For trades and field services
Field service software for Australian trade businesses where office and field do not share a database.
For 10-50 staff arboriculture, facilities maintenance, pest control, landscaping, asset inspection, commercial cleaning and installations businesses where ServiceM8, AroFlo or simPRO holds the office view, the field crews work off paper or a different mobile app, and Xero reconciles whatever survives the gap. We build the database underneath, so the office, the field, the client report and the compliance trail all read from one source instead of four.
What we hear from owners and ops managers
Owners and ops managers describe the same pattern at every Australian field service business we sit down with. None of it is ServiceM8's fault on its own, or AroFlo's, or simPRO's. It is what happens when the office system and the field system each own their own view of the job and nobody owns the view across them.
- The asset and site register has drifted from reality. The CRM has 800 sites, the spreadsheet has 1,100, the senior tech's mind has the actual list. Each asset record drifts a slightly different way after every quarterly inspection. The list a senior tech can recite from memory is the one that runs the schedule, and the day that tech retires the list goes with them.
- Inspection forms and the compliance audit trail are a paper-and-Excel job. Forms designed for ISO 9001, OHS, Working at Heights and White Card evidence are built for one job shape. The next type of inspection comes in and the form does not fit, so somebody adds a second column on the spreadsheet, then a third tab, then a Word template. When the auditor asks for last quarter's evidence, four people search four places. When that spreadsheet has grown a third tab and a Word template, our note on when to rebuild a spreadsheet as a web app versus patch it is the call we help trades make first.
- Client reporting takes a day after a five-minute job. Job done at 10:30. Photo on the tech's phone. Sign-off form initialled on paper. Back at the office at 4pm, someone scans the form, types the report, copies the photo, emails the client. The client wanted it before the crew left site. The next service the client books is with someone who emails it from the truck.
- Vehicle and technician scheduling lives on a whiteboard. ServiceM8 or AroFlo holds the job calendar. The whiteboard in the office holds the actual rolling allocation: who is on the western runs today, whose ute is in for service, who has the certifications for the next tower job, who is on annual leave. The whiteboard wins because it is the only place the constraints all sit together.
- Xero reconciliation for variable-line jobs eats a fortnightly day. ServiceM8 pushes one invoice shape for time-and-materials; AroFlo pushes another for the milestone claim. The office adjusts both before they hit Xero. By month end the variance between what was quoted and what was billed is real money, and the conversation with the client about the variation is twelve weeks too late. Read the Simpro and ServiceM8 integration write-up.
None of these get fixed by switching field service systems. They get fixed by deciding which system owns which field and putting a real database underneath that captures the truth across the office, the field and the compliance trail. That is the work we do. See how we approach the integration side when ServiceM8, AroFlo or simPRO already exists, or browse our full custom-software services for the broader picture.
Tools we work with
Job management
ServiceM8, AroFlo, simPRO, Fergus, Tradify
The system the office and the field both opened first thing this morning. We integrate it as the job spine without trying to replace it. Time entries, parts, photos and sign-offs flow back into the ledger. The bits ServiceM8 or AroFlo do not natively show live in the database underneath.
Asset and site register
The custom layer underneath
The list of every asset, site, gate code, hazard, inspection schedule and access requirement that runs the business, modelled in the database in the shape the work actually runs. Inspection history, condition trends, parts replaced versus parts recommended, the audit trail that survives a senior tech leaving.
Inspection forms and compliance
ISO 9001, OHS, Working at Heights, White Card
Forms that change shape per job type rather than living as a Word template per job type. Photo, GPS coordinate, sign-off and certification number captured at the point the tech does the work, then stitched to the asset record automatically. The audit trail your auditor walks the client through, not the trail your retired tech holds in their head.
Vehicle scheduling and telematics
GPS vehicle telematics, technician scheduling
The GPS vehicle telematics box already in the van feeds into the same database that holds the job, the asset and the technician certifications. Scheduling stops being a whiteboard. We do not bolt on a separate fleet system; we lift the data the box already publishes and put it where the rest of the business reads it.
Accounting
Xero, MYOB
The ledger and the payroll system already know what they need to know. We build the integration that reconciles ServiceM8, AroFlo or Tradify invoice shapes against Xero or MYOB without somebody re-keying variations. The ledger sees consistent line items, even when the field generated four different invoice shapes for the same job.
The plumbing
The custom layer
Most of the value sits in what the business has always done in the senior tech's head, in spreadsheets, or on a scheduling whiteboard. Site register, asset, inspection schedule, technician certification, scope variation, retention release: the entities the field service system does not natively model in the shape your business runs them. We model them explicitly in the database so the business runs the same way on the day a senior tech retires.
Recent work / national arboriculture platform
Office and field stopped working in different databases.
A national arboriculture platform was running with separate databases for the office and the field. Tree assessments were captured on paper or a basic mobile app, then re-keyed into the office system. Clients called for status updates that the office could not answer without phoning the crew. We rebuilt the platform on a single database powering four product surfaces (office portal, field mobile app, client portal and reporting dashboard) and double-entry stopped happening across the operation. Read the field operations platform case study for the longer write-up.
On the facilities-management side, a SaaS company stuck on a legacy PHP application with no mobile asked us to rebuild without throwing away the data model. Feature iteration became 5x faster after the rebuild on Flutter, and mobile launched within months. Different industry, same shape: the data model was the asset and the rebuild left it alone. Read the SaaS modernisation case study for the rebuild detail.
Read the field operations platform case study Browse all case studies
The engagement path
Discovery call
30 minutes with Marty (founder, doing this since 2007). You describe the business, the systems, the bits that actually hurt. We tell you honestly whether what you are describing sounds like an integration job, a custom-software job, or a sharper ServiceM8 or simPRO setup that would solve more for less. Field service businesses come to us in two shapes: fast-growing ones outgrowing ServiceM8, and established ones whose AroFlo or simPRO setup has drifted out of step with how the work actually runs. Either is fine. No pitch.
Systems diagnostic
A fixed-price piece of work. Most ops managers we meet have been burned by a software project that cost twice what was quoted, so the diagnostic exists to put a real number on the table first. We map where each piece of asset, job and compliance data lives, who edits it, where it is hosted and which fields actually matter for client reporting, audits and the office dashboard. You finish with a written diagnostic you can forward to the owner or the board, a prioritised list of fixes and a scoped estimate.
Integration or custom build
Most field service businesses need both. The integration layer puts ServiceM8, AroFlo or simPRO, the GPS vehicle telematics and Xero on speaking terms via a real database. The custom build models the work that does not fit any of those tools: asset register depth, inspection forms by job type, scope-variation tracking, the office dashboard. We build them in stages so the business sees value inside the first quarter, and the field crews get back the hour they currently lose writing reports after the last job.
Ongoing support
We do not build and walk away. Vendors change APIs, ISO and OHS standards update, your business adds another regional crew. We stay on as a small ongoing engagement, usually a few hours a month, so the system gets fixed when it breaks and grows when the business grows. The same person who built it picks up the phone.
We have been running this engagement model since 2007. See how we work.
Not sure if your business needs custom software or a sharper field service stack?
Start with a 30-minute discovery call. We will tell you honestly. Most Australian trade businesses we talk to are one good integration away from a job that closes at the truck instead of at the office. And if the diagnostic finds nothing worth fixing, you walk away with a clean bill of health for your systems.