How to run a tree surgery job from survey to invoice (without the paperwork pile)

Running a tree surgery job well is one unbroken chain: survey and quote, check whether the tree is protected, book the crew, photograph the site before and after, and invoice the day the job's done. Software can carry most of that chain. The legal checks and your risk assessment stay with you; no app does those, ours included.

Here's the chain step by step, and what to keep on record at each point.

1. Survey, quote and get the yes in writing

Tree work is quoted from a site visit, and the quote is where most arguments start: what was included, what happens to the arisings, whether the stump comes out. Write the scope into the quote in plain words and get the customer's approval somewhere you can find it again. In Elivium a job starts life as a quote with a price and a description; your customer opens their portal page, taps Approve quote, and the job moves to scheduled.

2. Check protection before you book the crew

In England, a Tree Preservation Order prohibits cutting down, topping, lopping, uprooting, wilful damage or wilful destruction of a protected tree without the local planning authority's written consent. Trees in a conservation area that aren't covered by an Order need a section 211 notice to the authority six weeks before you do certain work on them, unless an exception applies. The rules differ in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and the government guidance sets out the detail and the exceptions.

Whatever the answer, write it on the job before anyone is booked: "No TPO, not in a conservation area, checked with the council on (date)", or the consent reference. Elivium doesn't check TPOs for you; the job description is the place to record what you found.

3. Check for nesting birds

In England it's an offence to intentionally take, damage or destroy a wild bird's nest while it's being used or built, and the government guidance on wild birds lists cutting trees and hedges among the activities that can harm them. Check before you cut. A "before" photo of the canopy, taken at the start of the job, is a useful part of your own record.

4. Book crews, not just jobs

Tree work moves with the weather and with the size of crew a job needs. Keep every visit on one calendar the team can see, and when the forecast turns, drag the visit to another day rather than rewriting a diary. For hedge cutting and other repeat work, put the job on a cadence: on Elivium's Pro plan you can set weekly, fortnightly, monthly or quarterly, and completing one visit books the next at the same time of day.

5. Photograph the site before, during and after

Arguments about tree work tend to come after the event: a neighbour says branches came over the boundary, a customer says the lawn was left churned up, an insurer asks what state the site was in. Photos taken from the same spots before and after answer most of them. Take the before shots before the kit comes off the trailer, and the after shots from the same positions.

In Elivium the crew takes photos in the app, against the job. When they shoot the after, the camera ghosts the before photo over the viewfinder so the angle matches. On Pro, AI reads each photo and notes the work it can see, anything that looks unfinished or unsafe, and how tidy the site was left; one tap creates a branded report link the customer can open and forward. One honest detail: for privacy, location data is stripped from JPEG photos when they're uploaded, and each photo is logged with its upload time. If you need GPS-tagged originals for a dispute, take them with the phone's own camera as well; photos shot in Elivium's camera aren't saved to the phone.

Tree work is high-ticket and often argued about afterwards. Matched before-and-after photos are the record you'll wish you had.

6. Invoice the day the job lands

Big jobs are the ones you can least afford to invoice late. When the crew marks the visit complete, Elivium raises the invoice from the quoted price straight away: into your own Stripe account with a hosted pay page and 14-day terms. Card invoices sit on the customer's portal page with a Pay now button, and on Pro the report link shows them exactly what they're paying for. If you don't take cards, bank-transfer mode prefills an email with your bank details instead; that's a payment request rather than a full invoice document, so you'd issue the invoice itself from your own template. There's more on that in how to get customers to pay invoices faster.

What software won't do for you

• Check for TPOs and conservation areas, or give notice to the council.
• Write your risk assessment and method statement. Elivium has no forms or checklist builder yet.
• Register your business as a waste carrier. In England, a business that transports waste must register, and the fine for not registering is unlimited.
• Decide whether a tree is safe to climb or fell. That's your training and judgement.

Where Elivium fits

Elivium is built for trades whose work shows, and tree surgery is near the top of that list. Core (£18/seat) covers customers, quotes, scheduling, invoicing and the customer portal; for tree work, Pro (£32/seat) is the plan to look at, because that's where the photo reports and AI notes live. Self-serve sign-up isn't open yet, so the best way to judge it is the live demo: the real portal with sample data. If you'd like to be one of the first firms on it, email us. There's more on our tree surgery page, and full pricing.