🧪Chemicals

Set up chemical tracking, manage programs and products, record field applications, and export compliance history in Shortcut.

Chemicals gives lawn care and pest control teams one place to manage chemical programs, track what was actually applied in the field, and keep compliance history organized.

Chemicals is included in your plan.

• Crews can record applications only after the module is turned on and setup is marked complete.

• On some legacy plans the workspace shows a locked preview — see Plans & billing.

Who this is for

• Company admins use Chemicals to set up the module, manage products and programs, review application records, and export compliance history.

• Employees do not use the full Chemicals workspace. They record applications from their assigned chemical jobs.

How Chemicals is organized

Think of Chemicals as three connected parts:

1. Settings: turn the module on, choose compliance defaults, and finish setup

2. Programs and products: define what you sell and what gets applied

3. Application records: track what happened in the field and export it later

Before you start

If you are setting up Chemicals for the first time, this is the easiest order to follow:

1. Open Settings → Operations → Chemicals. Open Chemicals settings →

2. Switch on the toggle beside the Chemicals title so it reads Enabled. The other settings stay greyed out until you do.

3. Choose your activity summary, retention, and weather settings (explained below). Each change saves as soon as you make it.

4. Add applicator license numbers for team members: Settings → Workspace → Users, open a person's ⋯ menu, choose Edit, and fill in Applicator license number (optional). See Users and Teams.

5. Build your product catalog and programs.

6. Switch on Setup wizard completed when you are ready for live field use. Creating a program switches it on for you, as long as your catalog has at least one active chemical.

Crews don't see chemical records on their visits in Today until tracking is on and setup is complete.

Finish Chemicals setup before employees record field applications.

What you manage in Chemicals settings

In Chemicals settings (Settings → Operations → Chemicals), company admins can control:

• The module switch beside the Chemicals title (it reads Enabled or Disabled) turns application logging on. While it's off you can still build products and programs (the Chemicals page shows Application logging is off), but crews can't record applications, the compliance export won't download, and the Chemical Applications document in Reports won't open. The settings below are greyed out while it's off.

• Include summaries in activity adds each completed application to the customer's activity timeline.

• Retention (years) sets your retention period for compliance history, from 1 to 25 years. The default is 7.

• Weather provider is where automatic weather readings come from. Open-Meteo is the only option.

• Setup wizard completed tells Shortcut you're ready for crews to record applications.

There's no Save button: changes save as you make them. If one can't be saved, you'll see Could not save and the setting goes back to what it was.

Applicator license numbers aren't set here. Add them to each person in Settings → Workspace → Users (⋯ → Edit → Applicator license number (optional)).

Programs

Programs are the chemical services you sell and perform — a six-round lawn program, say, or a mosquito barrier every 21 days.

Open Chemicals in the left menu. The Programs tab lists every program you've built, in one of two views:

• Timeline — each program laid out across the twelve months, with its visits as pins and its chemicals listed underneath.

• List — price, schedule, the first products applied, and every visit as a chip.

Use Search programs to find one by name, month, visit label, or product.

Program status

Every program shows a status chip next to its name, in both views.

Status	What it means	Offered on estimates and new jobs?
Draft (amber)	You saved it with Save draft. The program is kept but switched off.	No
Needs review (amber)	Switched on, but not yet confirmed complete — usually a program brought in when your data was imported from another system.	No
Proposal ready (green)	Switched on and complete.	Yes

The Programs card at the top of the page shows how many programs you have and, underneath, how many are proposal ready. Drafts and programs that need review aren't counted there.

• To clear Needs review: click Edit, make sure every visit has a month, a week, and at least one chemical with an amount, then click Save & publish.

• To stop selling a program: click Edit, then Save draft. Programs can't be deleted — a draft is how you retire one. Jobs you've already sold from it carry on unchanged.

• To sell it again: click Edit, then Save & publish.

The chip tells you whether a program can be sold. Only Proposal ready programs count in the header.

Build a program

1. Click New program (top right).

2. Type a name at the top — for example 7-Step Lawn Care.

3. Optional: under Or start from a template, pick a built-in program — 6-Round Northern Turf, 7-Round Premium, 4-Round Value, 8-Round Southern Turf, Mosquito Control, or Perimeter Pest. It fills in the name, description, visits, and timing; you add the chemicals. Clear template undoes it.

4. Add a Customer-facing description (shown on estimates) and a Price with its structure: Flat, Per sq ft, Per hour, or Man Hour. To charge by property size, click + Add pricing tier.

5. Pick a Schedule type — Seasonal or Interval — and fill in Visits & chemistry (see below).

6. Check Program preview. It shows the calendar shape you'll sell and schedule from.

7. Click Create program.

A new program is switched on straight away and shows as Proposal ready.

