Landscaping & design-build projects
Close the projects you design—without carrying every deposit, change order, and delay update yourself.
Deptly helps design-build and hardscape businesses close more of the proposals they already walk — and carries the deposit chasing, the change-order paperwork, and the material-delay updates between the walk and the final walkthrough — while design, pricing, and site judgment stay with you.
What does Deptly do for landscaping & design-build projects?
Deptly is a managed service for landscape design-build and hardscape companies. It follows up the proposals you already walked and priced, collects signed approvals and deposits, turns on-site scope changes into signed change orders before the crew builds them, keeps homeowners updated when material lead times or weather move the schedule, and sends progress invoices as each phase closes — working in tools like Jobber or LMN, while design, pricing, and site judgment stay with you.
Sound familiar?
Five moments from the way this work actually runs — not because anyone is careless, but because the loop depends on whoever is busiest.
You walked the backyard Saturday, talked pavers against stamped concrete for an hour, and promised the proposal by Wednesday. It's the next Tuesday and the design is still on your laptop, because crews needed you every evening since.
A $40,000 patio proposal has sat at 'we need to talk it over' for eleven days. You haven't followed up because you're mid-pour on two other jobs — and because nobody likes feeling pushy about their own work.
The block supplier pushes the wall delivery a week. You reshuffle two crews by 6:30 AM — and the homeowner learns about it by watching nobody show up Monday.
The customer asked the crew for a fire pit mid-dig, and the crew built it. Three weeks later you're writing the final invoice, trying to reconstruct what was agreed from a handshake in the yard.
The walkthrough was two weeks ago and the last progress payment still hasn't been requested, because sending invoices is a tonight job — and tonight keeps losing to tomorrow's dig.
Why this happens
A design-build project is a chain of long waiting states. Weeks pass between the property walk and the proposal, the proposal and the signature, the deposit and the dig, the dig and the final walkthrough. Nothing in that chain moves on its own — every stage advances only when someone follows up, sends the document, requests the payment, or makes the call. In most companies, that someone is the owner, and the owner is also running the crews.
The production work is scheduled; the coordination work is not. A paver delivery slips, a homeowner adds a seat wall mid-dig, an inspection holds the framing — each event needs a decision, a document, and a message to somebody. But those events arrive while you're on site, so they get parked in your head: the change order you'll write up tonight, the delay text you'll send from the truck, the progress invoice you'll get to Sunday. Some make it out. The ones that don't become quiet proposals, awkward invoice conversations, and homeowners who feel left in the dark.
That isn't a discipline problem — it's a structure problem. A project business generates more coordination per dollar than any route or service call, and it all funnels through the one person who priced the job and can answer for it. Until the follow-up, the paperwork, and the updates have an owner that isn't you, adding another project in flight just doubles what you carry.
What Deptly handles here
Three complete responsibilities — each with a trigger, the actions carried, the escalation point, and what done actually means.
Responsibility 1
Proposal follow-up, approval, and deposit
- Starts when
- A proposal you sent has gone quiet past the interval you set — usually three to five days for residential design-build.
- What Deptly does
- Sends a follow-up in your voice that references the property walk and anything you flagged — the drainage concern, the paver sample they liked
- Answers routine questions from your proposal notes: timeline, phasing, what's included, how the payment schedule works
- On a yes, sends the approval for signature and collects the deposit you require to hold a crew block
- Asks the pre-dig questions while momentum is high: equipment access, irrigation lines, utility locates, HOA approvals
- Places the project on your schedule as a crew block with access and materials notes attached
- Comes to you when
- Any request to change the price, the scope, or the design goes to you before a word goes back. So does a competing-bid conversation.
The proposal ends in one of two verified states: signed, deposited, and scheduled — or a recorded 'not now' with a revisit date, so no proposal simply evaporates.
