How To Bill Lawn Care Customers

How To Make A Lawn Care Pricing Sheet

A lawn care pricing sheet lists the costs of all your services. It helps you keep your pricing consistent across all jobs. When youre estimating a job, you can look at this sheet and get a base estimate to build on.

Create a price sheet once you know how much you want to charge for each service. This should include your most common services and yard sizes so you have consistent pricing to refer to when making lawn care estimates.

In addition to the lawn care pricing sheet sample at the start of this article, heres an example of a basic lawn care pricing chart:

A lawn care pricing chart can also help you respond to clients looking for discounts or negotiated rates. Youll be able to see how much wiggle room you have, if any, before changing your rates too drastically.

Pro Tip: Keeping a digital version of your pricing sheet will speed up quoting and invoicing. When you use Jobber as your lawn care business software, you can add a products and services list and quickly add them as line items on your quotes.

READ MORE: Use this lawn care services list to quote faster

Create Flexible And Efficient Team Schedules

When you book mowing and lawn maintenance visits, get them into a calendar thats easy to read, edit, and share with your team.

Using a flexible scheduling tool will save you the trouble of calling your team members every time a job is rescheduled, or when job details are updated.

Here are more ways you can manage your team schedule effectively:

• Create schedules online instead of using spreadsheets or paper. Editable online schedules make it easier to reschedule visits on rainy days and respond to last-minute cancellations.
• Personalize your calendar with color coding and filters to quickly see whats important, like job status or visits assigned to certain team members.
• Create faster routes and maximize productivity by assigning jobs to the closest team members.

READ MORE: How to create a profitable lawn mowing schedule

In Jobber, you can easily drag and drop visits that need rescheduling. To avoid overbooking, underbooking, and double booking, choose from five different views and get a clear visual of crew availability.

You can also reschedule all visits from one day, with or without affecting future visits. On rainy days when you cant mow lawns, its easy to shift visits around to different days on your calendar.

READ MORE: Tips for managing rainy days as a landscaper

If it rained really hard, I move peoples jobs two days over.

Why This Topic Is So Important

I cant tell you how many lawn care owners allow invoices to build up to hundreds even thousands of unpaid invoicing.

In the hopes the client will eventually pay, THEY STILL KEEP SERVICING THE PROPERTY. This is NOT a valuable use of your resources. Just stop while youre still ahead.

Its important to not let unpaid invoices get out of hand because it can happen to anyone – faster than you think.

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Overhead And Equipment Costs

Overhead costs are everything that keeps your business operatingthat includes office space, computers and tablets, small business insurance, fuel costs, and advertising costs.

Many lawn care businesses add an additional 1520% on top of their estimate to account for overhead costs.

You should also budget for equipment and maintenance in your overall lawn service cost estimate. Even after youve paid off your lawn mower, for example, it might still need engine repairs, spark plug replacements, or oil changes.

Some lawn care professionals charge two times the hourly rate of labor just to have their equipment on the site.

Organize And Grow Your Lawn Care Business

Rated #1 most affordable and popular by thousands of lawn care pros

Jobber helps you manage your quotes, schedule, invoices, and paymentsall in one place.

• Allow leads to book new work online through your website or Facebook page
• Access all details from the office or the field through the Jobber app
• Quote, schedule, and invoiceall in one place
• Automatically collect payments when the job is done

If youre looking for an intuitive software that makes sense from day 1, then Jobber is a slam dunk Routing, creating quotes & invoices, scheduling work, adding new clients and using the online client accounts, Jobber wins.

Adam Sylvester, Charlottesville Lawn Care

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The Standard Bidding Unit The Man Hour

In order to take the big mystery out of bidding for jobs, were going to help you to create a standard unit of measure.

Something that you use as a guide whenever you price a new clients weekly lawn mowing visits or a shrub pruning job for example.

The biggest key behind this unit is having a fairly good understanding of how much time something is going to take.

Thats the tricky part at least in the beginning. But thats what your first 10 customers are really for they allow you to get a good feel for the work and how to gauge the amount of time a lawn or other project will take. A little later on, Ill go into some ideas thatll help you better guestimate your time and how to really hone your instincts so you can be right on the money.

Now I know that Ive mentioned before that thinking of yourself as an hourly employee is no longer acceptable. Youre in business now, and its not how much money you make per hour, its how much your business makes per hour. Its a subtle difference but its an important one. The difference between an hourly wage and a man hour can mean tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars to you.

The reason that you use the man hour as your basis or as your standard unit of measure is that this will always be your basis.

So how do you figure this out?

