiatives on monitor
How a lot is it?
The app prices $0.99 to obtain, for all options. Accessible on iOS and Android.
8. FieldScout: For soil and plant diagnostics
FieldScout, or FieldScout GreenIndex+ Turf to present it its full title, could sound difficult however its purpose is straightforward. It gauges turf well being by measuring its relative “greenness” (or chlorophyll content material.) The app makes use of what it calls the DGCI (Darkish Inexperienced Shade Index) and, by your cellphone’s digicam, helps you establish your turf’s well being, so you may determine your subsequent steps when caring for a turf garden.
How does it profit garden care companies?
The app is comparatively easy to make use of, with options together with:
- A white stability lock on your cellphone’s digicam, to assist create the proper shade reference
- Timestamp and GPS log data (if Location Providers are enabled), to be used with different applications if you want
- The flexibility to mix a number of samples right into a single computation
- Picture pairing for comparability of various sections of turf
How a lot is it?
The app prices $49.99 to obtain and use, for all options. Accessible on iOS.
9. NiceJob: For buyer opinions and referrals
What’s higher than a cheerful garden care buyer? A contented garden care buyer that tells everybody how nice your work is and will get you plenty of new enterprise! And this app makes getting and sharing nice opinions even simpler. Designed for native companies that depend on word-of-mouth, it helps you get extra opinions, extra referrals, extra internet presence, and extra gross sales.
How does it profit garden care companies?
The NiceJob platform splits its options throughout six classes: opinions, referrals, websites, social proof, insights, and presents. These embrace:
- The flexibility to share opinions on-line and get excessive rankings on engines like google
- Automated optimistic assessment sharing on social media to drive engagement
- Automated referral invitations for purchasers to share suggestions to others
- Evaluation and referral requests by way of textual content for simple communication
- Microsite internet builder designed for small enterprise homeowners to generate extra direct bookings
- Social Proof web site widget to embed optimistic opinions by yourself website
- The flexibility to supply presents for purchasers, together with tokens and thank yous, to construct loyalty
- Employees leaderboards to encourage “pleasant competitors” amongst employees members
How a lot is it?
NiceJob costs its month-to-month packages relying on what number of clients you have got per 12 months. It additionally has a restricted free possibility, regardless of what number of clients you have got.
- Free: $0. Evaluation and referral requests, and reveals opinions by yourself website. Buyer administration.
- Develop: $75 per thirty days for as much as 2,500 clients. The whole lot included in Free, plus automated opinions and referral requests, automated social sharing, and employees leaderboards.
- Develop + Websites: $75 per thirty days for as much as 2,500 clients, plus $399 arrange charge. The whole lot in Develop, plus an internet site, private web site coach, search engine optimisation optimization, and advertising and marketing analytics.
NiceJob additionally gives a 14-day free trial. Accessible on iOS.
10. CompanyCam: For subject job monitoring by way of images and video
CompanyCam goals to make it simpler to handle and file progress in a subject job enterprise. As its title suggests, it focuses on managing images, movies, chats, and initiatives beneath a single digital umbrella, so you may share progress, scan paperwork, and enhance advertising and marketing.
How does it profit garden care companies?
CompanyCam makes use of cloud storage to handle each facet of its instruments. Options embrace:
- Video seize, to indicate particulars in 4K
- Photograph annotation to take photos and add textual content, drawings, and useful notes
- Doc scanning to seize PDFs and different useful papers
- Report templates to avoid wasting time on monitoring initiatives
- Offline mode, to maintain initiatives shifting even in the event you don’t have a sign
- Challenge administration, together with maps, labels, contact particulars, and GPS stamps to remain centered
- Customized checklists and to-do lists to share undertaking progress
- Integrations with instruments together with Jobber and Salesforce for a complete tech stack
- Excessive-res images and movies to indicate off your outcomes and get extra bookings
How a lot is it?
CompanyCam gives three tiers of pricing.
- Professional: $24 per person per thirty days. Contains limitless initiatives and storage. Actual-time images, checklists, templates, web site undertaking widget, PDF photograph studies.
- Premium: $34 per person per thirty days. The whole lot in Professional, plus emblem stickers, 4K movies and high-quality images, 10-minute movies, chat, electronic mail, and cellphone help, plus onboarding assist
- Enterprise: Worth on request. For 50+ customers. The whole lot in Premium, plus quarterly enterprise opinions, locked contract charges, onboarding coaching, success supervisor, and VIP chat, electronic mail, and cellphone help.
CompanyCam additionally gives a 14-day trial of its Premium plan. Accessible on iOS and Android.
From Harvest to Homebase: One of the best garden care enterprise apps
Whenever you use apps to automate your garden care enterprise, you may spend extra time specializing in really caring for lawns (and fewer time on admin.)
Relying in your wants, an app like Jobber may also help you enhance buyer communication, get on-line quotes, and ship invoices promptly. There’s Harvest for time monitoring and budgeting; LeafSnap for step-by-step guides to stunning vegetation; and Revenue Margin Calculator for, properly, calculating revenue.
Then there’s NiceJob and CompanyCam, which allow you to doc and share your work in the absolute best gentle, for efficient advertising and marketing and glorious on-line opinions.
And for an all-in-one app, you may select Homebase to handle priorities like scheduling, time monitoring, and workforce communication. It additionally offers you must-have instruments like payroll, hiring, HR administration, labor value controls, and compliance, all beneath the identical digital roof. So you may handle your individuals, simply in addition to you handle your vegetation.
As a result of there could also be an app for just about all the things, however the fewer it’s essential to juggle, the higher.