Tree service records: each property, each tree, every job, with no internet
Short answer: keep three lists. Properties, the trees on each property, and one row each time the crew works on a tree. Open a tree and its whole history is there; open a property and every tree on it is listed. It works on a laptop with no internet, and it is free to start. If your crew needs to type on a phone in a back yard with no bars, read where this is honest first.
On Arborist Site, a Florida member asked three plain questions: what software is there for service tracking of trees, what does it cost each month on a phone, and can you see the jobs on a map (the thread, January 2011, read 4 November 2026). Nobody answered.
The job behind those questions is small. When a customer calls and says “you were out last spring, what did you do to the big oak”, the answer should take one click, not a search through old invoices.
How the lists fit together
| List | What one row is | Points at |
|---|---|---|
| Properties | One customer address: owner, phone, gate code or access notes, where the truck can park | |
| Trees | One tree: species, where it stands on the lot, trunk size, condition, hazards such as lines overhead | A property |
| Work | One job on one tree: date, pruned or removed or treated, what was used, crew, hours, price, notes | A tree |
A visit that takes down three trees is three rows of work, one per tree, so each tree keeps its own history. Filter the work list to “treated” and sort by date, and you have the trees due a follow-up.
Can you see the jobs on a map?
Yes. Any list with an address can be shown as a map, one pin per property, and clicking a pin opens the property. The map pictures and the address lookup come from the internet, so the map needs a connection. The lists themselves do not.
Records that live on the laptop
Bionic Forms builds a small app from a spreadsheet or a sentence, such as “keep my customers' properties, the trees on each one, and every job we do to a tree”. Our desktop app for Windows, macOS or Linux keeps a full, encrypted copy on the computer. With no connection at all you can:
- Type up the day's jobs in the truck or at home, one row per tree.
- Attach photos of a tree before and after, or of a decay pocket you want to watch (files on records).
- Print a tree's history for a customer, a property manager or an insurer (how printing works).
- Search and sort: every oak you have treated, every job at one address, every tree whose notes say “lines”.
When the laptop finds a connection again, the changes go up by themselves, so the office computer sees the same records. Every change is kept with who made it and when (how history works).
What it costs
Free covers unlimited apps and 10,000 entries per app, with no card. Two hundred customers with five trees each and a few jobs a year is a few thousand rows. If you already keep a spreadsheet, drop it on our home page and each sheet comes in as its own list.
Where this is honest
- No offline phone app yet. Offline is the desktop app only. On a phone, ours runs in the browser and needs a signal, so a crew with no bars writes it down and types it up later, or keeps a laptop in the truck.
- The map needs a connection. The lists work offline; the map does not.
- No quoting, scheduling or invoicing. It keeps the properties, the trees and the history. Quotes and invoices still come from whatever you use now, and you can download any list as a spreadsheet.
- Set it up while you have a connection. The AI that builds the app runs on our server. Using it afterwards does not need one.
- We are small and pre-launch. We say plainly which parts are not finished, and your data can always be exported again.
Build it now. The box already says what this page is about. Change it if you like.
About 25 seconds. No signup to see the result.
Already keep a spreadsheet? Drop it on the home page instead.
Or open the live demo first. No email.
Rather not do it yourself? Tell us what you track and we will build a working version and show you. No fee.
More: a snow plowing log and photos on records, or a tractor and attachment log, or cemetery records, or firewood delivery records.