Seasonal and interval programs

Schedule style	Best for	How it works
Seasonal	Lawn treatment programs with known seasonal rounds	Each visit is tied to a planned month and week of month
Interval	Repeating services like mosquito or perimeter treatments	One shared recipe repeats every set number of days within a season

Seasonal programs have a row per visit under Visits & chemistry: a visit label, an application basis (Per 1,000 sq ft, Fixed amount, or Spot treatment), a Month, a Week (Week 1 to Week 4), the chemicals, and an optional Description that's shown on invoices. Add visit adds the next round — labeled Round 2, Round 3, and so on — a month after the last one.

Interval programs have one Shared recipe instead of visit rows. Set Interval days, Season start, and Season end, then the Visit label, an optional Description, the Application basis, Target pests, and Visit notes. Every visit Shortcut generates uses the shared recipe.

Switching an existing program between Seasonal and Interval

Switching the schedule type keeps your chemistry.

• Interval to Seasonal: if the program has no seasonal visits yet, the shared recipe becomes Visit 1, in your season-start month, week 2.

• Seasonal to Interval: if the shared recipe is empty, it's filled from Visit 1, and the season runs from your first visit's month to your last. An interval program keeps only the shared recipe, so the other visits are dropped when you save.

Adding chemicals to a visit

Click the search box under a visit (or under Shared recipe) — Search chemicals, EPA reg, or starter fertilizer... Results come in groups:

• Your catalog — chemicals you've already added

• Suggestions — common pesticides

• Fertilizers — built-in starter fertilizers

• EPA results — after you choose Search EPA PPLS for "…" (the EPA's pesticide label database)

Pick a suggestion, fertilizer, or EPA result and Shortcut adds it to your catalog and the visit in one go. For anything else, choose Create new chemical manually. When you save the new chemical it drops into the line you started, and everything else you'd typed in the program is still there.

Then enter the planned amount and unit on each line. Click ✕ to remove one.

A chemical can only be in a visit once. If you pick one that's already there, the menu says This item is already in this recipe.

Shortcut won't add the same chemical to a visit twice.

Save draft or Save & publish

When you open an existing program, the top bar has Cancel, Save draft, and Save & publish.

Button	What happens
Save & publish	Saves your changes and switches the program on. It shows as Proposal ready and appears on estimates and in Create jobs.
Save draft	Saves your changes and switches the program off. It shows as Draft and stops appearing on estimates and in Create jobs.

Both buttons check the program first. Each seasonal visit needs a month and a week, an interval program needs its days and season, and every visit (or the shared recipe) needs at least one chemical with an amount. If something's missing, a Program needs attention box names it — for example "Visit 3 needs a target month." or "Visit 2 contains the same item more than once." A draft is for pausing a finished program, not for parking a half-built one.

If a save fails, your changes are still there so you can try again.

Save draft switches a program off. Save & publish switches it back on.

When you sell or schedule a job from a chemical program, Shortcut keeps the version that was sold with that job. Later edits to the live program — including saving it as a draft — don't rewrite past work.

One-off chemical applications

Programs are for a series of visits. If you just want to do a single treatment — one visit, one application — create it as a chemical service in your catalog instead:

1. Open Settings → Operations → Services.

2. Click Create service.

3. At the top of the window, switch the service type from Standard service to Chemical service ("One-time treatment").

4. Fill in the usual details (name, description, rate, price structure), then build the Chemical recipe: choose a recipe basis (Per 1,000 sq ft, Fixed amount, or Spot treatment), add the products and amounts, and optionally note target pests and technician notes.

5. Save.

Pick Chemical service and the recipe section appears.

The service then works like any other: quote it on an estimate, add it to a job, or add it to a single visit. The technician records the application like any chemical job, so your compliance history stays complete.

If you add a chemical service to a single visit, the crew sees it on that visit with its own chemical record, and they can't finish the visit until that record is completed.

The Chemical service option is available once chemical setup is complete. A service's type can't be changed after it's created — to convert a standard service, create a new chemical service and deactivate the old one.

Selling and scheduling a program

• Quote it: programs marked Proposal ready can be added to an estimate like services — the customer sees the program and pricing. Drafts and programs that need review aren't listed.

• Create it directly: on a customer's profile, open the ⋯ menu and choose New job. Proposal-ready programs appear in Create jobs alongside services and templates.

