TECHNOLOGY track their materials and maintenance on equipment.“ And then at the end of the day, they can see if these jobs are profitable or not,” said Roell.“ That helps them grow their business and grow with the Toro company.”
Pen and paper won’ t cut it for business efficiency, so Toro created Horizon 360.
to handle in-house. Son said the company will use OpenAI’ s Chat GPT with ongoing AI expansion.
The company said AI can provide customers with information related to agriculture practices and tractors. Operators can track the machine location through their device and set up custom geofences. This can all lead to advances in autonomous operation as well, which Kioti has been testing in some ag formats using RTK location information along with GPS.
Toro’ s long Horizon
Nearly five years ago, Toro introduced Horizon 360 software as a business management tool.“ Toro is an equipment manufacturer, and we brought this technology to small and medium-sized businesses to help them run more efficiently,” said Katie Roell, marketing manager, digital technology landscape contractor equipment.
Horizon 360 devices are agnostic, said Roell.“ You do get more information off of a Toro or an Exmark piece of equipment because it’ s proprietary to us,” she said,“ but you still can track the location, equipment address and job status for rainbow fleet [ multiple brands / colors of ] equipment.”
Roell said that many small to medium sized contractors are still learning that the right processes and contracts can make them more profitable.“ If these business owners are just using pen and paper in the truck, keeping track of their routes and assignments to their operators, they don’ t know if the job is completely profitable because they’ re not accurately tracking time on job, they’ re not tracking materials dispensed on job, etc.” Toro’ s Horizon 360 is a way for them to accurately track and account for all the details of each job.
Users can measure actual time on job with the tool’ s geofence location tracking, and if they add the devices, they can see actual working time on the job. They can
Down to business
A core feature of the Horizon 360 tool is job scheduling and routing, according to Roell. The software has QuickBooks integration to help with scheduling and with closing invoices. It also serves as a customer management tool and business owners can set up automated communication – emails or text messages – to assist with customer relations. Roell said this is a feature that contractors don’ t sign up for initially but are finding it’ s an added benefit.“ With the addition of the scheduling and routing, they’ re starting to get analytics on making sure all those invoices are closed out. That’ s the core of why contractors are using Horizon 360.”
“ The maintenance section is the nice add-on feature where they can capture maintenance schedules,” said Roell.“ They don’ t realize the value of being able to manage their equipment and maintenance schedules until they’ re doing it. They realize,‘ If I stick to the maintenance schedule my equipment lasts longer and my total cost of ownership is improved.” Much of this CRM-like service is available in the premium version of Horizon 360.
Dealer connected?
“ We are looking at how we can integrate Toro dealers to provide better service. If we know that a piece of equipment is due for maintenance, how can a dealer support the contractor to make sure there’ s no downtime. Today, there isn’ t a dealer integration,” said Roell.
“ When we started Horizon 360, we geared it toward the landscape contractor. More recently we have been adjusting the model so it also fits with the demands for snow and the addition of on-demand jobs.” She admits that snow management is not scheduled like landscaping work, but the software can still add efficiencies.
“ We’ ve made adjustments in the software to make sure it’ s flexible enough for their busi-
16 OPE + April 2025 www. OPE-Plus. com