Flower delivery software for florists: routes, delivery windows and photo proof

Why flower delivery is different

A parcel can wait for tomorrow. Flowers can't. A bouquet for a birthday, an anniversary or Valentine's Day has to arrive on the day, fresh, and often inside a time slot the customer picked at checkout. Four things make flower deliveries harder:

Freshness

Flowers don't like a warm van or a frosty doorstep. Every wasted loop is time the bouquet spends in the back, so the order of stops matters.

The time slot

Customers book a morning or an afternoon slot, and offices often want flowers before lunch. Late means a complaint; too early can mean nobody's there yet.

A recipient who isn't expecting it

The person who pays isn't the person who receives. The recipient may be at work or out, so the driver needs a plan B: a neighbour, a reception desk or a safe place.

The surprise

Many orders say “don't call ahead”. The driver can't phone to check that someone's home without spoiling the gift, so the instructions on the stop matter.

Then there are the peak days: Valentine's Day on 14 February, Mothering Sunday in the UK (usually in March), Mother's Day in the US (the second Sunday in May) and the run-up to Christmas. A shop that sends out one van on a normal day may need three, and every order has a slot.

Plan a peak day like Valentine's Day in minutes

1. Bring in the orders as a file

Export the day's orders from your online shop or till system (POS) to CSV or Excel, and click Upload file in the route builder. Columns such as Recipient, Phone, Notes and Delivery window are picked up automatically, so each address arrives with its slot and the driver's instructions. You can also paste a list from a spreadsheet or type an address. A route can have up to 200 stops; see Create a route and add stops.

2. Give each van its area

More than one driver? On the packages for 10 and 15 team members, Route Planner Teams splits the day’s orders between your drivers automatically: load all the orders, click Split into routes and choose how many routes you need — each gets a balanced share from the shop, around the delivery slots, in the best order. On the 3 driver package you decide who takes which part of town — by postcode or ZIP code, or by your usual rounds — and make one route per driver from that driver’s orders.

3. Optimize around the time slots

Set the start time and the minutes per stop — parking, carrying a bouquet to the door and taking a photo take longer than dropping a parcel — then click Optimize Route. The optimizer plans the order around each stop's delivery window. Every stop gets an arrival time, stops that would miss their window are marked late in red, and if the driver would arrive before a slot opens, the wait is shown. See Optimize with delivery windows.

4. Send it — and keep editing

Choose the driver, and the route appears in their app with a notification. Routes can be planned from yesterday up to 7 days ahead, so you can build the Valentine's routes the evening before. When orders keep coming in on the day, add, remove or reorder the stops a driver hasn't reached yet, even after they've left: the changes go to their phone straight away. See Assign a driver and follow the day.

Regular orders, such as weekly flowers for a hotel lobby or an office, don't need retyping: Duplicate route copies a route's stops to another day.

Photo at the door and notes for the driver

Each stop carries the recipient's name and phone number and Notes for the driver, from your file or typed into the stop's details. That's where the order's instructions go: “Surprise — don't call ahead”, “Leave with neighbour”, “Reception, 4th floor”, a gate code. The driver sees them on the stop in the app and can call the recipient from there when the order allows it.

For proof, choose what drivers capture on the Team page. For flowers, a photo is usually enough: the bouquet at the door, with the neighbour or at reception. Make a photo required for Delivered, and a photo and a note for Not delivered, and the driver can't mark the stop until they're done. Each photo is saved with the time and the place where the phone was.

When a sender asks whether the flowers arrived, the photo, the time and the place are in the route's Proofs. Need a signature for one high-value order? Set Custom proof on that stop only. See Proof of delivery and parcel control and Proof of delivery app for drivers.

Extra drivers for the peak

Peak days need extra hands, often for a few days only. Adding a seasonal driver takes minutes:

• On the Team page, click Invite members. You get a team code, a QR code and a link to send by text message or WhatsApp. One invite works for all your drivers for 7 days.
• The driver installs Route Planner for Couriers on their own iPhone or Android phone — free for drivers, in 28 languages — and joins with the code.
• Turn on View only for drivers who don't know your routes yet.

A View only driver follows the route exactly as you planned it. They can't add, remove or reorder stops, optimize again or create routes, but they still navigate to each stop in Google Maps, Waze or Apple Maps, mark stops and take the photo. On a day of tight time slots, that's what you want from someone new. See Dispatchers and view-only drivers.

When the rush is over, click Remove next to the driver: their team routes come back to you, together with their proofs of delivery. A team can have up to 15 members, including the owner, and any member can be made a dispatcher to help you plan on busy days.

When nobody's home: failed deliveries

Even with a plan B, some bouquets can't be left: no answer, no neighbour, no safe place. The driver marks the stop Not delivered with a photo and the reason, and it appears in the route's Activity with the time and how far from the address it was marked.

You see it on the website as soon as the driver marks it; with no signal, the stop syncs when the connection is back. Call the sender or the recipient, agree a new time and add the stop to a later route that day, or to tomorrow's.

One thing Route Planner Teams doesn't do is send texts, emails or tracking links to recipients. On the website you see each route's progress and updated arrival times, so you can tell a customer when to expect their flowers.

What it costs

Everything in this article — delivery windows, route optimization, photo proof and view-only drivers — is included in every Teams plan, from $99 a month (£99 in the UK).

Frequently asked questions