• Pick the starting round: when you schedule a seasonal program — for example from the customer's Jobs tab, using the job's ⋯ menu → Schedule… — Shortcut suggests the right starting round for the time of year (you can override it). Later rounds follow the program's planned months or intervals, and you can bulk-adjust rounds from the Jobs page. See Scheduling chemical programs for suggested rounds, manual catch-up, and how several programs share one start date.

Chemicals catalog

The Chemicals tab is your company's product catalog. Each row shows the product name, type, EPA registration number (or NPK for fertilizers), and which programs use it (Used in).

Add products from the search box at the top — Search chemicals, starter fertilizers, or common pesticides:

• Common pesticide suggestions and Starter fertilizers are built into Shortcut. Pick one and it opens as a row to check. Click Done to add it, or Dismiss.

• EPA results — type at least two characters, choose Search EPA PPLS for "…", then Import pesticide. The EPA's database is slow, so give it about 20 seconds.

• Create new chemical manually (in the search menu) or the Add chemical button opens Manually enter your chemical.

Products can store:

• Name

• Type: Pesticide, Fertilizer, or Other

• Default unit

• Status: Active or Inactive

• EPA registration number (pesticides)

• Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P), Potassium (K), Default application rate, and Rate basis (fertilizers)

• Post-care instructions (optional aftercare or watering notes)

Filter the list with All, Pesticides, Fertilizers, or Other, and click the pencil on a row to edit it.

Good to know

• Products can't be deleted. Set one to Inactive when you stop using it.

• Two pesticides can't share an EPA registration number. If you try, Shortcut says A product with that EPA registration number already exists.

• Only pesticides carry an EPA registration number, so changing a product's Type from Pesticide to Fertilizer or Other removes it. Records you've already completed keep the details they were completed with.

• Importing a pesticide you already have from EPA search refreshes its name and EPA number. Your unit, status, and post-care instructions stay as you set them.

Use the catalog to manage products used in programs and records.

Application records

Application records are where the actual field work gets documented. Employees fill them in from their visits in Today. Company admins review them from the Application records tab in Chemicals.

Recording an application in the field

1. Open the visit in Today. Chemical visits have a Chemicals section showing the Record status — Not started, Draft in progress, or Completed.

2. Tap Start chemical record. It reads Continue chemical record once a draft exists.

3. Under Products applied, each product from the program shows its planned amount (worked out from the property's current size — see Planned amounts use the property's current size). Enter the Actual amount for every line, or tap Apply planned amounts to fill them in. Zero is fine; negative amounts aren't.

4. Add Target pests. If a line didn't go to plan, pick a Variance reason (Weather, Customer request, Product substitution, Skipped, Ran out, or Other) and add a Variance note.

5. Fill in Treated square footage and any Notes.

6. Check Weather. Shortcut fetches the conditions for the visit automatically. Change any value to record what you actually saw, or tap Reset to fetched weather to go back. If nothing could be fetched, enter the conditions yourself.

7. Tap Save draft to come back later, or Complete application (Complete on a phone) when you're done.

A chemical visit can't be finished until its record is completed. Until then the Finish button in Today is locked. A chemical service added to the visit has its own record, and that one must be completed too. Completing from Dispatch is the exception: the visit completes, and Shortcut completes the record with the planned amounts applied (see When a visit won't complete).

Employees can only open records for visits assigned to their team, and can only change them on the day the visit is scheduled.

Planned amounts use the property's current size

For a Per 1,000 sq ft visit, each product's planned amount depends on the area being treated. Shortcut works that area out from the property as it is now, not as it was when the estimate was sold. So if you re-measure a lawn after the sale, the next chemical record plans from the new size.

Which area it uses depends on what the program was priced on in the estimate:

Priced on	Area used for planned amounts
Primary lawn size	The property's current lawn size. Treated square footage starts with the same number.
A named measured area (for example Front lawn)	That area's current size. If the area has been deleted or replaced (for example by running Auto-measure again), the size it had when it was sold.
Custom treatment area	The size you typed. It doesn't change.

Good to know:

• The customer's price doesn't change. It stays at what they were sold.

• A new lawn size counts once someone accepts it. After Auto-measure, nothing changes until someone clicks Use this measurement (or you edit the property's size by hand).

• A draft record started before the re-measure keeps its old planned amounts until someone saves or completes it.

• A re-measure never changes a completed record. Even an amendment keeps the area and planned amounts the record was completed with.

What a completed record keeps

• technician name and license number

• customer and property

• the visit date (if the visit was moved before the record was completed, the new date)

• each product applied, with its name and EPA registration number

• planned and actual amounts, target pests, and any variance reason and note

• treated square footage

• weather values and where they came from

• notes and completion time

Product details are locked in when the record is completed. If you later rename a product, correct its EPA number, or change its type in the catalog, completed records still show what was actually applied, and so do the customer's activity timeline, the compliance CSV, and the Chemical Applications document in Reports. Records completed before September 16, 2026 don't have this saved copy, so they show the product's current catalog details.

