PestBossPro Blog — Tech App

What the Office Sees When a Pest Control Tech Completes a Stop

A technician taps Complete in a driveway across town. For the technician, that is the end of the stop. For the office, it is the start of several things at once. Knowing exactly what shows up on the office side, and what the office should do with it, is how a small pest control company keeps the day tidy without phone calls.

One Tap, Many Updates

Knowing where trucks are is covered in Technician GPS on the Office Map: Knowing Where Every Pest Control Truck Is. This article covers what the office sees when a stop is finished.

In PestBossPro, a completed stop updates the office in several places at once. Nobody has to call in, drop off a ticket or send a photo by text. The office sees:

• The stop marked complete on the dispatch board.
• The technician's notes and photos from the stop.
• The application record, if a tracked product was used.
• The invoice, and whether a card on file was charged.
• The recurring account set to come due again on its schedule.

The Dispatch Board

On the Scheduled List, the dispatch board, each stop shows its status. As technicians work, the board fills in: started, completed, skipped. The office can see which trucks are ahead, which are behind, and which skipped stops need attention.

Saved views and the truck filter help here. An office manager can watch one truck at a time, or look at the whole day for every truck. Skipped stops arrive with the technician's reason, so the office knows whether to call the customer, update a gate code or move the stop to tomorrow.

Notes and Photos

The technician's notes and photos are on the stop as soon as it is completed. This is where the office catches things that need follow-up:

• An entry point that could be an exclusion estimate.
• A customer request for extra work that needs a line item.
• A conducive condition the customer should hear about.
• A changed gate code or a new dog to add to the address.

A quick daily review of completed stops with notes turns technician observations into sales, happier customers and better access notes for next time.

The Application Record

When a completed treatment used a tracked product, the application record is saved with the stop. It holds the date, times, address, mix and every product in it with active ingredient, EPA reg. no. if entered, rate and amount, area treated, target pest, site, equipment, technician name and license number, business license number, wind, temperature, re-entry interval and drift-prevention notes.

The “need a chemical record” button on the schedule shows completed treatments still missing their record. Checking it at the end of each day is the office's most important habit for records. Chemical reports pull records for any date range when someone needs them. As always, the software helps you keep the records many states require; check your state lead agency's rules and the label for what applies to you. Records are covered in From the Tech's Phone to the Chemical Record: How Pest Control Application Records Get Built.

The Invoice and the Payment

The invoice is created from the job at completion, with line items and sales tax. If the customer has a card on file and you charge at completion, the payment is already there. If not, the invoice is in the customer app for online payment.

The office's job here is exceptions. Declined cards go into past-due follow-up. Stops with add-ons need a line item. Commercial accounts on monthly billing roll into one statement for the month instead of an invoice per stop. Everything else takes care of itself.

The Next Visit Comes Due

For recurring accounts, completing the stop sets the clock for the next visit. Quarterly plans come due again after 90 days, bi-monthly after 60 and monthly after 30, based on the minimum days between visits on the plan. When the time comes, the account shows up on the Waiting List map as due now, ready for the office to circle into a route.

That is the loop that keeps a recurring pest control company running: the technician completes, the account resets, the Waiting List brings it back. Nobody has to remember that the Smiths are due in March.

The Office Day Gets Quieter

When everything from the stop lands in the office on its own, the office spends its day on exceptions instead of data entry. Fewer calls to trucks, no ticket stacks on Friday, and a clear view of the day. To see how the office view fits with the technician's side, visit the PestBossPro pest control app page.