Contracts & renewals
Re-quote next year from the same takeoff. Change the rate, not the measurement.
Property maps · Professional
Landscape Measuring Software: Property Measurements for Landscaping Estimates
A property map is a traced aerial of one job site: the turf you mow, the beds you maintain, the edges you run, and what the crew needs to know before they get out of the truck. Draw it once and it pays you back twice: measurements that fill in your estimate quantities, and a crew map that tells the truck where the gate is and which side not to mow. Available on the Professional and Premier plans.
The problem
Two estimators, one property, two different numbers.
Most quotes in this trade are a windshield guess written down as a fact. It works until the day you need to raise a price and the customer asks why, or until you win a fertilizer account priced on a quarter-acre that turns out to be half of one. Nobody measures, because measuring used to mean a wheel and an afternoon.
The workflow
Trace → measure → price → publish.
One pass over an aerial, and the same drawing feeds both the office and the field.
1 · Trace
Draw the property
Boundary, turf, beds and no-mow surfaces as areas. Edges, fences and curbs as lines. Gates, hazards, sprinklers and parking as points.
2 · Measure
Totals, not guesses
Turf area, bed area, edging length and boundary area, added up from the shapes as you draw them.
3 · Price
Quantities fill themselves
Products priced per thousand, per acre, per linear foot or per hour read the measurement they need. Every quantity stays editable.
4 · Publish
The crew gets the map
Publishing cuts a version and pushes it to the field, filtered to the services that crew is there to do.
Worked example
From a traced map to a priced estimate line.
Say the front and back lawns you traced as Mow areas add up to 12,000 square feet of turf. Here is how that number becomes a line on an estimate without anyone typing it.
- 1
Set the product up once
In Billing > Products & Services, Fertilizer application is Priced per 1,000 sq ft and its Auto-measure from map reads Turf (mow areas). Mulch install reads Beds per square foot, Edging reads the Edging lines per linear foot, and Spring cleanup is Per hour with a production rate of 8,000 sq ft/hr.
- 2
Create the estimate and pick the job site
The measurements load from that site's map. Pick the customer first; the Job Site dropdown then loads their sites.
- 3
Add the product
The quantity fills in by itself: 12,000 square feet on a Per 1,000 sq ft line is 12. Picking the catalog product also fills the rate with its unit price, and the Amount column calculates from quantity times rate. Any line's quantity cell has a Measure button too, so a line you added by hand can pull a measurement.
- 4
Change what the aerial could not see
The map fills the number in; it never locks it. Override the quantity where the site has something the map cannot know about, and the estimate total recalculates from what is actually on the line.
No map on the site yet? The Measure button tells you there is nothing to measure, and you type the quantity as normal. Or open the map editor straight from the estimate, draw the site, and come back.
What 12,000 square feet of turf becomes
| Priced per | Quantity on the line |
|---|---|
| Per sq ft | 12,000 |
| Per 1,000 sq ft | 12 |
| Per acre | 0.28 |
| Per hour, at 8,000 sq ft/hr | 1.5 hours |
Area and length products divide the measurement by the rate basis. Per hour products divide it by the production rate: how much measured work one hour covers, in square feet an hour, or linear feet an hour for edging. The rate on the line is your catalog price; the map only supplies the quantity.
Price increases that survive the phone call
"Your turf is 12,400 square feet" ends the argument.
The hardest conversation in this business is the one where a long-standing customer asks why the price went up. "Costs are up" invites a negotiation. A measurement and a rate does not, because there is nothing in it to haggle with.
The same is true internally. When two people quote the same property from the same takeoff, they arrive at the same number, and your margin stops depending on which estimator answered the phone.
What the crew map carries
- Gates, and which one to use
- Hazards that will cost you a blade or a claim
- Sprinkler heads to keep off
- Do-not-mow surfaces: pools, patios, decks, paving
- Where to put the truck and trailer
- Per-shape instructions in your own words
When the map is wrong, the crew reports it with a photo and you resolve it from the map page. That loop is what keeps a map worth trusting in year three.
