Landscapers: monthly rounds and once-off builds, in one thread.
Half the work is a recurring garden service that gets invoiced every month, and half is a once-off build with plants, soil, paving and a team. The two need different paperwork and both get done from the back of a bakkie.
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built the retaining wall at 9 protea 14500. thats separate from their monthly
Recorded as a once-off ✅
ILLUSTRATIVE EXAMPLE
Where it goes
What costs a landscaper money after the job.
Monthly rounds are billed from memory
Twenty-two gardens, most of them the same amount every month, some of them skipped for a week, one of them cancelled in March and still on the list. The invoice run happens on a Sunday and is mostly reconstruction.
Plants and materials are bought by the load
A nursery run supplies four gardens. Split correctly it tells you which contracts are worth keeping; split never, it tells you nothing.
Once-off builds hide inside the round
A retaining wall done for an existing monthly client blurs into the monthly fee unless somebody records it as its own job on the day.
What Orbit does about it
One message, at the end of the job.
Orbit is being built for both halves. A once-off build is one message with an address and an amount, the same as any other trade. A monthly round is a list Orbit is being built to hold, so the invoice run stops being a Sunday evening of reconstruction and starts being a set of drafts you check and send.
The nursery run is where a landscaper's margin actually lives. Tell Orbit what you bought and roughly which gardens it went to, and the cost sits with the work rather than in a pile of slips. After a season, the contracts that are quietly costing you money become visible, which is the only way anyone ever puts a price up.
Once-off work stays separate from the monthly fee because you told Orbit it was separate, on the day, in one line. Orbit drafts the invoices; you read and send them. Nothing goes to a client without you.
What it keeps for you
- Once-off jobs and monthly rounds kept apart
- Plants, soil and materials against the gardens they went to
- Monthly invoice drafts instead of a Sunday reconstruction
- A record of who has paid and who has not
Orbit drafts. You send.
Questions
Landscapers ask us this.
Can Orbit handle a monthly garden service round?
Recurring monthly invoicing is planned for the first release and is the reason the waitlist form asks how you work. Until it ships, this page will keep calling it planned rather than describing it as if it exists.
How do I keep a once-off build separate from the monthly fee?
Say so in the message — "that's separate from their monthly". Orbit is being built to read that as a distinct job so the client gets two clear lines rather than one confusing invoice.
Can I track plants and materials per garden?
Tell Orbit what you bought and which gardens it went to and the cost stays with them. Over a season that is what shows you which contracts are priced too low.
Does it work for a team rather than one person?
Multiple people on one account is on the roadmap. Orbit is priced per tradesperson at R99 a month, so a team is priced per person — and the first release is being shaped around single-operator and small-team answers from the waitlist.
Orbit for other trades
Orbit for landscapers.
Orbit is being built now. The list is free, it commits you to nothing, and founding pricing is locked for the people on it.