I am just starting out and I am set up with an LLC, FB, Google, Logos, flyers, biz cards, hats, t shirts, yardbook, and website before mowing any lawns. Now it's time to get out there with flyers next week
Agree Brian. I came in at 32 years old . part time at first Now 13 years and still learning every day. And thanks to a great community of lawncare professionals that are always generous with experience and advise
I am just getting started with my law care business. Luckily RUclips is a great resource for pros like you who have talked about Yardbooks. I have started up with it and I have loved how easy it is to use. I need all the help I can get so I am happy so far. Plus you can’t beat the price!
I would live to see a video of your process of putting the work into yardbooks, maybe with demo account. Looking in to how this would work for our business without having to prior schedule every little thing we do.
Hey my name is chase and I have been watching you for about a week now and have learned a lot about lawn care. I am 14 and me and my buddy started a business mowing lawns in our subdivision. We are about 45 mins away from Chicago. We are thinking about starting a RUclips channel to document us mowing. So I just wanted to say thank you for adding to my collection of knowledge about mowing
I came across Yardbook before I got all my "ducks in a row" for our LLC. I have used it since DAY ONE. We love it and will continue to use it. We have been using it now for 15 months. Thanks for your review!
Patrick Wheatley I had a few who've done me like that! One had a health issue and the other just stopped communicating with me. So I just stopped service. I notified him ahead of time that if payment wasn't made that I would discontinue service.
I first heard about yardbook from lawn care life channel. Glad to see you mention it here. It seems very helpful so far for me except i am having issues removing something from a clients profile and figuring out the credit card thing. But that being said i am very not tech savvy lol
I’ve Been a fan did a soft launch last fall, been running yardbook exclusively this Season, looking forward to using it more to its potential as we grow
So i am watching your video and honestly, I love yardbook. I was in the exact same spot of using excel spreadsheets. I am now into my second season of lawn maintenance and found out about yardbook from your channel and it has really helped me with trying to make my area more dense with more clients. It is also helping me with routing and seeing where I am able to pick up more clients in one area versus another area. I am based out of Northeast Ohio and have found that there are so many landscapers now and it is hard to compete with others in some of my areas. One of my questions for you is how did you pick you locations that you wanted to service and how did you get into bidding commercial lots and or businesses?
There is a $3 convenience fee that you as a business owner can add to offset costs. I am still currently learning the payment system. I just billed my cc yesterday to get more familiar before I start with customers.
I use Yardbook now and it has helped so much. I'm very new to it and was wondering how you guys create an invoice partially. What I mean is lets say I created an estimate and that estimate had three individual line items...Say 1. weelkly lawn cut. 2. Trim hedge's. 3. rake leaves. Customer approves line item 1....weekly lawn cut only and I do the job. Now how do I charge for just line item 1 based off that estimate/job? Without adding total price for all the others. Please advise thanks. Awesome video Brian!
I love yardbooks getting most of them over to paying at the end of the month. I would love to do charge card, but my customers won’t like that... but I might give it a shot.
How do you like it Brian? I use quickbooks desktop. Only because my accountant can login and access my account from her office and I can print off quarterly reports and send them to her.
I've been using yardbook and love it. It does stink they are now taking a % of credit card charges now but for me personally it is still less expensive than paying for it monthly. Once I get to that point I'll have to pay I guess. Over all though, good program though.
I hate chasing checks.. i make them pay me the day of before i even invest and send the truck out I'm running that cc. If it declines they get skipped.
@@BriansLawnMaintenance I would like to hear how you plan to use it for snow removal. WAVE handled most of what we needed for the past MANY years. We have always encouraged digital payments and it does make life much easier. WAVE allows 50 cent ACH transactions as well as credit/debit. (I am searching for a routing process)
Having been in business for 30 years, Starting with 1 business customer, and ending up with 1800 business customers, Collections are always the headache, we found ways to avoid these problems (mostly), we were a 13 million a year company, so collections were a big part. The CC way is nice , but you are losing a percentage of the profit. So many people just think customers just pay. Not so. You end up being a collections company.
