Gachina Landscape Management’s toolbox of innovation: Barn owls, goats, electric equipment, and Aspire

Managing landscapes can be challenging in any climate, but California, which typically leads the nation in environmental regulations, presents its own hurdles. 

Luckily, enterprising firms like Gachina Landscape Management in the Greater Bay Area are up to the task.

The 35-year-old company is a leader in the commercial and private estate maintenance markets and an innovator in sustainable landscaping principles. Gachina employs a plant healthcare specialist who advises on non-invasive, sustainable landscaping methods. This includes barn owls as natural pest control and goats for landscaping clean-up on steep terrain in San Francisco.

Clients often require or request sustainable plant healthcare and electric vehicles and equipment on their properties. 

The company’s passion for innovation transcends maintenance practices. Gachina was an early adopter of Aspire because of its user-friendliness and ability to provide robust data and metrics to help the company gauge profitability.  

“It's grown over time. But even in the beginning, we could see job costing and performance right away,” says Dan Wolf, Gachina's director of IT.

The company uses Aspire for its vital operations, such as contract management, time entry, job costing, and scheduling. The platform is making a difference in tracking equipment with the equipment module, vehicle fleets with Azuga’s GPS capabilities, and inventory of materials such as lawn care chemicals.

“One of our directors was happy to see the data and make decisions based on the information in our equipment management system. We didn't have that information two or three years ago.” 

For Wolf, it comes down to managing and maintaining jobs properly. When he joined Gachina, he tried to understand why the company used Aspire.

“When I got down into the data and how quickly we could understand profitability and see all of our work tickets, earned revenue, and actual versus estimated costs, we could very quickly filter that data in any particular fashion we needed.

“The a-ha moment came down to having that full visibility right at our fingertips,” he says.

Without Aspire, my team would not know where they stand on specific jobs. And if we don't have metrics, we won't be able to properly manage our jobs. And unfortunately, without that information, we would not be profitable.

Optimizing operations with new APIs and integrations

Once the Gachina team had the data, they developed processes to improve work ticket management, accounts receivable, and accounts payable, working with Aspire’s product team on key integrations.

“APIs have been very helpful for us, especially as we've migrated from Soap APIs to Rest APIs, to create these business system integrations," Wolf explains. Aspire is integrated with ADP and NetSuite ERP platforms and various other solutions to have a truly cohesive data source.  

Wolf is currently focused on utilizing takeoffs, introducing issues and requests into the operations workflow in Aspire, and optimizing PropertyIntel processes. 

“Aspire has always responded very quickly to help me manage my business and get these systems up and running the way I need them,” he says.

Moving the business forward with PropertyIntel

Gachina has been keeping up with Aspire’s PropertyIntel solution since its initial release in 2022. The response was immediate when Wolf presented it to the business development team. 

“They said, ‘We want this now.’ It was encouraging to hear they wanted to adopt it quickly,” he says.

The team made the leap after introducing PI Complete, the done-for-you measuring service.

“It’s going to revolutionize and change how we do business, as far as estimating our projects and maintenance contracts,” he says. 

With PI Complete, Gachina’s project managers can quickly assemble an estimate, pull in the graphics, and then flow the estimate into Aspire.

Wolf expects to have significant metrics on the time savings PI Complete provides to the business development team, especially when walking a property. PI Complete is designed to cut that time so account managers can focus on creating proposals and selling work.

Igniting better practices with the Aspire community

Wolf has attended the IGNITE user conference five times. “What keeps me coming back every year to IGNITE is the ability to see the people I work with regularly,” he says. 

“It’s important for two aspects. One, developing and maintaining those relationships with the technical people on the back end of Aspire so that when I reach out to them for help, they know who I am and vice versa. I feel that gives me a better response. Two, developing relationships with other clients. These connections have helped me manage my business, understand how to move things forward, and helped me overcome obstacles.” 

Leaders recognize leaders and partner with them on ways to move their industries forward. Aspire and Gachina are one of the many examples of this.

“Aspire is one of the leading providers for landscape job management and provides a level of efficiency that you won't find on other platforms,” he says. “I've researched a variety of other solutions, but I haven’t heard of any growing and investing in their platform as Aspire has.”