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Thread: Lawn Mowing Software

  1. #31
    Member VJinTownsville's Avatar
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    Default Re: Lawn Mowing Software

    Would be great to get on a software designer to design an "aussie" gopher software. But just like lawn mowers, ride ons and other gear, theres no such thing as a perfect tool its either this or that.

    Would be awesome if it can generate bas statements, include gst (or not for the young saplings like me), liaise with either excel, quickbooks, outlook and other compatible programs useful to our industry. print whatever (income-expense, customer database, projected income, equipment database etc) at a press of a button. calculate operation costs to see if a certain job is profitable or not. not all my clients are invoiced by email, so it would be great to have a feature thats flexible.

    any takers lol?

  2. #32
    Member Neil&family's Avatar
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    Default Re: Lawn Mowing Software

    For Scheduling and run sheets i use essentialPIM. Its free,easy to use,Drop and drag customers for rescheduling. Set them up on recurring visits. Here is an example of a run sheet Works well for me.Might come in Handy for someone else.
    Attached Images Attached Images

  3. #33
    Senior Member DavidS's Avatar
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    Default Re: Lawn Mowing Software

    If you go into Route and then setup a route for each day, as the default is " Main Route", then all you have to do is put them in order for the days and you can see them in order and know what time you can be at certain jobs. That's if you have regular jobs, I just add one of jobs to the day and work it out when I print the days run.

  4. #34

    Default Re: Lawn Mowing Software

    I just ordered Gopher, had the trial for 1 month but didnt trial it because so busy, so now its straight into it.
    I will run it along side my excel I use, for a couple months.
    Starting from scratch is there any things I should//shouldnt do to make it easier??

  5. #35
    Member of Forum stuartjan's Avatar
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    Default Re: Lawn Mowing Software

    Hi

    I have been using Gopher for about five-six months now. First vital thing to do is always make a written back up of your lawns mowed and when you are doing them next. Occasionally I still stuff up in Gopher and wipe something out or forget to do something and if I hadn't had the back up. OMG.

    The scheduling part is great, really good and by printing out the schedule each day and imputing onto the sheet various hand written notes, while out in the field, fantastic. Save the printouts in order and that is another handy back up.

    I don't bother with most of the other utilities in Gopher, except for the payment tab as I mostly invoice on the day so write out hand written invoices.

    Print out all the manual for Gopher and place it in a ring binder.

    Gopher has a 'mass rescheduling' thingy which I obviously couldn't figure out how to properly use it even after reading the manual instructions. It may be like me and most manuals, if I wrote them it would be putting a lot more 'what if' scenarios in e.g 'what if I tick that tab what happens?' Wees poos and ruddy jobbies happens such as all my dates now being out of kilter. That brings me to another suggestion, get a 'back up' software program for your computer, one that takes a 'snapshot' so like me when operator error occurs you can try again from scratch and hopefully get it right the next time.

    All in all I have found Gopher to be excellent just for the scheduling alone.

    Cheers
    Stuart

  6. #36
    Senior Member Anjaryan's Avatar
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    Default Re: Lawn Mowing Software

    A couple of issues i have come across with gopher...

    No times on the schedule, makes it hard to allocate other jobs for the day, you really need to know your jobs and how long they will take so you know if you have any hours left in the day for other jobs.

    Only way I have over come this is to add in an estimated time frame in the job description, e.g. "Property Clean Up 1.0", "Lawn Mowing .75" at least then I can click on a day and work out roughly how many hours are booked up.


    Other issue i have had is the revenue occasionally disapears, mid last month went from 5k odd to 1k over night, dont know what happened or where it went, just gone, each night i enter everything into myob anyway before I complete the jobs, but I keep thinking if thats the only thing that has disappeared??

  7. #37
    Member Tender Lovin Lawn&Garden's Avatar
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    Default Re: Lawn Mowing Software

    one customer of mine has seem to dissapear twice.
    Tender Lovin Lawn and Garden Care
    We do everything for your lawn and garden with tender loving care
    find us on facebook under Tender Lovin Lawn and Garden Care

  8. #38
    Member Tender Lovin Lawn&Garden's Avatar
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    Default Re: Lawn Mowing Software

    how do you move some one forward and have them moved forward always after that. eg they skip from tuesday to thursday or one customer had asked me to skip a week and pick her up the next week problem was the program wanted me to mow her yard the next week again.
    Tender Lovin Lawn and Garden Care
    We do everything for your lawn and garden with tender loving care
    find us on facebook under Tender Lovin Lawn and Garden Care

  9. #39
    Senior Member Anjaryan's Avatar
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    Default Re: Lawn Mowing Software

    Quote Originally Posted by Tender Lovin Lawn&Garden View Post
    how do you move some one forward and have them moved forward always after that. eg they skip from tuesday to thursday or one customer had asked me to skip a week and pick her up the next week problem was the program wanted me to mow her yard the next week again.
    In their schedule setup you can set the requested day, step 3 of 5 see if that works??

