Field service management software is used by small and medium size companies to better manage their field service operations and technicians. These software applications help IT and computer repair companies to manage their inventory, schedule jobs, dispatch technicians, estimate jobs, capture support tickets and much more. Controlling the costs related to the field service operations is one of the main drivers for choosing these applications.
These resources can be time consuming to build or run correctly, often leading business owners and operators to seek out a free option. Here we’re going to review the top free alternatives for service contractors looking for a new digital solution.
Zoho One
Zoho One is a wholesome business management software and company management system that has everything you need to run your business on the operating system for your business with impressive 40 business apps. You just need to connect multiple apps so that different teams can work together productively.
Top features:
- Manage almost every aspect of your business in one system
- Fosters collaboration with online document storage and sharing
- Automate personalized business workflows
Read on: Zoho Alternatives – 13 Tools Your Team Will Love
Scoro
Scoro is an all-in-one business management software designed to bring your teams, projects, sales, and reports together at a centralized place. With Scoro you can manage work more efficiently and be organized in every aspect of your business.
Top features:
- Plan and track work with unlimited projects
- Manage quotes, contacts, and invoices seamlessly
- Track time and bill for completed work accurately
- Manage your entire business within a single solution
iBE.net
As a business management software/ company management system, iBE.net is an appropriate choice for mid-sized companies as it offers expense tracking, invoice reports, CRM support along with an easy integration of project details. It is extensively used in consulting, marketing, management, and other technical industries. It is like your entire business within your palm of hands.
Top features:
- Customize your own dashboards
- Use pre-delivered reports
- Generate invoices in seconds
- Visualize, analyze, and organize your data with valuable insights
ProofHub
ProofHub is a powerful business management software and platform that combines all the features you might need to take care of your business. You can streamline your processes, store and share files, share feedback under one roof with ProofHub. Its mobile app can be used by both Android and iOS users on the go.
Top features:
- Effective project and task management
- Gantt charts to keep your projects on track
- Dynamic reports to get clear insights
- Time tracking to track time spent on tasks
Start managing your teams and projects efficiently with ProofHub!
Flodesk
Flodesk is a fast-growing email marketing service for small businesses. Their focus is on design, enabling small business owners to create beautiful emails and showcase their brand. Flodesk offers workflows that allow users to automate lead magnet delivery, welcome sequences, and more with an easy-to-use visual builder.
Key features:
- Fixed price of $38 per month, regardless of list size
- Unlimited subscribers & unlimited email sends
- Drag-and-drop email builder with layout blocks
- Create email signup forms, even without a website
- Create automated email sequences
StudioCloud
StudioCloud has made a name for itself as a reliable business management platform and company management system in much less time. It is a one-stop solution for your business needs that contains all the features you need to manage your business anytime, anywhere. Go check this business tool to organize and simplify your life.
Top features:
- Manage clients, partners, and vendors at one place
- Create and send professional invoices
- Send automated, personalized, text and email reminders
- Have clients review and sign contracts online
- Easily customize the look and feel of your software
Timely
Knowing how your business spends time is elementary, whether you bill for it or not. Timely streamlines the whole time tracking process by recording everything your team works on automatically. It dramatically reduces time management overhead, while improving reporting and invoicing accuracy.
Top features:
- Automatic time tracking
- Real-time project dashboards
- Sophisticated, client-friendly reporting
- Hourly rates, capacity and overtime
Odoo
Odoo is an all-in-one business management software that offers a range of business applications which forms a complete suite of enterprise management applications. It covers CRM, eCommerce, accounting, inventory, sales, and project management. Odoo apps are perfectly integrated with each other, allowing you to fully automate your business processes.
Top features:
- Unique framework with strong technical foundations
- Take a quick look at your business with dashboards
- Real-time communication makes way for better collaboration
Netsuite
Netsuite is a unified business management suite being used by more than 40,000 large, mid-sized, and small fast-growing businesses. It provides various tools for ERP, Financials, CRM, HR, eCommerce. It offers comprehensive functionality with industry-specific support for a broad range of industries means NetSuite works the way your business works.
Top features:
- Cloud-based, mobile-enabled, and social
- Easily accessible reports and key performance indicators
- Highly flexible and customizable
- Effective resource management, project accounting, timesheet and expense management
Timecamp
Timecamp is a one-solution-fits-all business management solution that comes with a time tracker with computer activities, productivity monitoring, attendance tracking, integrations and more. The software tracks time automatically so you don’t have to worry about spending hours on figuring out how to do it. TimeCamp offers you an intuitive interface to get your team on board effortlessly.
Top features:
- Create and send invoices based on time tracked per project and customer
- Seamless integrations with project management, accounting, help desk software and more
- Simple and intuitive interface
- assign the time entries to the right project, monitor employees’ internet usage and generate detailed reports
- Desktop and mobile app available for many platforms and devices.
Dataforma
Dataforma was made by contractors for contractors. This makes its interface especially easy to use and adopt. Dataforma manages all your basic functions like scheduling, dispatching, invoicing and tracking. The mobile app notifies technicians when new work orders are added or modified. The app also provides a way to take organized notes on labor and materials.
