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Proficient bookkeeping may not be the most exciting aspect of running a landscaping business, but keeping all of your accounts in order can help ensure you operate at a profit.
Bookkeeping often refers to a range of fiscal tasks, including:
- Balancing the books
- Building in the right margins
- Tracking assets
- Monitoring cash flow
You probably work in the green industry because you’re good with people and a master at maintaining beautiful properties—not balancing books. So you’re likely to rely on automation from landscape accounting software to manage your company’s financial accounts. If you don’t, your error-prone manual processes may cost you time and money.
What are accounting apps for landscaping businesses?
Accounting apps for landscaping businesses are those designed to meet the specific needs of the green industry. They include features such as:
- Job costing
- Customer billing
- Inventory tracking
The best landscaping accounting apps should be easy to use and integrate with other software programs, with reliable customer support and the functionality to grow with your business.
The right accounting management tools should streamline accounting processes while reducing inefficiencies and inaccuracies—whether you’re a small business or a large enterprise.
This article explains what to look for when choosing accounting software for your landscaping business.
Why do landscaping businesses need accounting software?
From estimates and invoices to managing inventory and purchasing heavy-duty landscaping equipment, service businesses have a lot of accounting needs.
→ To stay on top of your cash flow, Kathy McWhorter, Aspire’s manager of accounting integrations, recommends landscape business owners reconcile their balance sheets at least monthly.
Sure, Excel spreadsheets or pen and paper can get the job done, but these manual processes often lead to wasted time and effort, in addition to inaccuracies.
Modern landscaping and lawn care businesses streamline their services with a landscaping accounting app that integrates into their other essential business operations.
Must-have features in accounting software for landscaping companies
Investing in accounting software for a lawn care business costs money, of course, but also takes a significant amount of time to evaluate the options, then onboard and train with the chosen solution.
Because of the profound investment, landscape design contractors should look for lawn care software that streamlines and simplifies multiple facets of their business, including:
- Payroll management: Automate payroll activities to calculate benefits and taxes and provide prompt payment for every employee.
- Time tracking: Receive timely and accurate reporting of every worker’s hours on mobile timesheets, which can be quickly imported into payroll.
- Inventory management: Track inventory levels to maximize profit, eliminate waste, and avoid overspending.
- Financial reporting: Gain access to balance reports, profit and loss statements, and more, which provide a 360-degree view of your business to monitor margins and maximize revenue.
- Estimating and invoicing: Create templates and kits based on your actual production factors, ensuring consistent and accurate estimates. Generate digital invoices that pull information directly from the estimate so you can bill clients and accept credit card payments faster.
- Job costing: Gain complete visibility into how labor, materials, and other costs measure up to actual job costs and make data-driven decisions to grow profits.
What to look for in landscaping accounting software
In addition to the features mentioned above, business owners should look for the following when considering accounting software for their landscaping business—whether they use accrual or cash accounting.
Pricing
Don’t think of accounting software for a lawn care and landscape business as a tech purchase, but as an investment in the growth and success of your organization.
→ Many software options charge per seat or user, which can significantly increase your costs as you scale.
Some questions to ask include:
- Does the vendor offer support during implementation?
- Does the vendor charge a flat rate or per-user fee?
- Does the vendor charge a higher rate for premium features?
Integrations
To accurately budget and forecast, your landscaping accounting software solution must integrate with your other tools and existing workflows.
You optimize the benefits of accounting software when it works in collaboration with other aspects of your business, such as your:
- Customer relationship management (CRM) platform
- Landscaping job scheduling
- Time tracking and payroll
- Invoicing
- Reporting software
This reduces miscommunications and helps to eliminate the need for duplicate data entry from the office to the field.
Usability
Staying on top of your company’s monthly financial reporting can be a significant time investment, especially when you don’t have a dedicated bookkeeper or accounting department. Operating your software shouldn’t make the process more difficult.
If your back office team comes from the field and brings years of industry experience, they may not have the same proficiency with technology skills.
The accounting software you choose should have an intuitive interface and easy-to-learn processes so closing the month doesn’t disrupt your operations for multiple days. Usability also ensures that multiple users can complete weekly accounting tasks, so when a stakeholder goes on vacation or is out sick, it doesn’t hurt your workflow.
Security
When it comes to security, McWhorter says to look for a system with user controls to provide checks and balances. Customizable dashboards ensure that different users only have access to the information that is relevant to their role.
In addition, you want to make sure your software keeps company and customer financial information secure.
Compliance
One advantage of using a dedicated landscaping accounting app is that it stays compliant without requiring users to stay up-to-date on legal requirements and tax guidelines. When you choose a software provider with an ongoing investment in their product, there are regular updates.
Your technology should simplify the problematic aspects of accounting, including understanding and enforcing changing regulations. Accounting compliance extends to payroll, data security, and financial records.
Since regulations change, ask vendors what they do to stay informed and, in turn, keep their customers compliant.
Aspire’s all-in-one platform fully integrates accounting functionality with landscaping operations modules
Ultimately, accounting software should meet your unique business needs, including fitting into your budget, offering implementation support, and integrating with existing systems to provide real-time views into your company’s profitability.
“Companies will get to the point where QuickBooks isn't big enough,” McWhorter says. “They usually use QuickBooks, whiteboards for scheduling, and Excel. And people are like, ‘I'm just so tired of this. I want one system that can do estimating, scheduling, everything.’ And that's what Aspire is.”
Aspire landscape business management software offers two plans, Aspire Corporate and Aspire Enterprise, based on annual revenue. Aspire also doesn’t charge per user, so there’s no need to manage user licenses or purchase additional seats as your organization scales.
In addition, customers work directly with a dedicated implementation manager for the duration of the training process—from onboarding through deployment—to ensure crews gain the foundational knowledge and skills to utilize the web-based platform to its full potential.
Aspire also offers users unlimited access to ongoing training and customer support, as well as numerous resources via an online Knowledge Base—at no additional cost.
And best of all, the software integrates with:
- QuickBooks Online
- QuickBooks Desktop
- Acumatica
- API integration options to allow enterprise-tier clients to build a connection to other accounting systems
Rather than using separate platforms in the field and office, commercial landscaping software allows your team to accomplish more in less time, using software tools with end-to-end functionality for the landscaping industry.
Aspire landscape business software includes:
- Estimating
- Scheduling
- CRM
- Job costing
- Crew management
- Equipment management
- Purchasing
- Invoicing and billing
- Reporting
With Aspire’s easy accounting software integration, larger-scale landscape contractors simplify accounting procedures and automate the flow of information from invoicing on the job site to reconciliation in your accounting software.
Aspire makes four primary connections with your accounting system:
- Deposits based on customer information and payments
- Payroll based on Aspire payroll reporting
- Approved purchase order payments
- Revenue, cost of goods, and gross margin information at the branch and division levels
Aspire’s cloud-based landscape maintenance software provides insight into earned versus invoiced revenue for any property, service, or division to inform business decisions with more accurate, real-time data.
Our all-in-one landscape management software helps you eliminate duplicate data entry, make fewer mistakes due to human error, and stop wasting so much time poring over that stack of Excel spreadsheets.
When you bring all of your operations into a single platform, it’s easy to identify and eliminate inefficiencies, repetitive tasks, and low-profit services. Comprehensive reporting with real-time data visualizations makes it easy to meet challenges on your terms and grow your landscaping business.
To learn more about how Aspire accounting software can help the financial health of your landscaping business, request a demo today.
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