We lose a percentage for sure but it’s deductible but honestly if that’s the cost of doing business and not chasing folks down, I’d gladly pay it. Scale to that level and I’m sure I’d do differently bc that would be a gob I’m sure, but for me this has been great. Thx for sharing pal
Dont get me wrong, We had that option also, and chasing people down is one of the worse things about running a company. We had a problem with customers, and they were all Business Customers, calling us, getting work done with Labor and Parts, some costings thousands of dollars, then you invoice them, and you get nothing. So we started with a policy that if we didnt know you, you paid up front, unless you were a well known company. This worked pretty good. A good thing you might try, is give the customer a percentage off there invoice if paid early. Instead of a late charge. People love to save a little bit in the long run, Heck I would. But in the end running your own business is fun. After awhile start expanding into other small business types, in the end thats what made us a fortune. We could take care of there Business Phones, computer system, cleaned there offices, construction services, everything a business could need we did. Except Lawn Care. And they are now looking into that also. Thanks to Brian. The Key to making money, is getting to know your customer. Finding out what they need and how you can help get them where they want to go. Take the time to know them !!. We stressed this to our employees and it works. Once they know you, they wont leave you. They just want you to be fair. Just like you expect when you need a service.
Thanks Brian. Good stuff. I just started using Yardbook and so far i like it alot. I only wish they would come up with the app for iphone already. what accounting software do you use. do you use quickbooks integration? thanks
Hey Brian, Are you using QuickBooks for accounting along side Yardbooks. If so, are you using the sync feature and how well does it work? We are using a far more expensive competitor and it’s very buggy.
Not sure if you're still using yardbook, but I started a window washing and janitorial business a little less than a year ago. Business is growing which is awesome! But I'm having a similar issue as when you started, I've become a professional debt collector. My question is, do you think I could use yardbook and customize it for my cleaning business? We do the same thing, we bill for our services monthly for various accounts. Currently trying to figure out which program best suits me. Any tips from anyone appreciated! Thanks.
Try WAVE. We use it for lawn, snow, handyman, housekeeping, etc. It is a simple service which is free and has the built in card option Brian likes. We actually set up different business lines (so a housekeeping manager isn't looking at lawn customers) and are able to give employees access to make estimates or send invoices/mark as paid if needed without giving them banking access or ability to delete anything. HOWEVER it does not have the route configuration or other Jobber type features. There are some easy tricks to make it super easy to use and learn within a day.
So you charge them at the end of the month versus weekly (or as soon as the service is completed)? I'm still a small operation, but invoice clients at the end of the day (net 7 days).
Brian's Lawn Maintenance oh that's awesome! I need to look a little more into it but I need something now, we have been getting into the debt collection deal and we want to fix that.
How much is the credit processing costing you? Is it through PayPal? Or Stripe? I currently use a program very similar to yard books. I may want to switch over at the end of the year. My concern is being able to upload my current lists to yard books. Do they have a mobile platform yet? That was the only reason I stayed with current program.
Mobil for Android I believe. Stripe is what I use with YB. I believe you can import to a degree but, I came from basic lists on Numbers. I had to manually enter everything. Definitely took me 5-10 hours to populate my biz but it’s time well spent for me
Hey Brian, another great video as always. So 2 years later are you still using Yardbook? I currently bill through PayPal business Invoicing and collect money through that, Venmo and cash/check so just curious if 2 years later Yardbook is still the tool to use. I am signed up with Yardbook. Just wanted to some more feedback before moving my data over this winter for a full test run so to speak next year.
I'm sure you are grandfathered in... but curious what your views are on their increase in monthly fees. I am new to yardbooks and seem to like it so far, however lots of reddit forms are upset with yardbooks b/c of increase and looking for an alternative.
It’s 1%. Folks whine about everything these days. I’m sorry, but the competition starts at $160 a month and $199 respectively. I think the premium version is like $30 for Yardbook. It’s still a no brainer. Thanks!
Hello. I understand there are fees associated with the credit card payment option. However, are those fees paid for by the customer or does the company take on that expense? I have a family run business ( 4 people ) how does everyone have access to the app? or is it only for 1 single user?