Well, lets start with your $5,000 per month salary or $60,000 per year. At a regular 40 hour per week job, you can figure out your yearly salary by multiplying your hourly wage by 2,000.

Add Your Business On Review Sites

In the digital age, getting your business listed on review style sites such as Angie’s List, Yelp, Bark, and others provides another venue for potential lawn care or landscaping clients to find your company.

While it could take some time and effort to fill out your business profile across multiple websites, it’s worth doing, as it can give you higher visibility, and valuable citations and links back to your business website.

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Determine Profit Margin Needed

There was already some discussion about overheads and the importance of understanding the figure you need to reach every month. After you have determined this number, the next way to estimate the lawn care pricing is the profit margin that works best for determining the lawn care costs.

An organizations profit is the amount of money left over after all of the overhead, supplies, and labor have been paid for. To better understand the standards in your area, it is recommended to check with the regional trade associations.

When figuring out what pricing model will be profitable for your business, look at what your competitors are doing.

A great way to ensure your lawn care estimate calculator is customized according to the lawns needs is to start adapting to the invoicing and estimating software like InvoiceOwl. This tool can help you determine your pricing and profit margins. You can even keep track of your expense, and there will be no fear of missing out on payments.

Also, ensure you revisit your pricing quarterly or annually to get feedback from your clients on the pricing.

Invoice Your Lawn Care Services With Skynova

Skynova allows you to create and send professional invoices for your small business quickly and efficiently. By using our free invoice template, you can be billing your customers in no time. As a regular service provider, you might also want to check out other Skynova templates, including receipt templates. Get started with Skynova today.

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How To Charge For Lawn Care Services In 2022

Charging for your lawn care services can be a daunting task. It seems like many lawn care professionals are undercharging or overcharging for their services, and its hard to find the right balance. This article will discuss how to charge for your lawn care services in 2022. We will cover everything from pricing strategies to tips on how to increase your profits. So, whether you are just starting in the industry or looking to make some changes to your current pricing strategy, this article is for you!

What Is Lawn Care Software

Lawn care software is any computer or mobile program that helps a lawn care business run efficiently and maximize cash flow. Most business software marketed toward lawn care companies provides a similar range of features detailed below:

Scheduling

Manages employee timesheets and schedules clients for one-time or recurring services. Most business software will automatically arrange a schedule for maximum workflow.

Job Tracking and Management

Assigns employees to specific jobs and tracks their hours worked to provide accurate pricing to customers.

Customer Relationship Management

A set of tools that help you keep track of your lawn care companys relationships with new clients and reach new customers. Service history tracking, complaint management, and communication all fall under this umbrella.

Invoicing

Tracks all services performed for a customers account and sends bills to customers automatically upon completion of service.

Route Optimization

Creates the most efficient route to perform all jobs on a daily schedule. Eliminates wasted time and fuel costs. Some software will update routes for delays and cancellations in real-time.

Equipment and Inventory Management

Keeps track of your lawn care machinery and inventory of supplies Some software can send notifications when equipment is due for maintenance or inventory needs a resupply.

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A More Efficient Way To Accept Wire Transfers And Ach

Many businesses prefer to pay large invoices via wire or ACH, but this can require tedious and manual accounts receivable efforts. Bank account setup can also be error-prone for your customers. Stripe Invoicing automates how businesses support B2B payment methods.

Collect invoices via secure and reliable ACH Direct Debit payments. Get paid faster and minimize transaction failures by enabling customers to instantly link their bank accounts through Stripe Financial Connections.

Leaving A Paper Invoice

You might choose not only to provide an electronic invoice but a paper invoice too. If you have issues with people checking their email or having your messages sent to a spam folder, using the paper method can be effective. Some companies leave a paper invoice or door hanger each time they provide the service to ensure the customer knows to pay and doesnt have issues with seeing the invoice in their email.

Of course, as mentioned earlier some customers are not proficient with computers, electronic devices, and email. They may not check their email regularly or know to check the spam folder. Having a paper backup can be a real help, and let them know that you consider their situation.

This approach makes the customer feel warmer toward your company for making concessions for their situation. This is another excellent way to build a good repair and secure the customers for the foreseeable future.

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How Much Does It Cost To Start A Lawn Care Business

Starting a lawn care business can cost between $755 and $1,360. That number depends on the equipment you have and the services youll provide.

If you dont already have a reliable truck or trailer, it could cost you at least an additional $30,000 to start your lawn care business.

