Author Archive

Welcome to Callahan’s Corner, where you ask the questions we answer them live right here on facebook. We had a gentleman in a lawn care or landscape maintenance company, i believe in the southern market wanted to know how to set up a custom recurring schedule to handle weekly mowing and landscape maintenance during the summer months and then how to go every three to four weeks during the winter months and be able to dial that in on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. What we’re going to do is dive into the gear icon master schedules and break this out for you. Callahan’s Corner right here where you ask the questions we answer them live on facebook, feel free to drop any of your questions in the live or recorded version and we will make sure we answer those for you live on facebook. As we dive into this here we’re going to go into Service Autopilot and we’re going to go into the gear icon and we’re going to start typing master so we’ve got our master schedules SA comes pre-defined built out with bi-weekly even and odd weeks as well as weekly Monday through Sunday so i’m going to go in and hop into the one that i already started building out before we had some technical difficulties here but actually second thought i’m going to actually go in and recreate a new one just you can see from front to back. Under add a schedule here we’ll type this in and then the question was how do we go in and create a recurring weekly schedule from April through the end of October and then in every three or four week through the winter for that southern market we’re still going out maintaining blowing things off and doing some trimming so the first thing we want to do is let’s say this is going to be a Monday schedule so we’re going to go in and if we start the first monday here i would start suggest starting this out where you actually start the weekly or bi-weekly mowing or landscape maintenance i’m going to go in and click the first Monday of the month by just hitting the m in each one so it’s a quick and simple process really. Now that we’re in here we’re going to go in and get up to october now this is where it gets interesting so I believe the gentleman asked for every three weeks or every four weeks gonna be the same process so you’ve got you’ve cut last year so one two three and then we would just go in and continue to add those Monday cuts. The reason why we didn’t start in January is because we don’t know how that’s going to roll in from the beginning of the year so we start where we go in and do the full schedule and then we go in and kickback around here so we’re gonna go back into our Monday so we’ve got another one, two, three cuts there one, two, three… one, two, three and one, two, three so that is going to give us an every three weeks over the winter in a weekly Monday cut going in for theum schedule moving forward. Now what if this was a bi-weekly cut on a Monday even or odd weeks now you’re even and odds are going to parlay out and line up with this right here so that is gonna is an even number so that’s gonna signify in with an even week so let’s just say we’re doing Monday cuts only with even weeks bi-weekly so we would go in and de-select these odd weeks here in this here and that’s how we would create that bi-weekly odd week scenario actually i’m sorry even week scenario and we’re deselecting the odds right now and 22 24 and this is how we’re creating that bi-weekly even week scenario during the summer and then we’re going to every three or four weeks depending on what that scenario is on the existing november through december that we’ve just built out but i want to give you a proof of concept of how these can be built out and it only populates these dates now u when they’re actually showing on here so there’s no opportunity for miss scheduling because it’s going to follow the select dates you’ve already set . The idea is frame out what it should be go in and select the reoccurring summer schedule roll through november december january and february maybe in most markets February, March is when you kick back into the regular weekly cutting but it’s going to give you the granularity to do your regular services and throughout the summer months and then go back to a smaller maintenance during the winter months. So that’s how we would go out in Service Autopilot and create a master recurring schedule for weekly or bi-weekly services through the summer and then less frequency in the winter so probably more particularly to our southern um friends or southwest marketsbutthere could be some services that may be applicable for bed maintenance and other things even in the northern market as well. Callahan’s Corner you ask the questions we answer them live right here on Facebook so if you haven’t checked out the Simple Growth SA Weekly Talk Show we’re coming at you at 12 centra 1 p.m eastern live on the Service Autopilot Facebook page and going to be releasing some information on it but we have syndicated and released the SA Weekly Talk Show on podcast so if you search on itunes, Spotify or any of the major hubs for podcasts Simplegrowth all one word it’s the Simple Growth podcast it’s the SA weekly talk show condensed into a podcast where you can watch or basically listen to the SA weekly talk show on the fly and learn from a lot of industry experts we have on there how to go out and outlearn your competition and dominate your local market . Whether we see you tomorrow on Callahan’s Corner where you ask the questions we answer live on Facebook, SA Weekly Talk Show live on Facebook on the Service Autopilot page or if you elect to download our podcast Simplegrowth on itunes, Spotify or any of the other major hubs we will see you there on one of those outlets. Once again Simple Growth thanks you for watching these videos and we’re here to help you out learn your competition while taking your life back from your business, so we’ll see you again tomorrow