My business accepts cash check and I run through PayPal other than what couple commercial things it takes 30 days to pay out on everybody else is at a 72-hour minimum. After 72 hours they're no longer my customer
Only one so far. The expiration changed the customer said she just got her new card in. I’d imagine I’ll have 1-2 which fail to authorize. But so far not as bad as I thought
How do you present this to the customer without them getting uncomfortable or frustrated? I have a pretty good relationship with all of my customers, but I'm afraid that offering a recurring payment strategy would scare them off. It sounds like you gave them an ultimatum. That sounds risky. I might offer it to them as an option. I hate collecting. It's a huge waste of time.
Nah not an ultimatum. Just a nudge in a new direction. I gave them the option of a seasonal prepay. But short answer, I guess yeah it was the new program or find a new provider. Sorry, it's just business.
Options on my first set up of yard book www.yardbook.com/hp/110918 First attempt to see how it looks and see what I could do to improve it now I have not started lawn care yet so pic will be pending thks for any help
It only if works if the big guy will ever remembers to pay you and your CPA must love the fact that you just send over your reports at the end of the year to do you taxes. What is the monthly cost? You must have got board waiting for Liz, filmimg in your parking lot where you live. lol What must the neighbors think of the guy in the big red truck talking waving his hands all over.
I am just starting out and I am set up with an LLC, FB, Google, Logos, flyers, biz cards, hats, t shirts, yardbook, and website before mowing any lawns.
Now it's time to get out there with flyers next week
Yardbook has served us very well and continues to evolve... And Mark is great.
Agreed!
Monthly or weekly?
Jonathan,does Yardbook give you the ability from your endto charge/debit customers cardS
Agree Brian. I came in at 32 years old . part time at first Now 13 years and still learning every day. And thanks to a great community of lawncare professionals that are always generous with experience and advise
I am just getting started with my law care business. Luckily RUclips is a great resource for pros like you who have talked about Yardbooks. I have started up with it and I have loved how easy it is to use. I need all the help I can get so I am happy so far. Plus you can’t beat the price!
What is the price?
I would live to see a video of your process of putting the work into yardbooks, maybe with demo account. Looking in to how this would work for our business without having to prior schedule every little thing we do.
The right tool can make a huge difference. Yardbook sounds like a game-changer. Nice video Brian!
Love yardbook I run it off my phone and I pad. Real time info entered nothing missed.
I always had my customers pre-paid but I started hearing about Yardbooks last week and now with you so I'm giving it a try.
Yardbook has changed my business and I thank you for mentioning them on your channel. Thank you!
Hey my name is chase and I have been watching you for about a week now and have learned a lot about lawn care. I am 14 and me and my buddy started a business mowing lawns in our subdivision. We are about 45 mins away from Chicago. We are thinking about starting a RUclips channel to document us mowing. So I just wanted to say thank you for adding to my collection of knowledge about mowing
You bet buddy. Good luck to you guys!
I came across Yardbook before I got all my "ducks in a row" for our LLC. I have used it since DAY ONE. We love it and will continue to use it. We have been using it now for 15 months. Thanks for your review!
James S. Harper I wish I had this from day 1. What a blessing it’s been. Can’t wait to get more familiar with it and grow with the YB family.
Been using Yardbooks since 2015. They ROCK!!!
Thank you Brian ..I literally just downloaded this today ...this video just assured me I done the right thing !
Sweet!
Thank you for all the info you put out in your videos they have helped me why I start my lawn care company
Awesome!
Very True, been using yardbooks since day one. Its amazing, no regrets.
I do love Yardbook. I can not relate to your nice cashflow, but...I am impressed by how it works, and what is doing for me already.
Very good information! Thank you for your honesty and sharing.
Great video brother keep up the awesome work
Nice video Brian, I have been using yardbook for 13 years now and I love it too!
Dale, Does Yardbook allow you to charge/debit customers card from you end? Or do you have to wait for the customer to make payment?
Thanks for making this video. Really been frustrated with customers not paying for weeks on weeks at a time
If I can help one person avoid the endless nonpayment headache, than these type of videos are worth it and did their job!
Patrick Wheatley I had a few who've done me like that! One had a health issue and the other just stopped communicating with me. So I just stopped service. I notified him ahead of time that if payment wasn't made that I would discontinue service.
thank you for sharing your experience with yardbook!
