Purpose

Aspire software is used by many companies of all sorts of sizes! Some organizations that use Aspire may only use some of the organization levels.

For example, most companies will not use districts and regions and may only have a single branch.

🧠 Ultimately, understanding how your organization should be set up will help you be successful in Aspire! Let's check out the next section to see how Aspire works!

Looking at the image below, you can see how Aspire functionality is structured when you are system building. Starting at Company, review the image to understand the hierarchy of Aspire!
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Seeing the above diagram, the next images match actual examples, in Landscaping and Clean, to the organizational concepts!

The most common way for Aspire to be configured is with your company information that you setup in the Configuration section of the Administration module.

Branches represent separate market areas where your company does business. If a landscape or commercial clean company does business in four different cities, they might create four branches – one for each city.

Some examples of branches include: Chesterfield Branch, Columbia Branch, or Jefferson City Branch.

🧠 To get started setting up a branch, read our Adding a New Branch in Aspire article for a step by step guide!
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Sometimes the decision between a branch or a division in Aspire can depend on how your company is structured, including employee sharing, customer base, and accounting systems used. If your company structure isn't straightforward, review our Deciding Branch or Division for Company Setup article.
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Divisions are profit centers within your company and is used for grouping revenue and expenses on your Profit & Loss reports. Divisions are commonly used in Aspire reports for breaking out hours, costs, and revenue!

The most common divisions for companies using Aspire include maintenance, enhancements, snow, irrigation, and overhead. Other common divisions are construction, subcontractor, indirect, internal, plant healthcare, and landscape.

Examples of divisions would be: Maintenance, Construction, Snow, Irrigation or Tree Service.

🧠 To get started setting up a division, read our Creating a New Division in Aspire article for a step by step guide!

Service Types are used to group services and tie them to your divisions. They are the link between divisions and services to break down the pricing mark ups on your opportunities.

Examples of service types, like for a Maintenance Division, would be: Mowing, Plant Health Care, Mulching, or Pruning.

🧠 To get started setting up service types, read Creating Service Types for a step by step guide!

A Service is the work performed by your company and help create an opportunity's work tickets. Services are a part of a Contract Order or Work Order Opportunity and must be created in the service catalog before being added to an estimate on an opportunity.
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​Some examples of services include: Spring Clean Up, Irrigation Repair, Patio Installation, or Snow Removal.

🧠 To get started setting up services, read Creating a Service for a step by step guide!

An Item is a specific labor, material, rental equipment, subcontractor, or other that is required to perform a service. Typically, they have a cost associated with them.

Some examples of items include: Mulch, Sprinkler Head, or Boxwood, Skid Steer, or Labor - Enhancement.

🧠 To get started adding items to your items catalog, read Adding Items to the Item Catalog for a step by step guide!

Districts are a group of Regions to define large areas of management. This is another layer of organization to further break up larger enterprises that use Aspire. Certain reports in Aspire can be filtered, sorted, and grouped with district information and can be helpful for financial reporting.

🧠 To learn more about the Districts screen, please refer to our User Guide here.

Some examples of districts include: East, West, North, and South.

Regions tie back to branches and can be set on Branch configuration screens. Setting up regions is optional.

A Region is otherwise known as an area or zone. Sometimes, regions are divided by physical characteristics or locations but might not have fixed boundaries. Regions can be used to group Branches together in Aspire. You can set invoicing on the region level for properties. You can filter data for properties based on region as well as view worked hours for employees based on their region.

🧠 To learn more about the Region screen, please refer to our User Guide here.

Some examples of regions include: Northwest, Southwest, Midwest, and Mid Atlantic.