Add a new Yardbook customer and schedule recurring lawn jobs

1. In Yardbook, search the Customers list by name or phone first, so a household that already called is not added a second time.
2. Create the customer record; when the billing and service address are the same, Yardbook creates the property for you, and a different service address is added with the + Property button on the customer.
3. Type gate codes and pet warnings into the Job Instruction(s) field near the bottom of the Yardbook customer form (it may need the Show More button at the top right), or on the Edit Property page for one property only.
4. Open Jobs, click +Job, fill in the required details, and in the Schedule section check Make This Recurring and set the frequency in days, weeks, months or years.
5. Scroll to the Assignment section of the Yardbook job form, pick the employee or crew, and save. Every new customer repeats these screens, and a skipped instruction only shows up when the crew is standing at a locked gate.

New customer: Maria Lopez, 18 Elm Street, 555-0142, side gate code 1234, dog in the yard. Weekly mowing and edging on Tuesdays from next week. Put her with the crew that already works Elm Street.

1. 01

   Look for the person before adding anyone

   The agent searches list_customers with type all, once by phone and once by street, so a prospect who filled in your quote form is found too. If a match exists it schedules on that record and tells you to clear the Prospect? flag in Yardbook, because no Cotlet tool edits an existing customer.

2. 02

   Keep the crew notes with the customer

   For a new person the agent creates the record with the service address exactly as given and puts the gate code, pets and parking notes in the notes field. A missing house number or town is a question back to you, not a guess.

3. 03

   Choose the day and crew from the real route

   Before booking, the agent reads list_jobs for the requested weekday over the next four weeks. It looks for the crew that already has jobs on the same street or nearby and checks how many visits that crew carries that day, then proposes that crew or tells you the day is already heavy.

4. 04

   Use your own service names

   The agent maps "cut and trim" to service names it has seen on your existing jobs, such as Mowing and Edging. If no job uses a fitting name yet, it asks which catalog item to use, since a wrong name means a wrong price on the invoice later.

5. 05

   Create the series, or say why it cannot

   Weekly and every-other-week visits become one schedule_job call. Twice a month, every ten days or a seasonal stop date are not repeat options of the tool, so the agent books the first visit and tells you to set that schedule in Yardbook instead of faking it with single jobs.

Searched customers: no match for 555-0142 or Elm Street
Created customer Maria Lopez, 18 Elm Street (notes: side gate code 1234, dog in yard)
Crew 1 already mows 12 and 24 Elm Street on Tuesdays, 9 jobs that day
Scheduled weekly Mowing + Edging, first visit Tue 20 Oct, Crew 1
Visits show on the Yardbook calendar through mid-December, then roll forward

• Yardbook puts future visits of a recurring job on the calendar only two months in advance, so a series looks shorter on the calendar than it really is.
• Each Yardbook customer can have several properties, each with its own service address, so a job booked on the wrong property sends the crew to the wrong lawn.
• Job Instructions saved on a Yardbook customer or property print on job sheets and route sheets, and the Employee Jobs Page shows them as a popup when the crew sets the job to Done.
• A Yardbook job can be assigned only to employees or crews that already exist, created in the My Company section of the Sitemap; existing jobs get an Assign button on the Jobs page.

create_customer and schedule_job change only your own Yardbook data and reach no one else, so they run without asking first.

Sources: Yardbook: Set up a recurring job · Yardbook: Add customer specific job instructions · Yardbook: Assign an employee or crew to a job · Yardbook: Create customers with multiple properties

curl https://cotlet.dev/api/v1/yardbook/schedule_job \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $COTLET_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"customer_id":"284117","date":"2026-10-20","services":["Mowing","Edging"],"repeat":"weekly","assignee_id":"5521","notes":"Side gate code 1234. Dog in yard, close the gate."}'

{
  "job_id": "9930412",
  "customer_id": "284117",
  "date": "2026-10-13",
  "repeat": "weekly",
  "status": "scheduled",
  "services": [
    "Mowing",
    "Edging"
  ],
  "assignee": "Crew 1"
}

MCP: add https://cotlet.dev/mcp/v1 with the same key; the tool is yardbook_schedule_job. Example data.

• Turn site-visit notes into a Yardbook estimate and send it
• Record check and cash payments against Yardbook invoices
• Yardbook API and MCP server: every tool
• All use cases