Hope you guys are as busy as we are here in Stillwater Mn! Wow this season is crazy for us!
Always busy here!
Mark is fantastic!
I first heard about yardbook from lawn care life channel. Glad to see you mention it here. It seems very helpful so far for me except i am having issues removing something from a clients profile and figuring out the credit card thing. But that being said i am very not tech savvy lol
This is our second year using yardbook and I couldn’t agree more. The time not spent collecting money is worth the small fees.
Totally
I’ve Been a fan did a soft launch last fall, been running yardbook exclusively this Season, looking forward to using it more to its potential as we grow
50k Congrats Man!
So i am watching your video and honestly, I love yardbook. I was in the exact same spot of using excel spreadsheets. I am now into my second season of lawn maintenance and found out about yardbook from your channel and it has really helped me with trying to make my area more dense with more clients. It is also helping me with routing and seeing where I am able to pick up more clients in one area versus another area. I am based out of Northeast Ohio and have found that there are so many landscapers now and it is hard to compete with others in some of my areas. One of my questions for you is how did you pick you locations that you wanted to service and how did you get into bidding commercial lots and or businesses?
25K!! Congrats man!
Carter Justice thanks bud! Super pumped about that!
I am just starting up with Yardbook myself.
There is a $3 convenience fee that you as a business owner can add to offset costs. I am still currently learning the payment system. I just billed my cc yesterday to get more familiar before I start with customers.
I use Yardbook now and it has helped so much. I'm very new to it and was wondering how you guys create an invoice partially. What I mean is lets say I created an estimate and that estimate had three individual line items...Say 1. weelkly lawn cut. 2. Trim hedge's. 3. rake leaves. Customer approves line item 1....weekly lawn cut only and I do the job. Now how do I charge for just line item 1 based off that estimate/job? Without adding total price for all the others. Please advise thanks. Awesome video Brian!
12:50 "Think", they have a 1% processing fee???...... It seems like really big step up from invoicing monthly!!!!
1% is fine. Things take money to move. Its nothing compared to what you get for it, imo
I love yardbooks getting most of them over to paying at the end of the month. I would love to do charge card, but my customers won’t like that... but I might give it a shot.
How do you like it Brian? I use quickbooks desktop. Only because my accountant can login and access my account from her office and I can print off quarterly reports and send them to her.
O my Gosh your describing my cash flow I am dealing with right now! Its exhausting to be catching up and collecting past due!🙄
I've been using yardbook and love it. It does stink they are now taking a % of credit card charges now but for me personally it is still less expensive than paying for it monthly. Once I get to that point I'll have to pay I guess. Over all though, good program though.
Do you have a referral code for yard books?
I know you can set-up reoccurring invoices through yardbook, what about recurring payments?
Hmm not sure about that sorry
Yard book is a great product!
New Sub! thanks man, I was wondering if there was a way to get customers to put a card on file.
There is yup!
Yardbook sounds cool!! I'd get it if I start a buisness
I hate chasing checks.. i make them pay me the day of before i even invest and send the truck out I'm running that cc. If it declines they get skipped.
Can yardbook be used for any business or just landscaping?
probably lawn care
@@BriansLawnMaintenance I would like to hear how you plan to use it for snow removal. WAVE handled most of what we needed for the past MANY years. We have always encouraged digital payments and it does make life much easier. WAVE allows 50 cent ACH transactions as well as credit/debit. (I am searching for a routing process)
Does it have weekly billing options?
You invoice however you'd like!
Do you have a referral code for Yard Books by chance?
MailChimp is awesome especially for newsletters.
Love yardbook!
Can you give an example of how to tell customer that your changing the billing I always have a hard time with communication skills
Thanks!
We've done videos on this topic, we call it a price adjustment!
Having been in business for 30 years, Starting with 1 business customer, and ending up with 1800 business customers, Collections are always the headache, we found ways to avoid these problems (mostly), we were a 13 million a year company, so collections were a big part. The CC way is nice , but you are losing a percentage of the profit. So many people just think customers just pay. Not so. You end up being a collections company.
