Tree care runs on materials and equipment. Chemicals for plant healthcare, mulch and amendments for installs, fuel and bar oil and saw chains for the daily run, ropes and rigging hardware for climbing crews. Most tree service companies track this in a parts bin and a guy's head — until the day a crew rolls up to a job without the right pesticide or the saw goes down because nobody noticed the chain inventory ran out. ArborDash includes a real inventory and purchase order system so the materials side of your operation is as organized as the scheduling side.
Track every material with a per-unit cost, current stock level, low-stock threshold, and supplier. When you complete a job that consumes materials, inventory deducts automatically. When stock drops below the threshold, you get an alert before the crew gets stuck. The system handles bulk materials (mulch by the cubic yard), discrete items (replacement bar tips, climbing carabiners), and consumables (fuel, bar oil) with appropriate units and reorder logic for each.
Equipment tracking goes beyond consumables. Catalog every chipper, bucket truck, mini-loader, climbing line, and saw with model, serial, purchase date, depreciation, and a maintenance schedule. The system tracks hours of use against equipment from time-tracked jobs, schedules preventive maintenance, and logs every repair with cost. When a crew lead reports an issue, it goes into the equipment record so the next person who picks up that saw knows about it.
The supplier database keeps every vendor's contact info, pricing, lead time, and order history in one place. Build purchase orders from the dashboard with line items pulled from your materials catalog — the system auto-fills the supplier's price and emails the PO straight to the vendor for confirmation. When the order arrives, mark it received and inventory updates automatically. POs sync to QuickBooks as Bills so accounts payable stays in lockstep with operations.
What you can track
- Materials — chemicals, mulch, amendments, fuel, oil, saw chains, ropes
- Equipment — trucks, chippers, bucket lifts, climbers, saws, hand tools
- Suppliers — contact info, pricing, lead time, order history
- Purchase orders — build, email to supplier, mark received, sync to QB
- Live stock levels with low-stock alerts
- Auto-deduction as job materials are consumed
- Equipment maintenance schedules with hours-of-use tracking
- Repair history per equipment item with cost logging
- Material cost on jobs for accurate job profitability
- QuickBooks Bill sync on received POs
How It Works
- Build out your materials and equipment catalog (one-time, with help from our onboarding team).
- Add suppliers with contact info and your standard pricing.
- As jobs are completed with linked materials, inventory auto-deducts.
- Low-stock alerts trigger when items drop below threshold — build a PO from the alert in two clicks.
- Email the PO to the supplier from ArborDash. Mark received when it arrives, inventory updates, and a Bill posts to QuickBooks.