Application records preserve what was applied in the field.

Reviewing and correcting records

The Application records tab lists your 50 most recently updated records with the customer, program, address, visit date, and status (Draft or Completed). Search by customer, program, or address, or filter with All statuses, Draft, or Completed. Click Open to see the full record. Records for a chemical service added to a single visit don't appear on this tab or in its counts, but they are in the export. For your full history, use Export CSV.

A completed record is locked. A company admin can correct it: open the record, go to Amend completed record, enter an Amendment reason, and click Save amendment. Every version stays in Revision history, and an amendment keeps the product details saved at completion.

When a record won't save

Message	What to do
Enter actual product amounts for every line before completion.	Fill in every Actual amount, or tap Apply planned amounts.
Actual amounts must be finite and nonnegative.	An amount is negative or isn't a number. Fix it and try again.
You can only access chemical records for jobs assigned to your team.	The visit belongs to another crew.
Employees can only modify chemical records for jobs scheduled today.	Crews can only change a record on the visit's day. Ask an admin to finish it.
Add an amendment reason before saving changes.	Admins: say what changed before saving an amendment.

When a visit won't complete

While chemical tracking is on, a crew can't finish a chemical visit in Today until its chemical record, and the record for any chemical service added to it, is completed.

Message	Where you see it	What to do
Finish is locked until the chemical application record is completed.	Today	Complete the record, then tap Finish.
Complete the chemical application record for "[service name]" before finishing this visit.	Today	The chemical service added to this visit has its own record. Complete it, then tap Finish.

Completing from Dispatch is different. Dispatch doesn't wait for the crew's record. Click Complete on a row or on the toolbar and the visit completes straight away. If its chemical record hasn't been completed yet — or the crew never started one — Shortcut creates and completes it for you with the planned amounts applied, and the same goes for the record of any chemical service added to that visit. The record is filed under the crew's applicator (the first crew member with a license number on file), not under the admin who clicked. Dispatch confirms it: 2 chemical records completed with planned amounts; amend if actuals differed.

That keeps the compliance record whole, but it records what was planned, not what the crew actually put down. If they used more or less, open the record from Application records and add an amendment with the actual amounts and a reason.

Dispatch can't fill in a record when there's nothing to take the amounts from — for example a chemical visit with no program, or a Per 1,000 sq ft plan on a property with no treated area. That visit stays open, and the other visits you selected still complete.

Message	Where you see it	What to do
1 visit could not default the chemical record: open the record and complete it first	Dispatch	Open the visit's chemical record, enter the amounts, and complete it. Then complete the visit.

Who can do what

Capability	Company admin	Employee
Open the Chemicals workspace	Yes	No
Manage products and programs	Yes	No
Open a visit's chemical record	Yes	Yes, for their team's visits
Create or save a draft application	Yes	Yes
Complete an application record	Yes	Yes
Change a record on a visit that isn't scheduled today	Yes	No
Amend a completed record	Yes	No
Export compliance CSV history	Yes	No

Compliance export

Company admins can download every completed application as a CSV. Click Compliance CSV at the top of Chemicals, or Export CSV on the Application records tab. Both download the same file, named like chemical-compliance-export-2026-09-24.csv.

For a filing that covers a date range and flags missing details before you print, use the Chemical Applications document in Reports instead.

The file has one row per product applied, across all your completed records (drafts are left out), with:

• application ID and revision number

• scheduled date and completion time

• technician name and license number

• customer name and property address

• service (program) name

• product name and EPA registration number

• planned and actual amounts and units

• variance reason and note, and target pests

• treated square footage

• weather source, temperature, wind speed and direction, humidity, and precipitation

• notes

The product name, EPA number, and license number are the ones saved when each record was completed. Older records without a saved license use the technician's current number. Text that starts with =, +, -, or @ (a note that begins with a dash, say) gets a leading apostrophe so your spreadsheet treats it as text, not a formula.

The export only works while chemical tracking is on. With it off, Compliance CSV and Export CSV show an error saying chemical tracking is turned off, instead of downloading a file. Your records aren't deleted: turn tracking back on in Chemicals settings to export them.

Compliance CSV and Export CSV download the same file.

Related pages

• Scheduling chemical programs (starting rounds & linked programs)

• Reports (Chemical Applications document)

• Users and Teams

• Worker app overview

• Customer portal

Still stuck? Email [e-mail] with the customer name, the visit date, and a screenshot of the record or settings you are working with.