This video is going to go over how to go out and set scheduling a recurring job. What we’ve got here is a test account in V3 you’ll notice the user interface looks a little bit different if you haven’t seen it yet but the idea is it once we’re on the client screen, now you do need to remember when you go in and add an account not a lead or client we’re gonna add them in as a lead once we win that estimate as a lead we’re gonna convert them into a client which you can see here the lead was converted. Now the next thing we wanna do is go in to the left here and I’m gonna bump the screen out so you can actually see it is you want to go in to the schedule a job area and click on that and the first thing we need to do is go into job type here so we’re gonna go in and put this in a repeat not one time because it’s a recurring job and it also automatically sets this to repeat so we’re going to set the line items that repeat. I’m gonna go in in put lawn-mowing in here as an example so you’ll see if it came in as an estimate it will be blue otherwise it may come in as a rate matrix job calculate off the rate matrix if the custom fields in there for that estimate. Once we have that in here we can add additional line items now under advanced this is probably not something you’re going to be do unless you’re doing chemical tracking or additional data but we have the ability to add a sales person manipulate the date sold the account manager and the source now if it already has a source it will automatically be there for lead source tracking so ideally you’re probably just going to go right to the next button here and which repeating schedule would like to be used on this job so we can go into our master schedules or use the custom schedule so let’s say we want it once a week on Mondays and when will the job start and we can set that start date for the day of the week were on or in the future now in addition just like V2 you can go in and grab those master schedules and let’s say it’s a weekly Monday when will this job start right here do you want to sign the job so we can say yes and we can go in and schedule it to the actual crew and based on the estimated team size based on the crew setup so that automatically loads in now and we’ve kind of got a summary of everything on the right hand side that’s happening . Once again under advance there’s some additional features do we need a call a head this is probably more particular for a home cleaning scenario or fertilization scenario but this is how we would track that it brings in the defaults of the company settings for maximum days per hour and include what days that they can work on we’re gonna hit next. Next step is billing so it’s going to go into the default of the automatic setup here as far as the default billing for the company and once again under advance we have some additional options here if we want to create a work order or a purchase or create a separate invoice outside of the continual daily weekly or monthly billing depending how this is set up under the advanced option so we’re gonna leave that alone swing over to finish and we can go in and review it or review it later so once we hit review this will populate or reoccurring jobs under future visits. That is the proper process to set up a recurring job in version 3 of Service Autopilot

Welcome back, this video is to go over how to set up a waiting list job in Service Autopilots new Version 3. What I’m gonna do is pull out the screen here and go into the details of setting up a waiting list job. If you’re unfamiliar with what a waiting list job is – a waiting list job can be something like spring cleanup where the job needs to be done sometime this month but not today or it can be done as a job that basically has a start and end date but doesn’t have to have a particular date. The idea is we want to be able to go out and schedule for optimization to minimize that drive time minimization that non billable time. In a later video we’re gonna go over a package job and package job is basically a series of waiting list jobs put together in a package so this would be ideal for fertilization with several rounds in different time frames or in landscape maintenance, maybe a bed package where we go out and do bed maintenance post and pre-emergent weed control with some manual weeding for each month but it doesn’t have to be on a particular date it does a time frame. This video is gonna go over waiting list jobs there’s a start and end range in how we schedule that and set that up in the new version 3 Service Autopilot. As I pulled the screen out here I’m going to show you how this is actually done so this is what V3 looks like here on the client screen tand you can also tell it based on the status when it says active up here this is a client if it says lead and a little orange button there you know their a lead and you have to convert your leads into a client before you can actually schedule in this old system or the new system. What you’re gonna do is go over to the left-hand column here to schedule job click on that, that’s going to pull up the first screen in V3. What we’re going to do now is it’s a little bit different instead of setting and clicking waiting list job we go to one time this includes one time or waiting list job so it by definition a waiting list job is a one time job where as a package that has a series of waiting list jobs would be considered a job that repeat. In this example this is we would go into one time because that is our waiting list job so it’s automatically pull one time up here and we’re going to select a service so I’m going to use an example of a spring cleanup if we have one in this account and we’ve got one here so I’m going to click a spring cleanup and I’m gonna put the budgeted hours of say 3 and a quantity of a 150 dollars if we’re recharging 50 dollars per man-hour.

