Running a forestry consulting firm (whether you’re a solo practitioner or managing a team of thirty) is a balancing act and there's never enough time. You are constantly juggling fieldwork, client acquisition, complex project management, and the often-dreaded back-office invoicing and accounting.
Too often, foresters are stuck using disjointed systems: spreadsheets for tracking prospects, paper logs for field notes, and generic accounting software that was built for coffee shops and yoga studios, doesn't understand forestry. This leads to double entry across systems, lost billable hours, and major productivity bottlenecks.
At ForestTrack, we designed an all-in-one solution specifically for consulting foresters and forestry firms. Based on our recent launches and Forester feedback, we’ve identified the top five features your firm needs to stop wasting time on administration and start maximizing productivity in the office and the woods.
1. Seamless Prospect-to-Project Conversion
How much time do you spend re-typing information when you finally win a bid? In many firms, moving from a "prospect" to an active "project" means creating records in three different places.
A productivity-boosting system needs to bridge that gap. ForestTrack’s prospect management allows you to track everything related to a prospect in one spot.
The Productivity Boost: The moment a prospect status changes to "Won," ForestTrack offers a one-click conversion. This instantly creates an active client record in accounting and a new project record under work operations. No double entry, no lost data. You go from shaking hands to starting work immediately.
2. Mobile-Optimized Field Data Entry
Productivity dies when data has to be entered twice - once in a field notebook and again into a computer back at the office. If your team can’t easily log data where the work actually happens, you are losing time.
ForestTrack is built to be mobile-optimized for use out in the field on phones. Your team can enter time, materials, and mileage right when they happen.
The Productivity Boost: We’ve streamlined mileage entry to include the related task (business purpose), vehicle, driver, and odometer readings. Because field entries flow directly into the main system, you and your team can eliminate the Friday afternoon data-entry crush and ensure every billable mile and hour is captured accurately in real-time.
3. The "At-a-Glance" Project Command Center
When you are managing multiple clients and dozens of tracts of land, you need instant visibility. You shouldn't have to dig through emails to find out who is responsible for the next cruising task or if a project is nearing its due date.
ForestTrack provides managers with an "at-a-glance" view of all projects. You can immediately see the project type (customized for your firm), the client it’s tied to, due dates, and acres involved.
The Productivity Boost: Crucially, you can see the "next task," who is responsible for it, and when it’s due.You know exactly where every project stands without having to hold a status meeting.
4. One-Click WIP-to-Invoice Generation
One of the biggest administrative hurdles for forestry firms is translating "Work In Progress" (WIP)—those hours logged and miles driven—into an accurate, professional invoice.
In ForestTrack, field operations feed directly into finance. From the entries table, you can select as many entries as needed and push to an invoice.
The Productivity Boost: The system automatically generates a freshly created invoice with details already filled out based on your Cost Catalog rates. Review it, save it, and send it. What used to take folks days or hours at the beginning of each month now takes seconds.
5. Integrated, Industry-Specific Accounting
Using generic accounting software like QuickBooks often feels like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole and that's because it is. You end up using complex workarounds just to track profitability by project.
ForestTrack includes a full double-entry accounting system built specifically for forestry. It handles cash and accrual basis, bank reconciliation (in one step, not two), and standard financial reporting.
The Productivity Boost: Because operations and accounting are in one system, you get powerful insights like the "Project Trial Balance" report. You can effortlessly tie income and expenses to specific clients and projects, giving you a clear, immediate picture of your firm's financial health without needing an accounting degree to figure it out.
Ready to streamline your forestry operations? Stop relying on scattered spreadsheets and start using the all-in-one solution built for the way you work.
