Skip to main content

Turf Care Estimating | Best Practices ✔

Set up turf care and fertilization services, estimates, and jobs in LMN following best practices, including weather note capture.

Written by Kaitlin Lane

This article will guide Admins and Operations Managers through best practices for setting up Turf Care Estimates and Jobs in LMN.

In this article:

Setup Turf Care Services

Create Turf Care Services

Build Turf Care/Fert into your Estimates

Send Estimate to Client

Bulk-assign Those Services to the Wait List

Promote Visits from the Wait List to the Live Calendar

🎬 Granum Webinars

Before you get started

If you do Turf Care/Fertilization work please ensure that you have Weather Notes enabled via Settings > Job Types. This will ensure that all of the requisite weather information is captured automatically by LMN when your crews are punched-in to a job using this Job Type.

Step 1: Setup Turf Care Services

First, ensure that Turf Care materials are set up in the Price List

  1. Go to Price List > Materials

  2. Check whether you already have a Turf Care category; if not, create one (e.g., "Turf Care / Fert") so all your fert/chem products stay grouped together

  3. Click + New Material and fill out, for each fertilizer/herbicide/pesticide/spray mix:

    1. Material Name (e.g., "Spring Fertilizer – Code A")

    2. Category = Turf Care / Fert

    3. Unit — gallon, bag, lb, etc., matching how you buy/use the product

    4. Avg. Unit Cost — a realistic cost per unit

    5. Is Taxable? — set per your local rules

    6. Description / Internal Notes — include the chemical code, EPA #, and active ingredients exactly as you want them to appear on invoices/reports

Step 2: Create Turf Care Services

  1. Navigate to Settings > Jobs > Services

  2. Click + Add New

  3. General Information: Add Services (generally 3 - 5) for Each Step of your Fert/Turf Care Program

    1. Service Name: Name your services. For example:
      ​Fert - Spring
      ​Fert - Summer - Early
      ​Fert - Summer - Late
      ​Fert - Fall

  4. Set Default Billing / Invoicing Settings for your preferences

    💡In the Invoice Description section, you can specify what exactly was done while your crews were performing this service.
    ​Example: For Fert - Spring: Spring fertilizer blend applied to turf areas as per contract

  5. Linked Material tab: Link the requisite materials for that service

    1. Click on + Add New

    2. Search the Materials you need to add for this Service

    3. Click on Add Selected

  6. Once you’re happy with how the Services are setup you can click on Save

Next, it’s time to show you how to build Turf Care/Fert into your Estimates.

Step 3: Build Turf Care/Fert into your Estimates

  1. Estimating for Turf Care/Fert follows the same process as regular Maintenance Estimating. Start by following the Maintenance Estimating Workflow linked here: Maintenance Workflow

Turf Care labor and material quantities can be driven by square footage using Production Rate calculators, with sq ft pulled from CRM Jobsite details / Measure Site.

💡Recommended: Break out each Turf Care visit into its own Service
​
​Why? It’s very typical that our customers have clients who have varying Turf Care visits. For example, some of their clients might get 3 visits, others 4, others 5, etc. Therefore, we need to track which customers get what service specifically so that later when we go to add this to a Wait List, only customers that get a specific visit show up to be scheduled.

Step 4: Send Estimate to Client

Once the Estimate has been sold and you're ready to turn it into a Job, we're going to merge all the Turf Care/Fert 'Tasks' together for ease of time tracking for your team.

  1. Click into the Estimate, scroll to the bottom and click the blue Create Job button.

  2. Ensure all Tasks are selected, then click Import Now.

  3. In the Job, go to the Timesheet Tracking tab > Punch-in Tasks.

  4. Select all Turf Care/Fert tasks and click Action > Merge Selected.

  5. Set a new task name (e.g., "Turf Care, Fertilization" or "Turf Care & Fertilization") and choose a Cost Code from the dropdown if applicable.

  6. Click OK. The tasks will merge into one to simplify time tracking for your crews in the field.

Step 5: Build the Schedule Template with each round as its own Wait List service

  1. Navigate to Schedule > Schedule Templates

  2. Click +Add Item and name the template clearly (e.g., "2026 – Turf Care – 5 Round Program").

  3. Click +Add Service for the first round (e.g., Fert – Spring).

  4. Under Schedule Type, select Wait List

  5. Click +Dates and set:

    • Start/End Date Range — the window this round should occur in.

    • Visits — visit frequency within that range.

    • Time Factor (optional) — adjust % if this visit is expected to take more/less time than estimated.

    • Warn By — the date that will flag this visit red/overdue on the Wait List if it hasn't been scheduled yet.

  6. Click Save, then repeat +Add Service for each remaining round (Round 2, Round 3, etc.), each as its own Service with Schedule Type = Wait List.

    💡Best practice is to model each round as its own distinct Service rather than one generic "Turf Care" service — this is what lets you filter precisely later when promoting specific rounds.

    💡Best practice tip: keep your Service names matching your Maintenance/Turf Care Estimate Template so LMN can map sold work to the schedule with one click instead of manual matching.

Step 6: Bulk-assign Those Services to the Wait List

Since fertilization is weather dependent, add it to the wait list until you have an exact date for service.

  1. Navigate to Schedule > Bulk Schedule

  2. Filter Job Group to the relevant group (e.g., your Turf Care job group) — not required, but it keeps the map focused and filtering easier later.

  3. Select the Service you want to schedule (e.g., Fert – Spring) — jobs need this service already attached for Bulk Schedule to find them.

  4. Set With Visits After to a date before your earliest target visit, and optionally check Hide Scheduled & Wait List to exclude jobs already handled.

  5. Click Search, then select the jobs on the map (click pins individually or draw a selection polygon).

  6. Click Schedule, then at the top select your Schedule Template — importantly, make sure you're selecting the version of the template where that round's Schedule Type = Wait List

  7. Click Schedule, type "CONFIRM", and those visits are now sitting in the Wait List rather than on a fixed calendar date.

💡Bulk Schedule only lets you schedule one service at a time across multiple jobs — so you'll repeat steps 2–7 above once per round (Fert – Spring, then Fert – Summer, etc.).

Step 7: Promote visits from the Wait List to the Live Calendar

When timing/weather is right for a specific round:

  1. Navigate to Schedule > Wait List

  2. Click Map View to see all unscheduled visits laid out geographically.

  3. Filter Service to the specific round you're ready to promote (e.g., Fert – Spring) and click Search — this isolates just the customers who bought that round.

  4. Draw a selection box around the jobs you want to promote together (for efficient routing), then click Select.

  5. Click Schedule, choose the Visit Date and assign a Crew, then click Save.

  6. Those visits move off the Wait List and onto the live Calendar/Whiteboard, ready for crew routing.

Need more help? Contact our Support Team by email at lmn-support@granum.com, through Live Chat, or by phone at (888) 347-9864
​
Signup for our Live Webinars or learn more about attending our in-person Bootcamps HERE
​Missed a live session? Explore our recorded Webinar Library for on-demand training from the Granum team.

Related Articles
Did this answer your question?