Running a trades business comes with its fair share of challenges from juggling multiple jobs, managing a team, and handling the admin. These all have one thing in common if you’re feeling the burn – they’re taking up too much time.
This is why it is important to have the right tools and strategies in place to cut down on wasted time to help profitability and efficiency. When it comes to choosing the right job management software, it’s good to start by asking what ‘time saved’ looks like for your business.
Here are five ways trade and home service business have saved time by using GeoOp:
1. Going digital with job management admin and phasing out paperwork
One of the biggest drains on time are multiple paper based systems. Keeping track of details becomes challenging, updating forms becomes more difficult, and manual entry wastes time while increasing the risk of human error.
With all the different job cards, time sheets, material lists, quotes, and invoices brought online into a centralised system, you’ll have faster turnaround times so you can get more work done with happier customers and staff. GeoOp users save 14 hours on average each week when it comes to time spent on admin.
2. Efficient scheduling and calendar management
Time to ditch playing phone tag and using a whiteboard to coordinate work. With job management software you can link up your team and jobs through easy drag and drop scheduling on the calendar.
By scheduling jobs on GeoOp you can plan jobs in advance and easily see team availability. With a clear overview of your team, making changes and updating schedules takes seconds.
“I was running my business out of my head, trying to plan with whiteboards and diaries. I would never go back to how I was doing things before. I use the app everyday now.”
Rhodry Yates, Owner, Lyttel Helper Gardening Services
3. More effective communication tools for your team and customers
In addition to automatic scheduling updates, you can also keep all your job notes and forms shared for each job along with emails and SMS’s sent between the team through GeoOp. Having a centralised space to coordinate work and communication removes the need to use multiple apps.
For your customers you can quickly send quotes and invoices via email and SMS from within the app, as well as set automated SMS job reminders to ensure customers are on site when required. Businesses using GeoOp have particularly found SMS job reminders to be a valuable time and income saving practice that creates a smooth customer experience.
4. Map GPS and location tracking
Planning the work day isn’t just making sure the team is kept busy. With map GPS and location tracking, you can ensure your team can optimise their travel routes and stay on track.
You can filter maps by team member, job priority or status to get an overview of where everyone in your team is. GeoOp also integrates with excellent GPS tools including Armada GPS, Teletrac Navman and ERoad.
5. Accounting integration
One of the most important principles guiding job management software is to link up as many of your systems as possible for more secure communication and less double up on data and manual processes.
The same is true for your accounting software. When you integrate it with platforms like GeoOp, it’s a game changer for your team in freeing up time from manual data entry where data such as job costs, labour expenses and materials are tracked and updated across your systems. GeoOp integrates with big hitter accounting software such as Xero, MYOB, Quickbooks and Freshbooks.
“I like knowing the data being passed between the systems is secure and less open to human error.”
Kate Butterworth, General Manager, Kustomcut Concreting & Drilling Pty Ltd
If you would like to explore more on how job management software can help, check out GeoOp’s features page. You can also sign up for a free 14 day trial.
