TreeBossPro Blog — Tree Service Software

Adding Plant Health Care to Your Tree Service Software

A lot of tree companies run plant health care as a side business: a separate spreadsheet for treatments, a binder of application records, and a schedule that lives in the applicator's head. It works, but it means the PHC side never really connects to the rest of the company.

Putting plant health care in the same system as removals and pruning makes it easier to sell, easier to run and easier to keep records on.

Why PHC Belongs in the Same System

In Recurring Pruning Cycles That Keep Tree Customers Coming Back, recurring pruning turned one-time customers into steady ones. Plant health care is the same idea, often more so: a treatment program is recurring by nature, with multiple visits a year. It is some of the most predictable revenue a tree company can have.

When PHC runs in the same tree service software as the rest of your work, the climber who notices a stressed tree on a pruning job can flag it, the estimator can quote a program, and the program shows up on the same board as everything else.

PHC Programs as Recurring Jobs

In TreeBossPro, a PHC program is a set of recurring jobs under the Plant Health Care category. Each visit is scheduled, routed and completed like any other job, and each one can be invoiced or auto-billed to a card on file.

Because the visits are on the board, the applicator's schedule is visible to the office. Customers get automated reminders before each visit and on-the-way alerts on the day.

Treatment timing matters in plant health care, so set up program visits for the windows that fit your products and region rather than spreading them evenly through the year. Route them in tight loops: PHC visits are usually short, and an applicator who isn't crossing town between stops gets far more done in a day.

Because PHC jobs share the same property records as your tree work, the applicator also sees the crew notes, gate codes and photos from the last pruning crew. Nobody has to keep a separate address book for the PHC side.

Chemical Tracking Built In

Plant health care comes with records. TreeBossPro's chemical tracking stores your products with their EPA registration numbers and your mixes, and creates a per-service application record with the product, rate and amount used and the applicator's license number.

A chemical tracking report pulls those records together. Chemical instruction emails can go to customers after a treatment, so they know anything they need to know about the application.

Record-keeping and licensing rules for pesticide applications vary by state, so check what yours requires and set up your records to match.

Selling PHC to Existing Customers

The easiest PHC customers are the ones you already have. Your property records show who has a lot of mature trees, and photos from your crews show which trees look stressed. A short estimate with online approval, sent after a pruning visit, is a natural next step.

Explain the program in plain language: what you'll do, how many visits, what it costs and how billing works. Customers who understand the plan stay on it.

Follow up on the PHC estimates that go quiet. Automatic follow-up does most of that work, but a program estimate is worth a personal call too, because a customer who signs up is a customer for years rather than one visit. Photos help close the sale: a picture of the thinning canopy or the leaf damage your climber saw makes the problem real for a homeowner who never looks up.

Keep Licensed Work With Licensed People

PHC visits should go to the people who are licensed to do them. Set up your applicator as a crew in the system and assign PHC jobs to them. The application record captures the applicator license number, so the record shows who did the work.

Applicator licensing requirements vary by state, so check what yours requires before assigning work.

Bill Programs Without Chasing

PHC programs pay best when billing runs itself. Card on file and auto-billing let you charge each visit as it is completed, and prepayments let customers pay for a season up front. Customers can see visits and invoices in the customer app.

Plant health care is where tree service software that runs the whole company really pulls its weight, because removals, pruning and PHC finally live in one place. The next article goes deeper into the application records themselves.