TreeBossPro Blog — Crew Dispatch & Routes

Using Reports to Review Tree Crew Routes and Workload

Most tree company owners know roughly how the business is doing. Reports turn "roughly" into something you can act on. Which crew handles the most removals? How much of last month was storm work? Is the stump grinder busy enough to justify a second machine? Is the PHC program growing? Those answers shape routes, hiring, and pricing.

In Moving Tree Crew Dispatch Off the Whiteboard and Group Text, we covered moving dispatch into software. Once your work lives there, reports become possible. This article covers how to use them.

Start With Completed Work

The most basic report is what got done. When crews mark jobs complete in the crew app, those jobs become the record of completed work. Look at completed work by crew and by period to see how busy each crew actually was.

Compare that to what was scheduled. If a crew regularly finishes fewer jobs than planned, the routes are probably too ambitious, or something is slowing them down. If a crew finishes everything early, they can take more.

Be careful about what the numbers mean. A climbing crew that completed four jobs in a week may have had the best week of the year if those were four large removals with heavy rigging. A grinder who completed thirty stops may have had an easy week of small stumps. Read completed work alongside the job categories and the tree details on those properties before drawing conclusions about a crew.

Reports work best as conversation starters with crew leads, not report cards. Ask what slowed the week down, and the answer often points to a route or scheduling fix.

Break It Down by Job Category

Job categories make reports much more useful. Removals, Trimming & Pruning, Stump Grinding, Plant Health Care, Storm & Emergency, and Consults each tell a different story. A month heavy in Storm & Emergency explains why scheduled pruning slipped. A rising Plant Health Care line shows the program is growing.

Look at categories over a full year to see seasonal patterns. Those patterns help with staffing and route planning for next season.

Look at Revenue Alongside Work

Work done is only half the picture. Reports on invoicing and payments show what that work billed and collected. A crew that is busy but on low-value jobs may be routed poorly or priced too low. A category that is a small share of work but a large share of revenue deserves more attention.

Track outstanding invoices too. Card on file, auto-billing, and online payments should keep that number low. If it is creeping up, the closeout and billing routine needs a look.

Review the Estimator's Pipeline

For the estimator, the useful numbers are consults completed and how many turned into approved work. Leads and estimates with online approval and automatic follow-up should help that approval rate. If consults are high but approvals are low, look at pricing, follow-up timing, or how quickly estimates are sent.

PHC and Chemical Tracking

For PHC, the chemical tracking report pulls together application records with product, rate, and amount, along with EPA registration numbers and applicator license numbers. Review it regularly to catch missing records, plan purchasing, and be ready for any records request. Requirements vary by state, so check what yours requires.

Turn Reports Into Route Changes

Reports matter only if they change something. A few common actions come out of a regular review: rebalancing work between crews, tightening zones where drive time is eating the day, adding a crew or a second grinder when the backlog is consistently long, and moving recurring work to calmer days.

Reports also help with pricing. If a certain kind of job consistently takes longer than it was estimated for, such as removals with rigging over structures, the estimates for that kind of work may be too low. Adjusting pricing based on what crews actually experience protects your margins without guesswork.

Make it a monthly habit. Thirty minutes with reports and the route map can reshape the next month's routes. That feedback loop is what turns tree service routing software from a daily tool into a way to run a better company.