Many lawn care business startups begin as a simple mowing and grass cutting business with:

• A push lawn mower
• Business registration costs
• Liability insurance
• Basic flyer or sandwich board marketing

Offer Discounts And Referrals

Discounts and referrals are an effective way to earn business from new and existing customers. Referral incentives, new customer discounts, and seasonal promotions are three effective ways to secure more business.

Customer referrals are one of the best ways to steadily grow your customer base. When you deliver excellent service to your clients, you can ask them to refer their friends and family. You can offer discounted services for every referral they send your way.

To incentivize new customers, offer exclusive discounts for first-time clients. The lawn mowing business is ultra-competitive with several large companies dominating the market with low-cost service. Customers have plenty of options, so an attractive deal could sway them to your businessespecially if you dont have an established brand name. You could offer something like:

• First-time customers can buy one mowing service and get the next one free.

Seasonal promotions are another way to re-engage existing clients and entice new customers. As soon as winter ends, create an early-bird special for those who sign up before others. You can create urgency by limiting the offer to a certain number of people. Heres an example:

• Sign up before March 20 to receive 20% off your first five mows. Offer is limited to the first 15 customers.

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Enter Any Discounts Provided

Many businesses like to offer discounts from time to time to keep and recruit new customers. This may come in the form of a discount code or result from a referral. Be sure to list the discounts on the invoice, as well. Discounts are typically applied after the subtotal.

Once you classify a discount as such, the unit price will automatically be set to negative and the total discount will be subtracted from the other charges. Clearly describe the discount in the description field, and enter the discount amount and the number of times to apply it in the quantity field.

Simplify Your Quoting Process

Professional estimates and quotes help you win jobs, get clients, and keep your business running. But when youre servicing lawns all day, theres hardly time to write detailed estimates from scratch and chase down quote approvals.

Heres how to speed up your estimating and quoting process:

Using lawn care management software like Jobber, you can create interactive and professionally designed quotes. You can even allow customers to add on optional services and approve the updated total.

Once youve sent your quote with Jobber, youll win the job faster by setting up automatic follow-up emails to remind your client to approve the quote. When theyre ready, customers can visit client hub to easily pay a deposit or provide a signature.

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Integrate With Existing Workflows

Automatically recognize and defer invoicing revenue within Stripe. Sync your data in real time using the Stripe Connector for NetSuite or integrations with Xero, QuickBooks Desktop, and other accounting systems and ERP solutions. You can also import data into your own systems with Stripes Reporting APIs.

Keep Customer Service In Mind

Although your customers know they owe you money upon the jobs completion, its essential that you stay highly professional when you ask them for the payment. It really doesnt matter if you request by email, phone, or in person. Having a pleasant interaction and using proper business etiquette for invoices can help encourage repeat business. Additionally, people are more likely to recommend your company if theyre happy with every aspect of it, and this can bring in more work and money!

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Decide What Lawn Care Services To Offer

Youll need to decide what lawn care services your business offers so you can buy the right equipment, set your pricing, and market your services.

Start small and offer basic lawn maintenance services like mowing and trimming. That way, you can get your first lawn care customers and start bringing in revenue without spending thousands of dollars on new equipment.

You should offer these essential lawn care services when youre starting out:

• Mowing and basic lawn maintenance. This should include grass trimming, weeding, and edging for driveways and walkways. All youll need is a mower and trimmer to get started with basic lawn maintenance.
• Seasonal services. You can market your lawn care services as special spring cleaning and fall cleaning during those seasons. When theres snow on the ground, offer snow removal and winter landscaping services to your lawn care customers.
• Fertilization. Offer fertilizer application and weed control to keep your clients lawns healthy and green. Because fertilizer doesnt cost very much, its a great service for new residential lawn care businesses to offer.

Once you have a few recurring customers and positive cash flow, you can start offering more specialized services that need new equipment and supplies, including:

• Lawn pest control and insect control
• Tree trimming and pruning

To decide what services to add to your list, pay attention to what your clients ask forand what your competitors are offering.

How Much To Charge For Lawn Fertilization

The U.S. national average cost for lawn weed control and fertilization is $91. To choose how much you should charge for a fertilizer application, calculate the cost of the lawn fertilizer youll use for the job based on the square footage of the lawn.

A typical 40 to 45-pound pack of lawn fertilizer costs $40, which covers around 15,000 square feet of grass. That would put your fertilizer costs at $23 for an average 8,500 square-foot lawn.

For large-scale jobs, your fertilizer supply costs might be higher than your labor costs, unlike for your other lawn maintenance services like mowing and grass trimming.

Once you add up your total fertilizer costs and labor costs, add markup to your cost estimate so you can cover your supply expenses and turn a profit on your lawn service job.

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