We lose a percentage for sure but it’s deductible but honestly if that’s the cost of doing business and not chasing folks down, I’d gladly pay it. Scale to that level and I’m sure I’d do differently bc that would be a gob I’m sure, but for me this has been great. Thx for sharing pal
Dont get me wrong, We had that option also, and chasing people down is one of the worse things about running a company. We had a problem with customers, and they were all Business Customers, calling us, getting work done with Labor and Parts, some costings thousands of dollars, then you invoice them, and you get nothing. So we started with a policy that if we didnt know you, you paid up front, unless you were a well known company. This worked pretty good. A good thing you might try, is give the customer a percentage off there invoice if paid early. Instead of a late charge. People love to save a little bit in the long run, Heck I would.
But in the end running your own business is fun. After awhile start expanding into other small business types, in the end thats what made us a fortune. We could take care of there Business Phones, computer system, cleaned there offices, construction services, everything a business could need we did. Except Lawn Care. And they are now looking into that also. Thanks to Brian.
The Key to making money, is getting to know your customer. Finding out what they need and how you can help get them where they want to go. Take the time to know them !!. We stressed this to our employees and it works. Once they know you, they wont leave you. They just want you to be fair. Just like you expect when you need a service.
Well said!
What about your commercial accounts ?
We invoice them still with YB. But they’re net 14 days. 95% of commercial clients your gonna have to invoice still. Just how that game goes.
Thanks Brian. Good stuff. I just started using Yardbook and so far i like it alot. I only wish they would come up with the app for iphone already. what accounting software do you use. do you use quickbooks integration? thanks
Amen buddy. We use QB online, not integrated with YB no sir
Is it better to have a tablet for yardbooks or can a S7 work?
I personally only use desktop sorry
How do you do your due diligence in safe guarding client information using Yardbook? Isn’t all information in Yardbook on the cloud?
Hey Brian, Are you using QuickBooks for accounting along side Yardbooks. If so, are you using the sync feature and how well does it work? We are using a far more expensive competitor and it’s very buggy.
Quickbooks+Yardbooks yessir.
How do you invoice customers thru yardbook ?
Under invoices.
Do you still use yardbook? I used quick books few years ago
Yep - I love it.
Not sure if you're still using yardbook, but I started a window washing and janitorial business a little less than a year ago. Business is growing which is awesome! But I'm having a similar issue as when you started, I've become a professional debt collector. My question is, do you think I could use yardbook and customize it for my cleaning business? We do the same thing, we bill for our services monthly for various accounts. Currently trying to figure out which program best suits me. Any tips from anyone appreciated! Thanks.
Yardbook or Jobber, charge card on file would be a great system for you.
@@BriansLawnMaintenance thanks so much for a response!
Try WAVE. We use it for lawn, snow, handyman, housekeeping, etc. It is a simple service which is free and has the built in card option Brian likes. We actually set up different business lines (so a housekeeping manager isn't looking at lawn customers) and are able to give employees access to make estimates or send invoices/mark as paid if needed without giving them banking access or ability to delete anything. HOWEVER it does not have the route configuration or other Jobber type features. There are some easy tricks to make it super easy to use and learn within a day.
So you charge them at the end of the month versus weekly (or as soon as the service is completed)? I'm still a small operation, but invoice clients at the end of the day (net 7 days).
We do EOM, yessir.
Hey Brian is this platform good on mobile devices?
Android yes, iPhone it uses the mobile browser
Brian's Lawn Maintenance oh that's awesome! I need to look a little more into it but I need something now, we have been getting into the debt collection deal and we want to fix that.
Does yard book keep book balance or just used for invoicing, quotes, and customer info and routing?
All of the above
How much is the credit processing costing you? Is it through PayPal? Or Stripe? I currently use a program very similar to yard books. I may want to switch over at the end of the year. My concern is being able to upload my current lists to yard books. Do they have a mobile platform yet? That was the only reason I stayed with current program.
Mobil for Android I believe. Stripe is what I use with YB. I believe you can import to a degree but, I came from basic lists on Numbers. I had to manually enter everything. Definitely took me 5-10 hours to populate my biz but it’s time well spent for me
It is very worth the effort to transcribe your customer lists to yardbook
Do you guys work 5 days per week or do you do 4 day weeks?
