I have been talking with the founder of GreenerBilling.com Dave Kollasch over the past couple weeks regarding his fantastic web based invoicing software. This will be the first of my posts about this program. I’ll continue to follow it and make posts in the future about changes, updates and addons. This product is ‘The Lawn Blog Approved’ as lawn care invoicing software.

From testing it out I am finding it to be extremely easy to use. The company profile page is very detailed letting you input your company details, timezone, currency, emails and website. It also allows you to upload your company logo to attach to very professional invoices. You can set your terms of payment (i.e. Net 30 days), add all your services and set prices for them and even setup different users to access the information (such as office staff or your accountant).

Current Features

Invoicing (E-mail or download as PDF)
Customize Invoices with Company Logo
Worldwide currency capable
Detailed Payment History for Invoices and Clients
Graphic representation (pie chart) of Payment Status
Invoice Templates with recurring schedule capability
Dashboard Alerts keep your business in front of you
E-mail Message System
- Vital for healthy Customer relationship Management (CRM)
- Invoice Notification, Past Due Reminder and Payment Received
Cloning (create duplicate records easily)
Client Management – Unlimited
User Access – Unlimited
User Activity monitoring
Account Owner preference capability
Products/Services with image capability
Bank standard security and data backup

I can go on and on about this product but I urge you to go over to GreenerBilling.com and check it out for yourself. They have a FREE option available that you can use (cleverly named ‘dirt’ (cheap) package). I have included a profile of the company below. Have a read and let me know your thoughts on this program.

A Note From The Company

An invoicing application BY a lawn care professional – FOR lawn care professionals and all other business owners who want to grow their bottom line. Whether a business services commercial or residential customers, or issues 1 or 500 invoices a month, Greenerbilling.com provides a mobile office.

Imagine being out in the field and able to provide estimates, submit invoices, record payments and track time – using any device with Internet access (e.g. laptop, smartphone). All business data is stored safely and securely on remote servers. Multiple plans are available based on monthly invoicing needs. The plan rates will remain the same regardless of ongoing enhancements.

Maintain positive cash flow by billing online, on-time, all-the-time.

Greenerbilling is an earth-friendly, affordable, universally compatible application.

By: Bob Daniels
www.plan-itgraphics.com

I often get asked if it’s a good idea to create a marketing piece with an area to write in a price/estimate for the customer. I’ve seen many posts on web forums about the topic. The following is just my opinion and should be taken as only that.

I feel leaving a price for services is a good thing. If you know that you would mow, fertilize, etc. that lawn for $50 than why not tell the potential customer. I noticed that one of the major concerns is another lawn care company seeing your door hanger, flyer etc. and making their price lower. But take a second to think about that… You now are assuming that other lawn care companies are out doing “estimates” the same day as you, and are assuming that their marketing piece has a place to write in a price…unlikely for the most part.

Second thing to think about is your price. I know that we all have a margin of error and can raise or lower our prices if needed. But the price should be the price. If you figured out that you need to make X/amount of $, for X/amount of turf, then you should be confident in your price. There will always be someone priced higher and lower than you. It’s the nature of business.

Third, and in my opinion the most important reason for leaving a price. As a whole we live in a society where people like “easy.” Call it laziness, call it hectic lifestyles, whatever… but if someone needs their lawn cut, and sees a reasonable price, they would rather call you and schedule it right then. If no price, they need to call you, and other companies, request estimates, wait for the estimate to arrive…call you back, or wait for you to call. By then it’s a week long process. Think of a conversation like this, between a husband and wife, and tell me if this is not how the conversation would go…

Husband: “Honey did you schedule the lawn cutting?”
Wife: “NO, but I got a door hanger the other day and this company can do it for $49, I was going to all around for other estimates”
Husband: “It’s not worth the hassle, what are we gonna save a couple of dollars, just call them so we know were on schedule, and it’s over and done with”
Wife: “OK, sounds good.”

Now again, I’m not saying this is a perfect method, but I have tried both, leaving prices and not leaving prices. The response might be the same, but the cost per sale with leaving the price is much lower. You are wasting less time not having to go back, and do a follow up estimate when you were just there the other day.