Responsibility 2
Change orders signed before the work is built
- Starts when
- A homeowner or crew lead raises added or changed scope mid-project — an extra course on the wall, a fire pit, upgraded cap stone, a longer fence run.
- What Deptly does
- Captures the change from a crew lead's voice note or text and logs it against the project
- Drafts the change order — scope, the price you confirm, added crew days — and sends it to you first
- Sends the approved change order for signature and collects any change-order payment your terms require
- Updates the project total, the payment schedule, and the materials notes
- Tells any following project whose start date moves, before they notice an empty driveway
- Comes to you when
- Pricing the change stays with you or your estimator. Anything structural — wall height, footings, load — goes to your crew lead before it's promised.
The change exists as a signed document attached to the job before the crew builds it — so the final invoice matches what everyone agreed, in writing.
Responsibility 3
Schedule updates and progress payments through the walkthrough
- Starts when
- Anything that moves the plan or closes a phase: a material delivery slips, rain pushes the dig, an inspection gets scheduled, a milestone finishes.
- What Deptly does
- Tells the homeowner what moved and the new dates, in your voice, before they see an empty driveway
- Handles the where-are-we replies and keeps the project record current
- Sends each progress invoice the day its phase closes, per the signed payment schedule
- Follows unpaid milestones with approved reminders and requests the final payment after the walkthrough
- Asks the happy customer for a review and photos while the finished project is still new
- Comes to you when
- A workmanship concern, a contested charge, or a request to hold payment goes straight to you — Deptly never argues quality on your behalf.
Each phase ends verified: customer informed, invoice sent, payment received and reconciled — and the project closes with a walkthrough, a final payment, and a review request, not a lingering balance.
One job, before and with Deptly
The same signal, followed all the way to a verified outcome instead of waiting on whoever is busiest.
Today
- You walk a backyard Thursday evening — patio, seat wall, lighting. The proposal takes four nights to finish because crews needed you every day.
- The proposal goes out. The homeowner replies with two questions you see at 9 PM and answer at 10.
- They go quiet. You mean to follow up, but two projects are mid-pour and eleven days slip past.
- They finally call — they signed with another contractor who seemed more on top of it.
- Four evenings of design work bill to nobody, and next month's crew gap stays open.
With Deptly
- You walk the same backyard and send the proposal. Deptly logs the send date and your follow-up rules.
- The homeowner's questions about timeline and paver options are answered the same evening from your proposal notes.
- Day four: the proposal is quiet, so a follow-up goes out in your voice, mentioning the crew window you flagged.
- The homeowner approves. Deptly collects the signed approval and deposit, then asks about access and utility marks.
- The project lands on your schedule as a crew block with materials and access notes attached.
- Friday's brief confirms it: deposit received, dig date confirmed, nothing waiting on you tonight.Closed loop
Start from the outcome you want
The same responsibilities, prioritized differently depending on what you are trying to change first.
Close more of the proposals you already walk
Design-build leads are expensive — every proposal starts with hours of walking, measuring, and drawing. The leak is after the send: proposals sit quiet for weeks while you're mid-pour on the last project, and the homeowner signs with whoever seemed more on top of it. Deptly follows every proposal on your schedule and in your voice, answers new inquiries before they reach the next contractor, and asks last year's clients about the phase-two work you sketched at their walkthrough.
Stop running the project office after dark
You build all day, then do paperwork all night — deposit requests, delay texts, change orders reconstructed from memory, the invoice that keeps slipping. Deptly takes that shift. It sends payment requests as each phase closes, tells homeowners the moment a delivery moves the schedule, keeps selections and access notes attached to each project, and turns crew-lead voice notes into documented change orders waiting for your price. You get a short brief on what was handled and what actually needs you.
Take on more projects without carrying more in your head
Growing a design-build company means more projects in flight at once — and every added project multiplies the coordination: another payment schedule, another selection list, another homeowner wondering why the driveway is empty. Deptly holds each project's loop closed. Proposals get followed while you build, changes get signed before they're built, delays get communicated before anyone calls to ask, and payments land when phases close. The book grows on work you already walked — without the whole schedule living in your memory.
