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Countless moving parts. That’s what field-service businesses like yours have to manage.
From booking customer appointments to preparing estimates, scheduling your crew, billing, taking field payments, chasing receivables, reconciling your books, and more—it’s a lot.
Any inefficiencies in the process waste staff time, restrict potential revenue, and delay cash flow. Especially for smaller companies, where support staff is limited or nonexistent, the costs of inefficiency can be extremely high.
Fortunately, software tools can help you automate everything. The best ones are like having a low-cost, full-time assistant constantly at your side. There are many systems to choose from, though, and deciding which is best for your unique business can be tricky. Some are expensive. Some are AI-heavy and overly complex. Some are missing important functions.
To help you choose, we’ve prepared this practical checklist of key features of all-in-one field-service software. We’ve ranked them by business impact so you can quickly prioritize.
1. Ease of Use
This one’s nonnegotiable. If a field-services software tool you’re considering isn’t easy for everyone to use—owner, office staff, field techs—it will cause more problems than it’s solving. Look for intuitive layout and menus. Give it a spin before you commit, and step through your main workflows.
Must-have: Your team should be able to open the app on their phones and start using it with minimal instruction.
2. Flexible Payment Acceptance
As you know, customers want to pay how they want to pay. If you offer the payment types your customers prefer, they’re more likely to remit payment promptly. Providing the full range of payment options makes collection easier and speeds up your cash flow.
Homeowners often like to pay with credit or debit cards. Ask if you can send a payment link via email or text and if the customer can pay with credit, debit, or directly from their bank account (ACH). For efficiency and a modern customer experience in the field, your techs should also be able to take contactless card payments and email or text receipts. Tap, pay, done.
Commercial customers need invoices, of course, so check out a software system’s invoicing and invoice payment features. More on that next.
Must-have: The software should enable you to easily take credit, debit, and ACH payments—both in the office and in the field.
3. Digital Invoicing and Estimates
If you’re still handwriting or printing and sending paper invoices, now’s the time to upgrade to electronic invoicing. It’s fast and simple, and this one software feature alone can speed up billing cycles and cash flow by weeks.
Recurring billing for repeat services should also be automated. No need to manually send invoices at regular intervals when the software can do it for you. You can also save a lot of admin time with automatic conversion of estimates to invoices. When the work is completed, simply change estimates to invoices with the click of a button.
Must-have: Look for simple estimates and invoicing, on your computer or on the go.
4. Integrated Scheduling and Calendar Management
A good scheduling tool ensures you’re optimizing staff time and eliminating double bookings. And automated reminders and notifications reduce no-shows, make staff time more efficient, and protect revenue. Plus, customers appreciate reliable scheduling, which enhances reviews and word-of-mouth recommendations.
Must-have: Look for an all-in-one solution that includes basic scheduling tools—without being more complicated than you need it to be.
5. Mobile Access and Field-Friendly App
Depending on your business setup, your field crew may handle tasks besides the work itself. From creating invoices to taking payments, they can help you reduce back-office bottlenecks and make your business run smoothly and efficiently—if they have the right software solution at their fingertips.
Must-have: Choose a system that your whole crew can use on a computer or a mobile phone app interchangeably. On-the-go payment tools should be simple and reliable.
6. QuickBooks Integration
When field-service software syncs with QuickBooks Online, it’s a significant timesaver. Automatically and in real time, this feature ensures your books always have the most current information, eliminating manual reconciliation and reducing bookkeeping errors. Customer updates, estimates, invoices, payments, and more should sync seamlessly. No double entry. No manual importing.
Must-have: Automated sync keeps operations and accounting aligned without time-wasting manual entry and doublechecking.
7. Integrated Reporting and Analytics
When you’re done comparing, you’ll be glad you chose a field-service software system with good basic reporting. Look for clear visibility into payments, sales by service/item, job summary, customer list, cash flow, profitability, and more. Integrated reporting helps you stay on top of the health of your company and informs smart business decisions.
Must-have: Look for reporting that helps you easily see what’s making you money and where opportunities for more business might lie.
8. Security and Compliance
Any field-service software system you use has to safeguard business and customer data, especially (but not limited to) bank account and payments information. After all, you’re counting on this software to protect your company from fraud and liability.
Must-have: Data should be encrypted, meet payment industry standards (PCI DSS), and have foolproof backup systems in place.
9. Cost
We realize that cost isn’t really a software feature, yet it’s an important consideration for small businesses. Remember: there’s no need to pay too much. A software solution that’s perfect for a large field-service company might be overkill for you.
Look for an all-in-one field-services software with an affordable monthly fee, which should cover unlimited invoices, estimates, users, customers, etc. Apart from this, ask about the payment-processing fees. Pro tip: It’s common for payment processing that’s rolled into larger all-in-one systems to come at a steep price in exchange for the convenience. Your business can lose a surprising amount of money this way.
Also ask about cost-savings programs that allow you to share or pass along processing fees to customers who choose to pay with credit cards. Consumers are used to paying these types of convenience fees, especially for services, and they can save your business a lot of money.
Must-have: The software and processing price has to be right for your business. If it’s too high, keep looking.
The Right Solution for Your Business
You’ve got a field-service business to run, and the great news is that there are a number of all-in-one software solutions available today that can help you handle scheduling, automate paperwork and customer communications, accept payments more easily, simplify bookkeeping, and speed up cash flow.
Choose software that’s easy to use and does what you need it to do—without being overly complicated or expensive.
As you’re comparing all-in-one field-service software solutions, consider Roc Services. Built especially for field service companies and including fully integrated payments, it’s the simple, affordable tool that checks all the boxes.
Roc Services offers:
- Ease of use: Intuitive interface and workflows for office staff and techs, on computer or mobile phone
- Payments tools: One-time or recurring invoices with payment links (send via email or text), credit/debit/ACH, automatic receipts, estimate-to-invoice conversion—efficient tools that speed up cash flow
- Scheduling: Easy-to-use calendar function for scheduling customer appointments and staff
- Mobile app: All the features your crew needs in the field, including tap-to-pay
- QuickBooks sync: Instant, automated reconciliation
- Reporting: Transactions, sales, taxes, A/R aging—all the data you need
- Security: Top-tier standards for payments and data security
- Cost: One of the most affordable all-in-one solutions available, with a low monthly fee and no contract
- Fee Offset Option: Affordable payment processing, plus you can add a feature that shares or passes along card-processing fees to customers
- Customer Support: Award-winning, personalized support from real people
To learn more about Roc Services and get started, visit our website and schedule a no-obligation demo.