PestBossPro Blog — Pest Control Software

Getting Off Paper Service Tickets: Moving a Pest Control Company Into Software

Paper has served pest control companies for a long time. The carbon-copy service ticket, the printed route sheet, the chemical record binder and the wall calendar all work, more or less. The trouble is that each one holds a piece of the same job, and none of them talk to each other. Moving off paper is less about technology and more about putting those pieces back together.

Paper Gets Harder as You Grow

As Pest Control Software for a Multi-Truck Company: Keeping Three to Five Techs on the Same Page showed, paper gets harder with every truck you add. Even a one-truck company feels it once the quarterly book gets long.

Think about one quarterly visit on paper. The customer is in a notebook or a spreadsheet. The due date is on a calendar. The route is on a printed sheet. The service ticket gets filled out in the truck. The chemical record gets copied into the binder later. The invoice is written or typed separately. That's five or six places for one visit, and every copy is a chance for a mistake.

What Each Piece of Paper Becomes

• The customer notebook becomes clients with addresses, notes, tags and custom fields, brought in with a CSV import.
• The wall calendar of who is due becomes recurring plans by minimum days between visits, shown on the Waiting List map.
• The printed route sheet becomes the tech app, with stops in route order on the tech's phone. You can still print route sheets from the dispatch board if you want a backup.
• The service ticket becomes Start / Skip / Complete with notes and before and after photos.
• The chemical record binder becomes the application record built from each completed treatment, with a “need a chemical record” button for any that are missing.
• The invoice pad becomes invoices created at completion, charged to a card on file or paid online.
• The door hanger with instructions becomes an automatic post-treatment email.

Don't Switch Everything on a Monday

The worst way to get off paper is to throw out every sheet on the same day. A better plan moves one piece at a time, while the work keeps going:

1. Week one: import customers, set recurring plans and last service dates, add products and mixes. Keep running paper routes.
2. Week two: build routes on the Waiting List and dispatch board. Print route sheets from the software so techs see the new order on familiar paper.
3. Week three: techs start using the tech app. Start / Skip / Complete and recording what was applied. Keep the paper ticket as a backup for a few days if it helps.
4. Week four: invoices and cards on file move into the software. Turn on post-treatment emails and customer alerts.

For a closer look at the first week, read Setting Up Pest Control Software in Your First Week.

Getting Techs Comfortable

Techs who have used paper for years can be slow to trust a phone. A few things help. The tech app runs in the browser on the phone they already have, with no app store download. It asks for a few taps per stop, not a form. Ride along for a morning and show them that the notes, gate codes and navigation are all on the card. Most techs come around when they realize they no longer have to call the office for a gate code.

Show them the automatic “on the way” and “arrived” texts too. Fewer locked gates and fewer dogs in the yard is a benefit a tech feels on the first day.

What to Do With Old Paper Records

Your old chemical records still matter. Many states require application records to be kept for a set period. Keep the binders and old tickets stored safely for as long as your state requires; check your state lead agency's rules. Start fresh records in the software from your go-live date.

You don't have to type old records into the new system. The point is that from now on, every new record is complete, findable by date range in chemical reports, and not sitting on a passenger seat.

The Payoff

Once paper is gone, the visit is one thing in one place. The account comes due, the route is built, the tech treats and records, the customer gets texts and instructions, and the invoice is paid. The office stops copying information from one sheet to another, and you stop wondering where a ticket went.

The first month takes some effort. After that, most owners find they can't imagine going back. For how all of the pieces connect, see the PestBossPro pest control software page.