Now once again just like a repeating job or a one-time job we have advanced options so if there’s chemical areas that we’re treating for chemical tracking we can select them this obviously would not be applicable for spring cleanup unless we are doing maybe a pre or post emergent pesticide. Next thing is we can override the dates old account manager and source so we’re gonna go over to the right hand bottom corner here in it next as we go in here do you know when this job will start yes or no so once we go in and we can say no and that’s gonna flip it over so this is a little confusing because this basically would be set for a one time job so you need to toggle over to no and this is the earliest a job can be done and let’s just say it can be done starting today but it can be done to the end of the month that gives us our start and end range. When you’re on the waiting list screen basically if you go without that outside of that range the job will turn to red. Now do you want to assign this job right now yes or no so we can assign it if we know who is going to do it and I’m gonna go in and assign that to my residential crew number one and based on that crew setup it’s gonna tell me how many people guys and girls are on that crew you can override that here and you can see the information on the right continues to populate so under advance we have additional options of a call ahead so if this spring cleanup required a call-a-head maybe to unlock the back gate we could say yes and that will trigger that little icon on the dispatch board and information and once again depending on the company settings it’s going to default maximum hours per day and the number of days now that is under the advanced features. Next step is going over to actually next click that and that’s going to slide us over to billing information so this invoice description can be adjust it how would you like to invoice this job monthly daily weekly or print in advance so maybe we want to override this and do this for a daily invoicing so it’s invoiced assoon as it’s done and under advance we can change work order and purchase order and separate invoices so prevents other jobs from being invoiced with this job and if we were billing monthly and we did this daily job we would probably want to build that out separately and click yes so it’s gonna give you the granularity to set up your billing and create that waiting list job. The final step here is to go in and hit finish that’s going to create the job and we can actually review it now and see it on the actual overlay of the clients screen so this would give you all the information that you need on that waiting list job here for the 150 dollars. That’s how we go out and schedule a waiting list job into the new Service Autopilot V3 hopefully that was helpful and as V3 continues to add more features and functionality simple growth will be here to continue to build these videos to show you step-by-step how to utilize the new user interface and upgrades of the system

This video is going to go over how to close out a loss estimate in the system, so when you send an estimate in Service Autopilot the client cannot automatically mark off a complete estimate as lost there are some physical steps that need to be taken by you or your office. I’m gonna pop the screen out here and show you how to actually do that so right here is our new V3 screening Service Autopilot so predominantly what you would do is go in the workflow once you have them in here and click add an estimate the estimate screen pops up here and I’ve grabbed a template already pre-built for speed and efficiency here in this video and let’s just say lawn mowing we say have our parent and child service for thirty eight dollars and nine cents for the mowing so if we called the client or quoting it we’d hit draft to quote so this would be a live estimate now. The next step would be if we lost the actual service or the complete estimate, someone in your office should physically come back in and click quote two won and then two lost. Now you can see the estimate here is marked to lost and we want to confirm the stage there is also marked to lost and once it’s lost and lost we would go in and hit save and close now once we’ve done that we’re gonna come back to the main lead screen we know it’s a lead based on this area right here under status when it is a client it says active. Next thing we need to do is under advanced actions here on the left we want to click on that go down and mark as lost once we click that this is going to close out that lead in the system so that will give us a clean database so it clear data of how many people are in our sales pipeline that could convert into a client and how many people basically are a lost lead we can continue to market them nurture them and upsell them and hopefully convert them into a client or lead in the future but for database hygiene we’re recommending you go in and mark it as lost and if you’ve missed it it is on the left hand column here under advanced actions mark as lost cancellation reasons these are under the gear icon and under cancellation reasons we have reasons why people cancel their services or a lost lead cancellation reason and we’re going to say that maybe we were too expensive or maybe they side with our competitor we would hit save and that is going to go in and mark that once again that area here has lost the lead so that is your visual clue as you’re driving in through the system and when we acts out of this here we go to the gear icon we will have that slash through it as well so to see the visual representation of that lost lead or canceled client on the Avatar so that’s how we’d handle a loss estimate in Service Autopilot for someone who isn’t buying any services we want to go under advanced actions on that lead or account screen and close out that lead so we can clean our database and have a clear picture of how many people we have active in our sales pipeline that could convert into an existing client