Copyright 1996 TURF, the magazine for turfgrass professionals. Preprinted by permission of TRUF, published by NEF publishing, 50 Bay St., St. Johnsbury, VT  05819

 

 

If you entered the green industry to work outdoors, and not be confined to the view from behind a desk; read on. If, however, you jump at the chance to fill out paper work, punch numbers into a calculator and scream furiously at an indifferent computer late into the night, skip this article.

For those that are still with us, and I'm betting a good number of our saner readers are, Eric Levine, president and owner of Obex Data Services in Port Washington, N.Y., has found a way to make the tedious tasks of    billing and account management easier, faster and more reliable.

The company's primary service is called GRA$$, a comprehensive billing and record keeping service for landscapers, and others in the green industry. By employing a small credit card terminal, the type you see on store counters, landscapers who subscribe to the GRA$$ service can simply push a few buttons after each stop, take the terminal home at the end of the day (or week), plug it into their phone line, and sit back to let technology do the rest.

"Essentially, what we've done is to provide a means of automating, without the landscapers having to get into technology," explains Levine. One or two buttons is all it takes to describe each service, although further description is possible. Once the small terminal is plugged into the landscaper's phone line, all the information it contains is down-loaded to the central GRA$$ computer system which keeps track of the billing status of each customer, until the bills are sent.

The Bill is in the Mail

"We close the month at midnight on the last day of the billing cycle, and all the bills are in the mail the next morning," Levine says proudly. "When the bill goes out, it has a return stub, like a credit card bill," he explains, "and included with it is a return envelope with a window showing the landscaper's name and address, so the payment goes to them." This personalization helps to project a professional image for the landscaper, and that is important to Levine. "The bill looks like it comes from them. Our name does not appear anywhere; we are invisible."

The promptness and consistency of the bills going out is a welcome luxury for many busy landscapers. "When I did my own billing, my bills were always held up since I always leave early in the morning and get back late," emphasizes GRA$$ participant John Caraccio, of Sharp Style Landscaping in Holbrook, N.Y.

After the landscaper receives payment from each customer, he enters the amount received into the same terminal. This information is transferred to the central GRA$$ computer system, where the payment status, full or partial payment, is determined and reflected on next month's bill.

"The advantage of the service is for the landscaper who has to send repeat billing," explains Levine. "Some companies that do design work have contacted us, but they only do 2 to 3 jobs per month, and they never see that customer again; so its really not meant for them."

Of the hundreds of landscape firms who use the GRA$$ billing service, the smallest averages only 20 bills a month, while the largest is over 600 bills.

The great diversity in clients has given Levine an idea of the different needs landscapers have. "There are all kinds of options; whether they want to apply sales tax or interest charges; or if they want them on some, but not others, we can do that," he reports.

Time is Money

The ability to customize each client's bill is important, but it is not GRA$$'s main selling point to prospective clients. Convincing them of the value of their time is. "I go through a process where I tell them what we're going to charge them, and then I show them how much they are spending." He itemizes the cost of an envelope, the cost of a preprinted billhead, and how long it takes to post a transaction. It is the final variable, time spent, that Levine claims as his advantage. "Some people say, 'well I do it myself'; but if they are willing to give themselves the value of their time, or the value of their spouse's time, there is no way they can do it cheaper." Levine maintains that landscapers need his service so as not to undervalue their time. "They wouldn't pay themselves five dollars an hour to mow somebody's lawn," asserts Levine, with the logical conclusion that they also should not take that pay to complete paper work.

So the question is, how much does the GRA$$ billing service cost? The answer is a flat rate of $25 dollars per month, and a charge of 70 cents per bill plus postage. What the landscaper receives for that service, beyond the savings in time, is organization and professionalism.

Monthly Reports

Organization is accomplished by means of computerized reports which are produced for the landscaper documenting the service performed at each account, the date, and how much was charged. While the landscaper's clients benefit from the convenience of a professional bill, landscapers themselves benefit from an organized account of all the work they perform. "They have much better control over what is happening because of these reports," concludes Levine.

Ken Pearsall, of Greenart Corp. in Middle Island, N.Y., agrees that the reports are a vital part of the service. "When I started with GRA$$ I knew that I needed a better way to bill my customers, but I had no idea how valuable the reports were going to be," he said. "The reports were like an extra bonus."

The GRA$$ billing service also operates on the premise that the landscapers will get paid faster. "If they're submitting a chicken-scratch bill," maintains Levine, "there are studies about peoples' bill paying patterns that indicate these bills will be paid last. " Another common misconception, he feels, is that by dropping the bill in the customer's mailbox you can save postage and get prompt attention. The first part may be true, Levine admits, but he again points to studies demonstrating that these 'personally delivered' bills are like junk flyers, and will be paid last because they don't come with the rest of the mail.

Technology is at the heart of the GRA$$ billing service, and it was his experience that prompted Levine to start OBEX Data Services in 1974. "My wife ran the business while I worked for IBM with credit card services, and I got very familiar with the point-of-sale transaction technology you see in these little terminals," he recalls.

An Idea That's

Paying Off

It was a conversation with his own home landscaper that convinced Levine there was a potential market out there; a market covered under piles of paper work scattered around dirty trucks. "The landscaper I had doing my house was complaining about his billing, and one thing led to another," he recalls. "I basically reengineered the credit card terminal software to do things that a landscaper would need; like weekly maintenance, the ability to describe various services, tax info and so on."

"These terminals have been used for seven or eight years in the credit card industry, and there are about three million of them out there," Levine tells customers who worry about the reliability of this technology, "so you know you're getting equipment that has the bugs worked out of it.

"The technology also lifts the boundaries to provide a nationwide client-base for GRA$$. "Originally, our clients were primarily in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania" reports Levine. Now GRA$$ is being used all across the US. "It can be used anywhere they can get to a phone," he emphasizes.

A big advantage associated with GRA$$ comes not only for those who currently do their billing by hand, but also for the frustrated computer novice attempting to keep up with the latest hardware and software, only to have it quickly become outdated. Because GRA$$ is a service, not a computer product, these concerns are eliminated. Levine explains, "A lot of our clients are either doing bills and business record-keeping by hand; or if they've gotten into a PC, they realize they really don't want to know about DOS and Windows, backup diskettes, recovery procedures," and a thousand other intricacies computers can throw at you. The advantages of GRA$$ also extend to landscapers who have a PC and find that they have to spend hours keying in charges and payments and still produce all the bills. Wouldn't you rather be outside?

[How GRA$$ works]        [Sample Bill]       [What Landscapers say about GRA$$}            [Request Information]     [Home]               [Contact Us]