My boss , Dan is not liking the "quote" /pricing/section. He takes pride and time in writing very thorough proposals.
Like you said, they are not estimates.
He has to be very detailed in these proposals as to which tree and exactly the cutting lengths , removal, pruning, etc.
I have been looking around. One of the features of Jobber that I really liked was the ability to recieve a signature on my tablet and have it go straight onto the quote, and be sent to the client. ArborGold does support this, ArborSoftWorx does not natively (they explained a work around but I wasn't into the trouble). That was one reason alone to be heading towards ArborGold. Otherwise, overall they are very similar in function and workflow. That workflow is different from Jobber, and I'm not really sure that's a good thing. Jobber has been great and I really like the workflow from client entry-quote-work order-invoice-receive payment. I guess I'll have to learn a new system. Oh well.
I also provide very detailed proposals. In Jobber unlike KickServe there is an option in the back end to call proposals "quotes" instead of "estimates". That way I can specify in the body of the proposal whether it is a T+M (less usual) or a firm number. I also hid the quantity, and unit cost columns by default, and I show them if I am making an "estimate".
I have made my "pruning" item in Quickbooks, and therefore Jobber have a default description of:
"Prune:
Goals:
-
Specifications:
-"
for example:
Prune: Douglas fir to NE corner of residence
Goals:
- building clearance
- reduce risk of branch failure of large limbs
Specifications:
- reduce or remove branches for 36" of horizantal clearance from building
- reduce or remove branches for 6' of vertical clearance from building
- reduce end weight of 8 largest branches over residence by 25% of length (cuts should be <3" diameter)
That way I always remember to start with goals from the client, I don't let them specify since that's my job as the arborist to find that middle ground of tree care, and human goals/needs.
As far as proposals, I don't really think the AG or ASW platforms have benefits over Jobber. Maybe the dynamic proposal, but that isn't a critical part of the sales process in my opinion. I have however found a handful of proposals / year that I actually took the time to write a cover page, intro letter, and I inserted those pages before the PDF that jobber generated. After the Jobber generated part I attached all of my insurance/WC docs, and even annotated pictures, or satellite images. Mind you all of that was independent of Jobber. Then I directly emailed the proposal package to the client. I have almost all of those proposals that I did that with.
Really when it comes down to it, the only reason I am switching to a much more expensive option is integration with Quickbooks. For what it's worth I'm pretty much settled on AG.