Drafts, versions and jobs
Draft freely. Publish on purpose.
The editor has two saves, and the difference matters. Save draft stores your work and changes nothing in the field. Publish Crew Map cuts a new version, and that is what changes what the crew sees. Every publish is kept in the map page's version history, and a version published from an estimate is marked as an estimate snapshot, so the measurements behind a quote stay on record after the property changes.
If someone else edits the same map while you have it open, the editor says Map changed elsewhere and offers to reload. Reload before you keep drawing, or you will publish over their work.
Jobs using this map
One map serves every job at the site, and the Jobs Using This Map panel lists each of them with the version it is on.
- Newer version available
- The job is pointing at an older version. Assign the current one when you are ready for the crew on that job to see the change.
- No map
- The job has no map assigned yet.
- Derive job tags
- Reads the map and works out which service tags the job needs, instead of you setting tags by hand on every job.
Works together
Measure once, use it everywhere
Chemical tracking & EPA logs
The fertilizer application you priced per thousand square feet of measured turf.
Crew mobile app
The map in the truck, filtered to the work that crew is there to do.
All features
See how the whole platform fits together, from first measurement to renewal.
Questions
Property maps FAQ
What do I actually draw?
Areas, lines and points on an aerial of the property. Areas are the boundary, the turf you mow, the beds you maintain, and the surfaces a mower must avoid. Lines are edges, fences and curbs. Points are gates, hazards, sprinkler heads and where to park. Each shape gets a label and, if you want, an instruction for the crew.
Can it trace the property automatically?
Not yet. Tracing is manual, and that is deliberate: automatic outlines come out approximate rather than hugging the real edges of lawns, beds and driveways, which is fine for a rough look and not for a number you are going to quote from. You draw the site yourself in one pass over the aerial, and the totals add up as you draw.
Which measurements does it give me?
Four totals, added up from what you drew: turf area from the mow shapes, bed area from the bed shapes, edging length from the edge, fence and curb lines, and the property boundary area. Those are the numbers estimates price from.
How does pricing from a measurement work?
Set a product up once with how it is priced (per square foot, per thousand square feet, per acre, per linear foot, or per hour) and which measurement it reads. Add it to an estimate for a mapped site and the quantity fills itself in. Per-hour products use a production rate, so 12,000 square feet at 8,000 square feet an hour comes back as 1.5 hours.
How do I set a product up to price from the map?
In Billing > Products & Services, edit the product and set Priced per (Each, Per sq ft, Per 1,000 sq ft, Per acre, Per linear ft or Per hour) and Auto-measure from map (Turf, Beds, Edging or Property boundary). Per hour products also take a production rate: how much measured work one hour covers, in square feet an hour, or linear feet an hour for edging. Leave Auto-measure blank for anything that is not measured.
Can I override what the map says?
Always. The map fills the quantity in; it never locks it. Every property has something an aerial cannot know about, and the line total recalculates from whatever you leave on the line.
What if the job site has no map yet?
The Measure button tells you there is nothing to measure, and you type the quantities as normal. You can open the map editor straight from the estimate, draw the site, and come back to the estimate.
What do the crews see?
A published crew map, filtered to the services they are actually there to do. Publishing cuts a version, so you can draft changes without them landing in the field mid-week, and every job records which version it is on.
What if the map is wrong?
Crews report it against the map, with a photo if they took one, and the issue shows up on the map page for you to resolve or dismiss. A map nobody maintains is worse than no map, because crews stop trusting it, so the reporting loop is part of the feature rather than an afterthought.
Does the map belong to the job or the customer?
The job site. One map serves every job at that address, this season and next, which is why a takeoff you do once keeps paying you back at every re-quote.
Can I see the measurements a customer was actually quoted from?
Yes. When a map is published from an estimate, that version is marked as an estimate snapshot, so the measurements behind the quote stay on record even after the property changes. Every publish is kept in the version history on the map page.
Which plans include property maps?
Property maps are available on the Professional and Premier plans.
Quote from a measurement, not a guess.
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