The lawn and landscape industry has come a long way from having to do everything with pen and paper. Because time is money, you can impress potential clients and cut down on long work hours by taking advantage of the different types of estimating software available.
There are several different types of estimating software options available. Some focus on the takeoff aspect of the project while others can speed up the property measurement process. Some are all-inclusive and can even let you know if your proposals are at the right profit margin or on target to hit your sales goals.
Takeoff Tools
A takeoff is the process of determining how much of each material is needed to complete a landscape job. Takeoffs must be performed by experienced estimators and can take time from other aspects of the business. While this can be done manually, opting to take advantage of a digital takeoff service like Takeoff Monkey or LandOne Takeoff can speed this process tremendously and increase estimating accuracy as well.
It is essential to have an accurate takeoff to know all the materials needed to do the work. Without this, it’s a challenge to know how much labor will be required to complete the project. If you’re experiencing significant backlog at this phase of estimating, consider looking into takeoff software companies.
Property Measurement Platforms
Similarly on the lawn care side of things, the time-consuming task of property measurement can be a bottleneck for your team if they are having to go out and measure sites in person just to send an accurate quote.
There are a number of automated property measurement options out there including SiteRecon, Real Green’s Measurement Assistant and Go iLawn. While some of the available platforms have you map and measure a property from the comfort of your office, others just need the address and features you want to be measured. Depending on your skills and time needs, one of these options may be more appealing than the other.
All-In-One Estimating Software
While takeoffs are part of the estimating process, estimates apply costs to all the materials determined by the takeoff and add in other costs the contractor will face, such as labor. Aspire, LMN and Arborgold provide elaborate estimating software that can not only generate estimates but provide proposal templates with custom designs.
For this type of software option estimating is just one small facet of their offerings. If you don’t have software that is helping with crew routing, CRM, or other business aspects, picking an estimating software that provides these tools as well can be helpful.
Whichever software you decide fits your needs best, take advantage of the free demos offered for the product before going all in as most of these options require a good amount of financial investment.