    To skip a week then pick up again fortnightly thereafter i think it would be easiest to end that schedule, then set up a new one to reflect the the cycle, I dont think you can change every date to be a week later.. someone else may know how to though.

  10. #40
    Senior Member cadase's Avatar
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    Default Re: Lawn Mowing Software

    I Find Gopher is very good for scheduling, i've been trialing it for about 3 months
    But i stick with quickbooks for invoicing etc. It's easier to email invoices, also customize invoice templates which i need to do. Don't think i'll buy Gopher, but if they improve the invoicing i might. I've been burnt by lawn pro so i'm not in a hurry to shell out more $

  11. #41
    Senior Member fairdinkum's Avatar
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    Default Re: Lawn Mowing Software

    Gopher is basically rubbish as far as I am concerned. My diary plus quickbooks is the best i have found. I really regret spending the money on gopher. Even the database I started working on making with ms access was more appropriate for my business than that yank gopher poo! Pity I never had the time to finish it.

    Jason Forrest
    Fair Dinkum Lawn & Garden Care
    Servicing St Clair, Erskine Park, Colyton, South St Marys
    0407 435 642


    fairdinkumlawns.com.au

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  12. #42
    Senior Member Bgs's Avatar
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    Default Re: Lawn Mowing Software

    Quote Originally Posted by cadase View Post
    I Find Gopher is very good for scheduling, i've been trialing it for about 3 months
    But i stick with quickbooks for invoicing etc. It's easier to email invoices, also customize invoice templates which i need to do. Don't think i'll buy Gopher, but if they improve the invoicing i might. I've been burnt by lawn pro so i'm not in a hurry to shell out more $
    You can email invoices by saving them as a pdf file and emailing the saved file, it is more time consuming and defiantly not as user friendly as sending a invoice in quickbooks but can be done though.

  13. #43
    Senior Member Bgs's Avatar
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    Default Re: Lawn Mowing Software

    Quote Originally Posted by Lawnmowing Wheelers Hill View Post
    I just ordered Gopher, had the trial for 1 month but didnt trial it because so busy, so now its straight into it.
    I will run it along side my excel I use, for a couple months.
    Starting from scratch is there any things I should//shouldnt do to make it easier??
    When you are setting up scheduled jobs if they are ongoing jobs make sure you give them a long end date like 31/12/2015,
    Gopher sets a delft date of the current year which I realised in December so had to change all the end dates to continue my schedule into this year.

  14. #44
    Senior Member glassngrass's Avatar
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    Default Re: Lawn Mowing Software

    Quote Originally Posted by fairdinkum View Post
    My diary plus quickbooks is the best i have found.
    I started with a diary, but found I occassionally forgot to schedule in a return resulting in my never returning!

    I then discovered memorised transactions in QuickBooks. These can be set to recurr daily, fortnightly, twice a month, four weekly, monthly, quarterly, twice a year or annually.
    In addition to reminding about a job, the customer invoice is just about ready to go!

    I put something meaningful as the description - client name or address, and maybe a code eg. mws - mow and wippersnip

    Then I set QB to remind me two days before due.
    Each morning I can print a list of transactions scheduled, not only for that day, but overdue and the two days in advance.
    If I had jobs nearby that are due a day or two apart, I'd do them together.
    If I want a different frequency, such as 10 days, or three weeks, then I'd opt for the nearest shorter cycle, and amend the next recurring date.

    QB reminders really do work very well...
    David
    Mr Sparkle Car Spa

  15. #45
    Member Tender Lovin Lawn&Garden's Avatar
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    Default Re: Lawn Mowing Software

    doesnt quick books cost a fortune. I was also told it was a very difficult program untill you eventually learn it.
    Tender Lovin Lawn and Garden Care
    We do everything for your lawn and garden with tender loving care
    find us on facebook under Tender Lovin Lawn and Garden Care

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