What Deptly handles, asks about, and never decides
Every responsibility above runs inside this boundary. You set the rules; anything outside them waits for you.
Deptly handles
Routine work done within the rules you approve.
- Following up sent proposals at the price you quoted, in your voice, on your schedule
- Deposit, progress-payment, and final-invoice requests per the signed payment schedule
- Change-order paperwork and signatures once you confirm the price
- Delay and schedule updates to homeowners the moment plans move
- Keeping selections, access notes, locate tickets, and HOA details attached to each project
Deptly asks first
Anything judgment-shaped waits for your okay.
- Any price, discount, or payment-plan change beyond limits you preset
- Scope or design changes — drafted for you, never priced without you
- Start-date promises when the schedule is already tight
- Anything that touches the terms of a signed contract
- Refund, credit, or hold-payment requests
Always human
The decisions that stay yours, always.
- Design and pricing stay with you and your designer
- Site and structural judgment — base depth, footings, drainage, wall engineering — stays with your crew leads
- The quality call at every phase, and the final walkthrough, stay yours
- Hiring, crew assignments, subs, and equipment decisions stay with you
The full rulebook — approvals, escalation, and audit history — lives on trust and control.
Who this covers
Each one gets the same execution engine — these notes call out what actually changes.
Landscape design & installation
The commercial object is a design, not a line-item quote. Revision loops are normal, plant availability shifts the plan, and the homeowner's anxiety is whether the finished yard will match the drawing — so steady communication between concept and install carries the sale.
Patios & hardscaping
Paver and block lead times drive the schedule, base prep needs dry weather windows, and small changes are constant — the pattern upgrade, the extra border course. Change orders here are frequent and easy to leave verbal, which is exactly where final-invoice disputes start.
Retaining walls
Height thresholds trigger engineering and permits, excavation is staged, and a wall holding back a slope is a safety decision — what the wall needs structurally stays with your crew lead and engineer, always. Deptly carries the permit paperwork and the homeowner updates around it.
Outdoor kitchens & living spaces
The most trades per project — gas, electrical, countertop templating, appliance delivery — and the longest selection lists. One late appliance stalls three trades, so sequencing updates and selection deadlines matter more here than anywhere else in the yard.
Fences
Faster quote-to-build than the rest of the branch: one-crew jobs where property lines, HOA approval, and permit questions dominate the pre-sale. Volume is higher and deposits smaller, so the leak is proposals going quiet in bulk rather than one big project slipping.
Decks
Permits and mid-build inspections create hard waiting states — nobody builds past the framing inspection. Composite and railing lead times move dates, and the homeowner needs to hear that the pause is the inspector's schedule, not your crew disappearing.
Grading & excavation
Mobilization is the cost driver — a canceled dig day with equipment on the trailer hurts more than in any other trade. Utility locates must be requested, tracked, and confirmed before a bucket touches soil, and dig windows move with the weather.
Systems we commonly work in
- Phone, text & emailConfirmed
- Google CalendarConfirmed
- JobberPossible
- LMNPossible
- QuickBooks OnlinePossible
- BuildertrendScoped in discovery
- AspireScoped in discovery
Confirmed means standard channels every business already has — phone, text, email, and calendar. Possible means the platform supports what the workflow needs. Anything marked scoped in discovery gets verified during discovery before we commit to it — Deptly works within the tools you already have, as described on how it works.
See the loop close
Every proof item on this site is labeled for exactly what it is.
A mid-project addition becomes a signed change order before the crew builds it
Crew lead
Homeowner at the Maplewood patio wants to add a seat wall along the back edge — about 18 feet. Told her we'd get her a price.
