Design-build landscape software: design, plan, price and build

Take a back-yard renovation with a new patio, two planting beds and a lawn repair. In many companies the designer draws it, an estimator measures it again, and an office person types the totals into a proposal. If the patio changes size at the second meeting, three places need updating.

A typical design-build job passes through a design app, a measuring step, a spreadsheet takeoff, a proposal document and a scheduling tool. Each handoff means typing the same beds, patio and plant list again, and each retype is a chance for a wrong quantity.

VisionScaper keeps one record for the property. The design, the measured plan, the takeoff, the proposal and the job all hang off it, so the area you drew becomes the area you price.

Search the address and trace lawns, beds, driveway and the whole lot on an aerial image to get square footage and perimeter. Aerial measuring works for US addresses. Then the Landscape plans wizard builds a measured 2D plan in ten steps: customer and property, areas to plan, bird’s-eye base map, tracing, a scale check against one tape measurement, guided site photos, site details such as zone, sun, deer and drainage, style, optional designs and generate.

The screen puts the time at about 15 minutes in the office and 10 on site, and the wizard saves as you go, so you can start in the office and finish on site. Skip the tape check and the plan is marked less accurate. The wizard reminds you to call 811 before digging. Read more under landscape plans and measuring.

Site notes travel with the plan. You record zone, sun for each area, deer pressure, drainage, irrigation, HOA rules and what to keep, and plant choices follow the zone, sun and deer settings. The result is a plan your crew and your designer both read from, not a drawing that lives in one person’s files.

On the quote, tap Use the Landscape plan’s quantities. Each shape becomes priced sections: a bed gives prep, mulch or stone and edging; a patio gives excavation, gravel base, bedding sand, pavers, edge restraint, joint sand, equipment days, delivery and labor; a wall gives blocks, caps, base and backfill; lawn gives sod or seed; plants are counted by type.

Quantities come from the geometry, never from AI. Mulch, for example, takes bed area and depth, converts to cubic yards, adds a waste percentage and rounds up. Unit costs, waste and hours per unit come from your price book, whose starting values are placeholders you replace. The AI Quoter can draft the scope from a description, but it never sets a price and every draft is for you to review.

The same numbers give two views: Job cost for you, with gross profit as a percent, and a customer proposal with a before and after, scope, optional add-ons and a payment schedule. Read quotes and proposals for the sending and signing steps.

When the customer signs, the quote locks, a deposit invoice is created and the job appears ready to schedule. Changes after signing are made with Copy as job change. Book visits, assign the crew, and the crew sheet shows instructions and a completion checklist with no prices.

Open a purchase order from the job’s material list so the order matches what you quoted; see purchase orders. Record actual labor and materials as work proceeds and compare plan to actual in job costing, so the next proposal starts from real numbers.