evo
Been here much more than a while
- Location
- My Island, WA
Time to get busy and make those future lil arborists.
When your done with that you can come organize my office and filing system
Paper based
- Thread starter oceans
- Start date
When your done with that you can come organize my office and filing system
Haha! We’ll, we have two on hand now. A 4 year old boy, and his little sister who just turned 3. Based on their present altitudes and interests, he will be the crane operator, and she will be the climber. Whether they follow my path or not is up to them. That’s how I see it, anyway. We could surely plan a sweet family trip across the divide to meet you all.
treebing
Been here much more than a while
- Location
- Detroit, Mi.
my wife has been running the office work as well as been doing the estimates for the last five years. as well as managing our three small children. we recently went to jobber last july and we have been really kicking ourselves for not ditching paper much earlier. i dont know how much time and energy it has saved us. it doesnt work well for some of the older clientele but we just have to remember them. It has been such a huge help and our customer service is so so so much better for everyone except old people who havent transitioned. It has really freed up both of us up in terms of time with the kids. I think we balked at the 1400 per year at first but the time and energy savings far exceeds the cost.
That’s a lot on her hands! Perhaps we’re just underachievers. We sure try real hard. We are partially digital and partially paper based. Digital is in my pocket on client intake, estimates, and invoicing. Everything in between is paper.
I just don’t do well in the digital calendar realm. It’s either micro zoom for detail, with no peripheral, or macro view with no detail. I need to see the full picture with all the detail at a glance. I have that now. Instead of switching computer windows, I just turn my head to look at the board. It’s pretty sweet.
Also, I’m curious what the process was like for her to learn the in’s and outs of the work and equipment to make accurate estimates. Forgive my ignorance of her knowledge or experience, or for even assuming she wasn’t perfect on day 1.
treebing
Been here much more than a while
- Location
- Detroit, Mi.
basically she started handling the books. after i got a suprise $15,000 tax bill right after we got married. After doing that for not very long she realized that we were losing money and I had no idea. So I was like why dont you do the estimates?. She was better than me at that part of the job on day 1 simply because she knew what we needed to make a profit in a day while I was just going by feelsz. She has been doing a lot of education to get better at it. she got ISA certified. She worked on the crew with me when we first started dating so she had an idea of the work. But yeah, she has way too much on her hands.
My life is pretty sweet, i just take a look at jobber in the morning and go do the easy part. when she does the scheduling, she does use a paper calender to kind of gives her a macro view which then goes into the jobber calendar. Jobber is nice for us on the crew because we can add stuff or delete stuff if the work order changes, we can also do estimates for the neighbor too. we advise the person we are coming or will be late with a touch of a button and it pops up as coming from the business phone not our personal phone.
we invoice on the spot with a touch of a button when the job is done. if they pay, a receipt is sent at the touch of a button.. also all the jobs are timed by jobber and all the employee time sheets are on jobber. both for the day and the job. this has really really helped track man hours and wether or not we made any money on any particular job or day or week.
My life is pretty sweet, i just take a look at jobber in the morning and go do the easy part. when she does the scheduling, she does use a paper calender to kind of gives her a macro view which then goes into the jobber calendar. Jobber is nice for us on the crew because we can add stuff or delete stuff if the work order changes, we can also do estimates for the neighbor too. we advise the person we are coming or will be late with a touch of a button and it pops up as coming from the business phone not our personal phone.
we invoice on the spot with a touch of a button when the job is done. if they pay, a receipt is sent at the touch of a button.. also all the jobs are timed by jobber and all the employee time sheets are on jobber. both for the day and the job. this has really really helped track man hours and wether or not we made any money on any particular job or day or week.
Last edited:
Great post, Kevin. That’s quite a story of the beginning of your journey. My wife wants to be part of the crew, but we’re not there yet with how young our kids are. She’s full time with them, and part time with phone calls.
We have quite similar digital benefits as you all, but just with a different software app. Lots of push button capabilities. I spoke to a bunch of developers at the last TCIA and shared our current situation. We may make a switch to another app once my wife has more time free to use it. Just hard with the kids right now.
A good reason to be paper based, or not??? Well, after 2 minutes of allowing the kids to help recycle the shredded paper while I played a spot of guitar, things began to rapidly devolve. We ended up having an epic 20 minute paper fight. Everyone joined in…grampy, even the dog, it was great. I think I needed It too. There wasn’t a square inch that didn’t get hit.
Last edited:
Reach
Been here much more than a while
- Location
- Atglen, PA
That looks like great fun! Looks like the aftermath will require a tremendous clean up as well though. There is something to be said for being paperless. I can’t have a computer fight though, I can’t afford to clean up the aftermath of that one!
I used a dust pan to scrape up the worst of it, followed by a vacuum. It only took 5 minutes, and the pressure release of the paper fight was worth totally it.
Reach
Been here much more than a while
- Location
- Atglen, PA
Sounds easy enough, and I’m sure it was worth it!
We are still sort of a hybrid thing, where I use an app to write proposals and convert them to invoices, but we turn all approved estimates into a paper copy and file it in a physical folder to ease scheduling.
Speaking of scheduling, I really feel this is the most difficult part of running a business, but especially for us working with a consortium. Working around the client preferences and weather is hard enough, but we also have to account for any sub’s availability. The variables make it challenging but we still prefer this to building a huge business.
In regards to our hybrid approach, I don’t love looking at screens and devices, so paper is a welcome thing. It’s also nice to be able to spread out a number of proposals on the desk and see them simultaneously. That’s an easy way to compile or further subdivide work by site proximity, or crew complement, or whatever. This is harder to do digitally.
Digital calendars also suffer from the same issue. Larger dry erase boards allows you to see greater detail of each day over a broader scope of time. Hugely helpful.
I’ve not been busy enough to struggle with scheduling yet, but I can see how just a few busy days and a few extra calls could create a real challenge. I’m hoping to use this entry time to smooth out some of the already obvious issues. Thanks for taking the time to write out that response. Interesting that you are still partially using a paper system.
I’m thinking might move to a crm next spring if the workflow allows for it
I’m thinking might move to a crm next spring if the workflow allows for it
Forgive me…what’s CRM?
Essentially, the simpler your operation is based on personnel, equipment and types of jobs you do, the easier it is to manage everything. The more moving parts, the more variables and challenges there are to make longer term plans or know just how long your back log is.
Just remember, the efficiency of your administrative side is equally as important as the production side.
They all have their problems. A really good, smart, hard-working office person could do all of it better than any of the apps but that has proven to be a needle in a haystack for us. Even finding someone who can just interface with Jobber and do all the other stuff like answering the phone and doing payroll has proven challenging, even with good pay.
Copy that. Joist has been good for us, and also has a pared down version with enough function for a smaller outfit. I think many apps are geared towards larger companies but I find most of them offer far more than we need.
I agree that the right person could be fine without any app at all. The native suite of software from Apple os more rhan capable. If al I did was management, that’s all I’d use.
New threads New posts
-
test
-
-
-
-
Free CEUs: February 05 & March 05 - 'Urban Forestry Today' Webcasts @ Noon (Eastern)- Started by UFT
- Replies: 0
-
-