Tuesday, 10:20 AM
Deptly
Logged the request against the Maplewood project. Drafted a change order — 18 linear feet of seat wall in the matching block, one added crew day — and sent it to you to confirm the number.
10:35 AM
Owner
Needs your OKPrice is right. Send it — and note it adds a day to the schedule.
12:10 PM
Deptly
Change order sent for signature with the added day noted. The homeowner signed and paid the change-order deposit within the hour. Project total and payment schedule updated.
1:45 PM
Deptly
Materials note added for the extra block. The next project's start moved one day — that homeowner has been told why and given the new date.
2:30 PM
- Dinbox
Owner brief
Friday, 5:00 PM
Maplewood: seat wall added by signed change order, deposit collected, schedule and the following project adjusted and communicated. Nothing verbal, nothing to reconstruct at invoice time.
More demonstrations live on proof and examples.
Questions owners ask
It never sets or changes a price. Deptly follows up the proposal you already built, at the number you put on it, and answers routine questions from your proposal notes — timeline, phasing, what's included. The moment a conversation turns to price, scope, or design, it comes back to you before anything goes out.
It answers what your notes answer: which paver line was quoted, how the payment schedule works, when the crew window opens, whether lighting was included. Questions that need design judgment — moving the wall, changing the layout, swapping to a different stone — are summarized and handed to you.
That's your call. Deptly writes in your voice and follows your rules, and many owners introduce it plainly as their office — the way a customer would meet any coordinator. What matters to a homeowner mid-project is that someone answers, knows their project, and follows through. Anything personal or sensitive comes to you.
Yes — as approved routines against the signed payment schedule. When a phase closes, the invoice goes out that day; when a milestone payment goes quiet, reminders follow at the cadence you set. A contested charge or a request to hold payment is never argued on your behalf — it comes straight to you.
That's one of the most valuable loops to close. A crew lead sends a voice note or text — 'she wants a seat wall, about 18 feet' — and Deptly drafts the change order and brings it to you for the price. Nothing reaches the homeowner until you approve it, and nothing gets built on a handshake.
No — it works inside them. Your quotes, projects, schedules, and invoices stay where they are. Deptly does the part the software stores but doesn't do: the following up, the getting-signed, the updating, the chasing. Platforms like Jobber, LMN, and QuickBooks Online are typical examples; your exact stack is confirmed during setup.
The delay isn't what costs you trust — the silence is. The moment you know a delivery slipped, Deptly tells every affected homeowner what moved and the new dates, in your voice, and handles the replies. A customer who hears it from you first experiences a well-run project. One who discovers an empty driveway writes the review you dread.
Winter is the design-build sales season — the projects that break ground in April get signed in January. Scope can shift with the calendar: proposal follow-up and deposit collection for spring slots through the winter, change orders and schedule communication through the build season, final payments and reviews in the fall.
It can carry the administrative side as approved routines — submitting applications, tracking approval status, scheduling inspections, and chasing the HOA form the homeowner keeps forgetting. Whether the design meets code, and what the inspector's notes mean for the build, stays with you.
It's scoped differently. A coordinator is a full salary before your project volume may justify one, and the follow-up still stops at five o'clock — while homeowners reply to proposals at 8 PM. Deptly is a managed service that starts with one workflow and grows with the book, covering the stage where the office is otherwise you, at night.
Pricing is scoped to the work, not a per-seat license: the number of workflows, activity volume, the systems involved, and the level of oversight you want. Most design-build companies start with a single workflow pilot — usually proposal follow-up, because it pays for itself first — and expand only if the results earn it.
The project closes the loop: final invoice sent, payment confirmed, punch-list items tracked to done, and a review request while the finished yard is still new. Then the quiet part — next season, Deptly can ask that client about the phase-two work you talked about at the walkthrough, which is how design-build books compound.
No pitch, just a straight read
Talk through how this would work in your business
Walk through how the work actually moves in your business and hear exactly what Deptly would carry first — including an honest no if the fit is not there.