Scott O 4 now with a make up day/landscape day on Friday
Hey Brian, another great video as always. So 2 years later are you still using Yardbook? I currently bill through PayPal business Invoicing and collect money through that, Venmo and cash/check so just curious if 2 years later Yardbook is still the tool to use. I am signed up with Yardbook. Just wanted to some more feedback before moving my data over this winter for a full test run so to speak next year.
Yup and I love it. No issues so far.
Brian does yard books allow the ability to charge weekly at the time of service? If so, do you recommend this?
Of course
I'm sure you are grandfathered in... but curious what your views are on their increase in monthly fees. I am new to yardbooks and seem to like it so far, however lots of reddit forms are upset with yardbooks b/c of increase and looking for an alternative.
It’s 1%. Folks whine about everything these days. I’m sorry, but the competition starts at $160 a month and $199 respectively. I think the premium version is like $30 for Yardbook. It’s still a no brainer. Thanks!
Does this include debit cards, or just credit cards?
mccool24 It can charge either. Stripe does the processing.
can you pre charge people on this, if your clients pay for the month in advance?
Sure of course.
This is off the subject. Do you run your company as an LLC? I was wondering if I should go to an LLC company for 2019?
LLC yep
Hello. I understand there are fees associated with the credit card payment option. However, are those fees paid for by the customer or does the company take on that expense? I have a family run business ( 4 people ) how does everyone have access to the app? or is it only for 1 single user?
We take on the expense. However if it’s truly a convenience for the customer and you accept other forms of payment, I’d probably enable the fees
What does it cost you monthly?
1% now for processing fee but I think the upgraded version is $30/month or something. I’m still learning myself.
My business accepts cash check and I run through PayPal other than what couple commercial things it takes 30 days to pay out on everybody else is at a 72-hour minimum. After 72 hours they're no longer my customer
Keep up with cashflow. Having your money outfront.
Fix our cash flow with Yard book.
Have you had any cards decline on you at the end of the month, after you've serviced the property that month?
Only one so far. The expiration changed the customer said she just got her new card in. I’d imagine I’ll have 1-2 which fail to authorize. But so far not as bad as I thought
Can you change the currency from $(USD) to £ (GBP) ?
Thorganby001 I’m not sure, sorry!
That would be good if you can, maybe you can discuss it with them?
Is there an android app?
I believe so but you have to email for the download link I heard. Still in beta
You look tired, B. Make sure to leave some time for yourself to recharge those batteries.
I’ve been sleeping great lately. Spring rush is over :)
Did people get upset about the convenience fee? I use this and charge the whole fee to the customer.
I mean every other business in America charges it. Why not yours!
How do you present this to the customer without them getting uncomfortable or frustrated? I have a pretty good relationship with all of my customers, but I'm afraid that offering a recurring payment strategy would scare them off. It sounds like you gave them an ultimatum. That sounds risky. I might offer it to them as an option. I hate collecting. It's a huge waste of time.
Nah not an ultimatum. Just a nudge in a new direction. I gave them the option of a seasonal prepay. But short answer, I guess yeah it was the new program or find a new provider. Sorry, it's just business.
Question- with the CC on file is that only available on the paid version?
Nope free version you can too
150 accounts an you only have one mower? Hard to believe
Mike Hertzog 150 accounts wait what? How do you do them bi weekly or weekly
What’s so hard to believe again? I’m on food stamps compared to most guys who mow.
I only offer and do weekly
Brian's Lawn Maintenance so you cut 150 lawns per week?
Plus or minus. Yep
What up brain
Options on my first set up of yard book
www.yardbook.com/hp/110918
First attempt to see how it looks and see what I could do to improve it now I have not started lawn care yet so pic will be pending thks for any help
First
It only if works if the big guy will ever remembers to pay you and your CPA must love the fact that you just send over your reports at the end of the year to do you taxes. What is the monthly cost? You must have got board waiting for Liz, filmimg in your parking lot where you live. lol What must the neighbors think of the guy in the big red truck talking waving his hands all over.
Austin Denney lol weirdly enough my neighbors refer to me as the YT guy. And watch our videos. Haha
yep just a actor, they know the true you.
Sorry but FREE (or so it seems) software that provides so much cannot be good and/or very scary. Very doubtful