Snow services run on a different rhythm than the rest of your work: you sign a winter contract before the first flake falls, crews plow whenever a storm hits, and what you bill depends on how deep the snow actually got. include GO handles that whole cycle — you pick a weather data source, estimate the season on the project, run the storms, certify each event's measured snowfall, and the certified amounts flow straight into billing. This guide walks the cycle end to end.
Where to Find
Snow work lives on three screens:
Snow Weather settings — Dashboard → Settings → Business Unit Settings → Snow Weather (under Integrations & Data). Where you choose your weather data source.
Event Estimate — Dashboard → Projects → open a snow project → Billing tab → Event Estimate. Where you project the season's revenue.
Snow certify grid — Dashboard → Tasks → click the Snow view button. Where storms get certified and billing amounts resolve.
Step 1 — Choose Your Weather Provider
When a storm ends, someone has to say officially how much snow fell — that measured depth is what drives billing on depth-based contracts. The Snow Weather settings tab is where you choose where that number comes from.
Go to Settings → Business Unit Settings → Snow Weather.
Select one provider:
WeatherWorks or TrueWeather — connect a certified-snowfall service with an API key. The provider supplies the measured storm depths automatically.
Manual Entry — no weather service. Your team keys the certified depth by hand and can attach the provider's report PDF as backup.
Click Save settings. API keys are stored encrypted, and one weather account covers the whole company.
How Snow Contracts Bill
A snow project is set up like any other project, but its billing follows one of a few winter-contract styles:
Model | How it bills |
|---|---|
Per-Event Bracket | Each storm bills a price based on how deep it was — a ladder of depth brackets (0"–3", 3"–6", and so on), with an open top bracket that adds a per-unit charge for extreme storms. |
Per-Push | A set price every time the crew services the property, regardless of depth. |
Seasonal Cap | A fixed seasonal price paid in installments, with a cap on how much snowfall it covers. |
Full Seasonal Flat | One flat seasonal price in installments — unlimited snow. |
Hourly (Time & Material) | Bills the hours and materials actually logged during each visit. |
You don't need to memorize the mechanics — the estimator and the certify grid handle the math. Just know that bracket tasks care about certified depth, per-push and hourly tasks care about visits and hours, and seasonal contracts bill on an installment schedule.
Step 2 — Estimate the Season
Before the season starts, use the Event Estimate to project what the winter is worth. Open the snow project, go to the Billing tab, and choose the Event Estimate sub-tab.
The estimator lists every task on the project. Bracket tasks show their full depth ladder with the price for each bracket; flat tasks show a single line.
In Expected Events, enter how many storms of each size you expect this season — say, twelve small storms, six mid-size, a couple of big ones. Subtotals and the Estimated Total update as you type.
Click Set as seasonal price to stamp the grand total onto the project as its contract amount. On seasonal contracts, the installment payment plan then bills that amount across the season.
Step 3 — Certify Snow Events
After each storm, go to Tasks and switch to the Snow view. The task grid is replaced by the certification grid: one row per storm per zip code, because a certified depth applies to every property in that zip at once — you certify the storm once, not once per driveway.
Find the storm's row. New events start as Draft with "— enter depth —" in the Certified Depth column.
Click the depth cell and type the measured snowfall (or let your connected weather provider fill it).
Click Certify. The depth is applied to every plow visit in that zip, each property's billable amount resolves against its own contract, and the row turns Certified with the total dollar value of the event.
Statuses tell you where each event stands: Draft (no certified depth yet), Certified (depth on file, amounts resolved), and Invoiced (the charges have flowed into an invoice and the certification is locked).
The per-property breakdown
Expand a row (the arrow at the start) to see exactly what the event will bill, property by property.
Bracket services (plowing) show which depth bracket the certified snowfall landed in and the bracket's price.
Per-visit services (salting, shoveling, hauling) show the number of visits times the per-visit rate. On Draft rows the visit count is editable — a manager can correct what actually happened before certifying.
Hourly (T&M) services show logged hours times the hourly rate; hours are editable on Draft rows the same way.
Visits shows when crews actually clocked in, grouped by day — a long storm can span two days of salting runs.
Recording an event yourself
If an event isn't in the grid yet, click Certify Event in the top-right.
Pick the Zip Code — the certification covers every snow-contract property in it.
Choose a Detected event — the system clusters your crews' plow activity into storm windows (and a connected weather provider names them for you) — or switch to Manual entry to name a one-off event yourself.
Enter the Certified Amount and Unit (inches or centimeters — it must match the unit the contract cap uses), plus the provider's Report ID and any notes.
Optionally attach the provider's Report PDF as the paper trail, then click Certify.
Step 4 — How It Turns into Invoices
Certified amounts flow into the same billing pipeline as the rest of your work. Per-event charges bill through each property's task billing, and seasonal contracts bill their installment schedule — either way the charges end up on AR Invoices for the client. Once an event's charges are invoiced, its row shows Invoiced and the certification can no longer be changed — the invoice and the certification always agree.
Where Used Elsewhere
Projects — "Set as seasonal price" writes the estimate to the project's contract amount, and the Billing tab's payment plan bills it.
Tasks — snow services are ordinary project tasks underneath; crews clock into them like any other work, and those clock-ins are what the event detection clusters into storms.
Proposals — bracket tasks print their full depth-bracket ladder on client proposals, so the customer sees the same price ladder you certify against.
AR Invoices — where certified per-event charges and seasonal installments land for billing.
Permissions
Seeing the Snow view requires the view tasks permission. Actually certifying — entering depths, certifying zips, uploading report PDFs, and correcting visit or hour quantities — requires the certify events tasks permission, so you can let dispatchers see the board while only managers sign off on depths. Changing the weather provider requires the update settings permission, and saving a season estimate requires permission to update the project.
Tips & Best Practices
Set the weather provider before the season starts. It decides whether depths arrive automatically or your ops team keys them after each storm.
Certify once per zip, not per property. That's the point of the zip-level grid — one certification fans out to every property in the zip.
Fix visit counts and hours before certifying. Draft rows are editable; certified amounts are the ones that bill.
Attach the provider's report PDF. When a client disputes a snowfall total months later, the certification plus the report is your audit trail.
Match the certified unit to the contract. If the contract cap is written in inches, certify in inches.
Common Questions
What's a "bracket"? A depth range with a price — 0"–3" bills one amount, 3.01"–6" a higher one, and so on. The certified depth decides which bracket a storm lands in. The top bracket is open-ended and adds a per-unit charge for every unit above its floor, so a record blizzard still bills fairly.
Why does the Certify Event dialog say "No events detected for this zip"? Detected events are built from your crews' plow clock-ins (and from your weather provider, when one is connected). If nothing has been clocked in for that zip yet, there's nothing to detect — use Manual entry to record the event yourself.
Can I change a certification after the fact? While the event is Certified but not yet invoiced, adjustments are still possible. Once it's Invoiced it locks — the numbers on the invoice and the certification have to stay in agreement.
Where do the plow visits in the breakdown come from? From your crews clocking into the snow tasks during the storm. The breakdown groups each property's visits by day so you can see exactly which passes the event covers.
Do I have to use the estimator? No — it's a projection tool. But on seasonal contracts it's the fastest way to set a defensible contract amount: expected storm counts times your own bracket prices.
Related Topics
Projects — snow contracts are projects; the estimator and payment plan live on the project's Billing tab.
Tasks — the snow services crews clock into, and home of the Snow certify view.
AR Invoices — where certified snow charges are billed to the client.