If you own a tree service business or work with a contracting company that employs tree care professionals or arborists, you must know how important it is to have the flexibility to manage your work from the field. You need to get things done even when you’re away from your office, at a customer’s location or a job site.

This is in addition to managing other business functions such as coordinating the sales pipeline, keeping in touch with customers, creating business proposals, and conducting tree assessments. With so much on your plate, something may slip off.

One way to save time and keep track of your tasks is using arborist software. The software helps tree service professionals and contractors streamline their tree care business processes by managing sales, customer communication, and field operations using a single centralized platform.

There are many arborist software tools available on the market, and choosing the one that best meets your needs and budget is important. This guide will help you understand the features of arborist software, the benefits you can get out of it, and the market trends you should consider when purchasing a tool for your business.

Here's what we'll cover:

• What is arborist software?

• Common features of arborist software

• What type of buyer are you?

• Benefits of arborist software

• Market trends to understand

What is arborist software?

Arborist software is a software tool that helps tree care professionals automate their daily operations. It offers a centralized platform to manage customers, quotations, risk assessment, route planning, invoicing, work order scheduling, and more.

The software also helps businesses ensure compliance with various local, state, and federal laws and safety regulations, thereby making tree servicing operations safe and efficient.

Arborist software can be used by solopreneurs, contractors, construction companies, landscape companies, and utility distributors for commercial tree servicing requirements.

Route maps in SingleOps (Source)

Common features of arborist software

These are the common features most buyers seek when purchasing arborist software:

What type of buyer are you?

Most arborist software buyers belong to one of the following categories:

• Solo tree service professionals or solopreneurs: These buyers have their own tree servicing business and manage all tasks including scheduling work orders, managing customers, and completing onsite work on their own. They need an arborist software tool to help automate daily business tasks, so they can focus on completing the work at the customer’s site. They should opt for features such as automated job scheduling, quotes and estimates, CRM, and reporting to easily manage day-to-day operations.

• Tree service contractors: These buyers hire arborists, full time or on contract, to complete work orders. They receive large volumes of job requests that need to be assigned to the right technicians based on their skills and availability. These buyers should opt for a tool that has strong scheduling and tracking capabilities to ensure work orders are assigned on time and to technicians with the right skill sets. They should also choose maps and GPS tracking functionality to share optimized routes and track the real-time location of technicians.

Benefits of arborist software

Here are the key benefits of arborist software for your tree care business:

• Detailed tree reports for better risk assessment: The software lets tree care professionals provide advice and guidance to clients with the help of detailed site summary and tree assessment reports. These reports offer insights into metrics such as the condition of trees, existing damages, areas of concern, and pest threats.

• Centralized storage of information: Arborist software stores complete details about your work orders, job schedules, customers, and equipment in a centralized repository that can be accessed only by authorized users. This streamlines the storage of information, ensures better data security, and saves the time spent on retrieving data from multiple systems.

• Improved job scheduling and tracking: With features such as GPS tracking and integrated maps, the software provides a bird’s-eye view of all in-progress and open job requests. It can check the location of a job request and automatically assign it to a technician who’s nearby. It can also provide the real-time location of technicians to track if they’ve reached the job site on time.

• Better collaboration: The software sends a notification, via an email or SMS, every time a work order or route is modified. This way your technicians and customers are aware of changes in real time, and everyone’s on the same page.

Market trends to understand

Here’s an arborist software market trend you should be aware of:

• Increasing use of mobile apps. Tree care involves inspecting and managing trees on a large scale, which can lead to a lot of paperwork. But with a mobile app, tree care professionals can eliminate paper-based records and access all job-related information, such as work order status and location photos, on their mobile devices. In line with this trend, many vendors offer mobile capabilities with their software solutions.

If you’re facing challenges in choosing the right arborist software, you can schedule a free call with us. Our advisors can help you select a tool that’s right for your business needs.

Note: The application selected in this guide is an example to show a feature in context and is not intended as an endorsement or recommendation. It has been taken from sources believed to be reliable at the time of publication.