Aqualon Speeds Up Estimating, Payments, & Invoicing – Eliminating Bottlenecks
At a Glance
The Customer
- Aqualon designs, installs, and maintains irrigation systems in Tipp City, OH
The Challenge
- Using multiple software apps
- Unable to manage service and installs on the same schedule
The Results
- Sped up estimating process – from hours to minutes – eliminating bottlenecks
- Send all invoices the same day jobs are completed
- Nearly 30% reduction in software costs due to consolidating on SingleOps
- Prepay functionality works well, speeding up payments
The Customer
Aqualon designs, installs, and maintains irrigation systems in Tipp City, OH, and the community at large. Certified since 1998 in irrigation design, irrigation auditing, and irrigation contracting, Aqualon helps with all sprinkler system needs. The company has been protecting the landscape investments of residential and commercial customers since 2000.
The Challenge
“At Aqualon, we have both installation and service divisions. We were using multiple software applications to manage the business, including Landscape Management Network (LMN) and Hindsight. Each piece of software had their own strengths, and we had hoped that one of them could manage our service work and installs on the same schedule.
“Unfortunately, we weren’t able to make either one do that as well as we’d like. Specifically, with Hindsight, we were unable to schedule a crew at a multi-day site in a seamless, intuitive way. LMN could accomplish that easily, but the app doesn’t do routing well, and scheduling a single work order isn’t as easy as with Hindsight,” explained John Sink, President and Owner, Aqualon, Inc.
The Solution
Aqualon evaluated multiple solutions, including Aspire, which was unable to accomplish the team’s objectives. Others, such as ServiceTitan, didn’t manage crew scheduling as well as SingleOps and for a reasonable price.
“I did a fair amount of research, including contacting users who had written online reviews. I had heard about SingleOps through numerous different channels in the green industry, including a peer group I’m part of. I felt more comfortable with SingleOps. The application could accomplish what we needed, and the pricing structure worked for us,” said John.
The Results
“Implementation was a smooth process. SingleOps was careful in setting our expectations and managing the process, and I appreciated that very much. The SingleOps team did well with scheduling calls, giving me homework, and helping me get it done. We started working with one person initially who moved on to another role, so the faces changed, and that’s a little challenging. But the SingleOps team did a yeoman’s job of making sure there’s continuity.” Aqualon is now able to put all different types of jobs on the schedule in a seamless way, as well as route to jobs.
Ease of Generating Proposals Frees Up Time, Eliminating Bottlenecks
“In the past, estimating had to be done by a skilled and overworked estimator. Generating proposals required several different layers, and we ran the risk of not getting them out in time or not getting some out at all.
“SingleOps significantly improved the entire process. We use flat-pricing, and we were able to put together premade kits in SingleOps. Now, we enter the info in a template in SingleOps, generate a price, then create and email a professional-looking proposal. The whole flow of sending proposals to customers is really smooth and professional and easy to use for customers. I really like the way SingleOps pulls it together. It’s streamlined and works seamlessly, so we can get them all out quickly.”
Estimating from Hours to Minutes
“Now generating estimates is a simple, easy process that multiple people in the office can do. What would’ve taken hours, is now done in minutes. This frees up time for our estimators and eliminates bottlenecks. We have a new employee who was a barista, so he knows customer service, and now he does estimates.”
Sped Up Acceptance & Receipt of Payments
In the past, Aqualon emailed proposals as PDF attachments. Customers weren’t able to accept proposals online. Now with SingleOps, Aqualon customers can easily click through and accept proposals via the automated SingleOps portal.
“SingleOps has sped up the acceptance of proposals, and I think our proposal acceptance rate has also increased. If there’s a deposit needed, customers can also prepay with SingleOps. The prepay functionality worked so well, and I believe it has really sped up payments. Our prepay offer acceptance, which we do over the winter, was sped up significantly, with fewer people falling through.”
Invoices Out Same Day
“We can generate over 40 invoices per day, depending on the season. Before SingleOps, it would sometimes take two to three days before invoicing was done. Now we’re usually able to complete our invoicing the same day we do the job.”
Reduced Software Costs and More Useful Info
With so many invoices, it can be hard to follow up on collecting. Previously, Aqualon used a third-party reminder app, but the company plans to start using SingleOps automated reminders for unpaid accounts in Accounts Receivable.
Now that Aqualon no longer needs to use a combination of LMN, Hindsight, and the reminder app, their software expenses have been reduced by 25-30%.“We were using Tsheets (Now QuickBooks® Time), which is very easy to use. There was a learning curve for our crews switching to SingleOps time-tracking, as I would expect with any new app. But we now have more useful info as far as time to actual job that the leadership can use better,” concluded John.