For years, Vista Landscape Ltd. in Vancouver, Canada, kept the same routine for doing business: Visit a project site; take notes for the estimate; return to the office to make the estimate; send the estimate out; wait to get approval; perform and complete the job; and, finally, collect the check for the job.
Vista Landscape Owner Kevin Slack says those trips back and forth cost valuable time and money, though.
“I found that from the first interaction with the customer through the closing of the deal, especially for jobs under $2,500, there’s just not the margin to justify all of that,” he says.
To streamline the estimating process, Vista Landscape turned to software as a solution. For $50 per month per license, the software allows Vista Landscape to complete the full sales process from reporting to estimating to invoicing all within the same system.
Most of Slack’s employees access the platform through a tablet. One feature allows them to communicate with the software developers by simply shaking the device. A screen will then appear for users to type in their suggestions or questions. One suggestion Slack made to developers was to integrate the software with QuickBooks so that transactions made in the field can be automatically entered into the accounting software. “Within six to eight weeks they had it integrated, so that was impressive,” Slack says.