Dataforma allows users to take and access photos taken in the field
Dataforma is available both as a cloud-based product and on-premise. However, only the web-based solution will automatically backup your data each hour. And while it’s suitable for small businesses, it can also be utilized by medium and large businesses. This is great if your company is expecting growth and you don’t want to switch vendors when the time comes.Price: $$$$$Deployment:
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ServiceFusion
ServiceFusion’s plans start at $99 each month and go up to $349. All plans offer unlimited jobs and users. The starter plan manages scheduling and dispatching, invoicing, payments and reporting. It also supports multi-phase projects and integrates with Quickbooks. Your customers will enjoy text alerts when technicians are on the way and receive appointment reminders.
ServiceFusion’s tools quickly give users insight into job scheduling.
If the basic plan isn’t enough, you can purchase individual features from the larger plans without moving up to the next price point. Additional features include job costing, ability to take and upload photos, a documents module, inventory management, and a customer portal. This small business service software is only available in the cloud.Price: $$$$$Deployment:
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Aimsio
Aimsio is a flexible product, allowing buyers to pick and choose which modules to implement. It contains three core modules: dashboards, workflows and reporting. The workflows module exists mainly to move your company from paper to digital.
Aimsio provides a mobile interface while never sacrificing intuitiveness.
It allows you to create digital forms that look exactly like their paper counterparts, enabling you to maintain a nearly identical administrative process. The only difference is that you don’t have to worry about losing documents or having to dig through file cabinets. All information is readily available to both office users and field technicians.
Additional modules include a job board, which office staff can use to dispatch crews and manage scheduling. There’s also project tracking for more complex work. Additionally, this module includes a budgeting tool to keep your company on track during lengthy projects. Other modules manage compliance regulations, create invoices and support integrations with third-party software.Price: $$$$$Deployment:
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ServiceTitan
ServiceTitan reports an average revenue growth of 25 percent within the first nine months for its customers. This is due to the strong in-office and field tools this vendor provides. In the office, you’re able to keep track of calls, booking rates and other service KPIs to evaluate your performance. You also have this ability for technicians and can see their estimates sold and estimate conversion rates.
ServiceTitan enables your office staff to see revenue across jobs and invoices.
The dispatching tool is very user-friendly and provides a drag-and-drop tool for easy scheduling. Moreover, office staff have access to custom reports so you can see trends by department, business unit or by date.
Field workers also have access to tools to make the job more efficient. First, your technicians can retrieve complete job information in the field at any time. This includes previous work done for a client, unsold estimates and billing information. Moreover, your field technicians can process payments with ServiceTitan, whether it’s using card, cash or check. They can also create estimates using photo and video. ServiceTitan is available as both a cloud-based solution and on-premise.Price: $$$$$Deployment:
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Get our Field Service Management Software Pricing Guide for Small Businesses
Less Affordable (But Still Cheap!)
GeoOp
GeoOp’s initial price is actually quite low at $49 each month. But their most popular plan starts at $229 with top plans exceeding $1,000 for 100 licenses. While these aren’t rock-bottom prices, GeoOp ensures that their fixed monthly fee is all a company will pay. There are no hidden fees for exceeding a certain number of jobs or data storage.
Field techs can access job information in the field using GeoOp’s mobile app.
In addition to its flexible pricing options, GeoOp provides all the key features a business needs for successful field management. This system works to streamline your office functions by centralizing labor management, customer information, profit reports and invoices. Your staff can charge customers using the timekeeping tool to ensure your company is paid correctly. Further, you can set permissions for users and even customers so everyone gets the visibility they need.
Your field service technicians can benefit from GeoOp, as well. The easy-to-use UI facilitates documentation of job details and allows messages to be sent between the office and field users. The app also supports jobs that require several different appointments. This helps keep all relevant information in one place so your technicians can work without interruption. GeoOp is great for small and mid-sized businesses and it’s available in the cloud.Price: $$$$$Deployment:
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mHelpDesk
Similarly to GeoOp, mHelpDesk’s basic packages are very reasonable. In addition to these starter plans, mHelpDesk also caters to enterprises looking for a customized system. This makes it another great option for companies who simply can’t do business with a less capable system.
mHelpDesk is an end-to-end field service solution for small businesses, containing estimation, job creation and invoicing tools.
The most basic package provides scheduling and job management tools. In addition, there’s invoicing and payment processing for a limited number of jobs. The Pro package adds on more jobs, syncs with Quickbooks and allows you to track equipment. Higher-tiered packages provide more users, more jobs, custom forms, location tracking and inventory management.
mHelpDesk is conveniently located in the cloud and its basic packages are recommended for small businesses. Medium and enterprise-level businesses would benefit from the more powerful plans or a customized pricing plan.Price: $$$$$Deployment:
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Company Size Suitability:S M L
Oracle Field Service Cloud
Oracle’s field service software is offered as a core package with modules you can add on, as opposed to a tiered pricing model. This means that Oracle can provide pretty much every feature you’d need but won’t feel like an oversized system. From automated routing to multi-language support to resource mapping, this solution is all-encompassing.
Oracle provides comprehensive tools, including scheduling and dispatch features.
Conclusion
There is more software available for service management than ever before. This makes it difficult to choose between the top field service management software options. Service contractors need resources they can use to manage and grow their business such as customer relationship management (CRM) and field service dispatch applications.