PestBossPro Blog — Pest Control Software

Measuring Properties From the Satellite Map in Pest Control Software

A new customer calls for quarterly service. The old way: drive over, walk the house, pace off the perimeter, guess the yard, drive back and send a price. The software way: pull up the property on the satellite map, measure it in a couple of minutes, and send the estimate while they are still on the phone.

Why Measurements Come Before Mixes and Prices

Tank mixes were covered in Product Mixes in Pest Control Software: Building Tank Mixes Your Techs Can Load From. A mix tells you the rate. A measurement tells you the area. Put the two together and you know the job.

In PestBossPro, measurements live on the property, not on a single job. Measure once, and every quarterly visit, every estimate and every application record for that address uses the same numbers until you change them.

What You Can Measure

Each property can carry several measurements, taken on the satellite map:

• Home square feet — the footprint of the structure, useful for pricing interior and general pest service.
• Perimeter linear feet — the length of the foundation line, which is what a perimeter treatment really covers.
• Mosquito (yard) square feet — the treatable yard area for barrier programs.
• Lawn insect area — for grub, chinch bug or other lawn insect work if you offer it.
• Bed areas — shrub and planting beds where you treat for ants, fleas or other pests.

You don't have to measure everything on every property. A quarterly-only customer might just need home square feet and perimeter. A mosquito customer needs the yard.

How Measurements Price Estimates

Your service list is where prices come from. An initial service, a quarterly plan, a mosquito program or a rodent program can each be priced off the property measurements. A small ranch house with a short perimeter gets a different price than a large two-story with a long, broken-up foundation line, and the software works it out from the numbers you measured.

That means you can quote from the office without a site visit for most residential work. The estimate goes out, the customer approves it online, and it becomes a scheduled job. That flow is covered in Pest Control Estimates With Online Approval: From Quote to Scheduled Job.

How Measurements Fill Application Records

Area treated is part of the application record — square feet, or linear feet of perimeter. When the property already has its measurements, the tech isn't estimating the area on a tailgate. The measured number is right there for the record, and the tech notes it if they treated only part of the property.

This matters most on recurring accounts. Four quarterly visits a year, each with the same perimeter number, gives you consistent records that line up when you run a chemical report later.

Tips for Accurate Measuring

Satellite measuring is fast, but a few habits keep it honest:

• Trace the foundation, not the roofline. Eaves stick out past the wall. For perimeter, follow where the house meets the ground as closely as the image allows.
• Leave out what you don't treat. For mosquito yards, skip the pool, the driveway and the neighbor's side of the fence.
• Check on the first visit. The tech can confirm the measurement looks right. If the image is old and there's a new addition, update the property.
• Measure once, reuse forever. Resist re-measuring every quarter. The number on the property is the source.

Measurements and Commercial Sites

Commercial accounts can be measured the same way. A restaurant's building footprint and perimeter, an apartment complex's buildings, the planted beds around an office entrance: each is measured on the map and saved on that address. For a property manager with several buildings, measuring each one as its own address keeps estimates and records clear per location. When a commercial client asks why one location costs more than another, you can point to the measured perimeter instead of a guess. The same goes for a residential customer asking why a neighbor pays less. A measured number on the property is easy to explain and hard to argue with, and it means two people in your office will price the same house the same way.

Imported Accounts Too

When you bring existing customers in with a CSV import, imported addresses are placed on the map automatically. That gets them onto the Waiting List and into routing right away. You can then measure them as you go — many owners do a batch each evening in the first couple of weeks, starting with the accounts coming due soonest.

Measurements are one of those features that seem small until you use them. They take the guessing out of pricing, loading and recording. To see how they fit with the rest of the platform, visit the PestBossPro pest control software page.