Employing one million people and with a projected revenue of $188.8 billion through 2025, the landscaping industry is growing. Homeowners and businesses want to create attractive, well-maintained environments that enhance their living and working conditions, boost personal and customer satisfaction, and increase property values. So, landscaping firms are in high demand.

But meeting this demand is complicated. Landscapers juggle many responsibilities: quoting, estimating, scheduling, invoicing, customer service, crew management, multiple open projects, design, installation, maintenance, and much more. It’s an intricate reality that requires an industry-specific solution, like landscape business management software, to centralize tasks and handle the unique needs of a multi-crew operation.

This guide will walk you through what landscape business management software is, how multi-crew operations benefit from it, and where other enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution capabilities fit into the discussion.

What is Landscape Business Management Software?

Landscape business management software streamlines and automates the processes involved in providing landscaping services. It offers features that simplify quoting, scheduling, dispatch, field service, payment collection, inventory management, and more.

Typical End-to-End Workflow

A typical lead-to-payment workflow begins with quote creation, which often includes optional packages. Landscape ERP software enables you to easily and quickly create and send quotes to potential customers. Once a quote is approved, you can use the software to automate follow-ups, schedule the service with route mapping, and provide job checklists. While the project is active, mobile ERP access connects your field workers to the back office, enhancing communication and allowing real-time data synchronization. A completed job is finalized using the software’s invoicing capabilities (including batch invoicing) and streamlined payment process, which can be further simplified with online payments.

Field Visibility and Customer Experience

Though every landscaping management solution is different, it is particularly important for the option you choose to provide field visibility and customer experience tools. This may include client portals, so that your clients can conveniently access their accounts, make requests and payments, and communicate with you. It may also include complete field visibility, where you can monitor your crews, projects, and equipment through GPS tracking, project management tools, and more—all in real time.

Features to Prioritize for Landscaping Teams with Multiple Crews

If you’re thinking about investing in landscape management software, your first step should be researching whether the software you’re evaluating provides the specific features you need. Make sure to prioritize those that will boost efficiency and profitability. Consider the following features:

Estimating, Job Costing, and Profitability Control

When competing for a project, your goal is to provide an accurate estimate that meets the potential customer’s wishes while ensuring you make a profit. Estimating software helps you calculate projected costs using templates and kits built around your services, accounting for labor, materials, overhead, and maintenance.

With built-in job costing, you’ll also be able to track costs for each project and use this historical data to inform future pricing decisions, improve win rates, and control profitability.

Scheduling, Dispatch, and Routing

Scheduling your contracted projects, as well as dispatching and routing your teams appropriately, is a complex process when handled manually. Fortunately, landscape scheduling, dispatching, and routing features let you create and update your schedules, monitor progress, check availability, and make changes easily in one place. Look for drag-and-drop scheduling boards, route optimization, weather adjustments, and calendar views by crew or resource, which will help you reduce windshield time and no-shows.

Mobile Crews and Field Documentation

You and your field team members need to be able to communicate updates and changes instantly, which is possible with modern landscaping apps. You should be able to send messages, view locations, check job statuses, and generate (and save) documentation within a mobile application. This way, you don’t have to rely on time-consuming, error-prone paperwork or visit each site personally. It’s a seamless process that strengthens your relationship with your teams and your customers.

Inventory Tracking

Tracking inventory, such as tools, materials, and supplies (e.g., turf, fertilizer, etc.), is critical if you want to keep your costs in check. Knowing where your inventory is and how much is scheduled for each project is possible with landscape management software’s inventory tracking tools. These tools help eliminate manual spreadsheet tracking and improve your margins.

Billing, Payments, and Accounts Receivable Acceleration

Accurate and timely billing encourages equally accurate and timely payment from customers, and this can become the status quo when you use landscaping management software to automate the billing process. In addition to being secure billing solutions, such systems streamline signature, invoice, and payment procedures by managing everything electronically with batch invoicing features, stored payment methods, and automated reminders. They also shorten the quote-to-cash cycle and reduce manual follow-up.

Reporting and Decision Support

To make fast, business-building decisions, you need reliable data and reporting capabilities. Landscape management software offers real-time dashboards, pipeline visibility, crew productivity metrics, and margin analysis by job—all within one solution—so you can build your reports on data-driven information. Instead of reacting to challenges after the fact, you’ll be able to proactively manage your operations, stopping issues before they happen.

Integrations that Matter for Crews and Jobs

While landscaping business management software is a comprehensive solution, you may also need to sync with mission-critical third-party applications that are specific to your unique business needs. Look for an ERP solution with open Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), which will allow you to easily connect your comprehensive system with those third-party applications, creating a seamless, personalized solution.

Pricing Models and How to Estimate ROI

While the decision to centralize your operations with industry-specific software brings numerous benefits (e.g., decreased windshield time, improved close rates, faster invoice collection, and reduced errors, to name just a few), you’ll want to determine your possible return on investment (ROI) before moving forward.

Using conservative inputs and testing best, expected, and worst-case scenarios will give you a picture of what you can expect when you invest in new software. Keep in mind that some vendors may charge for per-user licenses, which can get expensive quickly as you add seasonal workers. Others may lock you into long-term contracts. Look for a vendor that is transparent about pricing from the start—preferably one that offers unlimited-user licensing with no long-term commitments. This means that, to retain you as a customer, the vendor will actively work to earn and keep your trust.

To get an ROI estimate in just a few minutes, you can input your data into

Where ERP Fits as Your Landscaping Business Matures

Acumatica Cloud ERP is a comprehensive, affordable, and scalable solution that will help you efficiently manage your landscaping operations, with anytime, anywhere access to all your company, project, and crew data.

For instance, our native Financial Management module delivers core tools, including General Ledger (GL), Accounts Payable (AP), and Accounts Receivable (AR), along with the more advanced reporting capabilities you need to manage cash flow, payroll, payments, and billing while tracking profitability.

The fully integrated Acumatica Field Service application can help you manage every aspect of your field service needs, from calendar boards, scheduling, billing, and route tracking to warranty management, contracts and renewals, and more.

Our ERP also provides the project control, job cost accounting, change order, and compliance capabilities your landscaping business needs to thrive in today’s digital economy. And the Acumatica Marketplace extends our comprehensive base software with integrated solutions and services from our technology partners that support your landscaping business needs.

Landscape Success with Acumatica

We believe in building the future of business together, which means we put our customers first. For you, that looks like:

• Unlimited-user access without having to purchase per-user licenses as you grow.
• A fully adaptable and customizable solution that meets your evolving business requirements.
• Flexible deployment options that suit how you run your landscaping operations.

There are many more benefits to be found in our Customer Bill of Rights. As an Acumatica customer, you’ll have access to a suite of applications that align with your landscaping workflows from a vendor that is truly committed to your success.

To learn more about how Acumatica can take your landscaping business to the next level, contact our team today.