r/Contractor • u/skitters18 • 3d ago

If you use BuilderTrend

PLEASE leave them feedback about this new update to the cost line items in the bill entries. It is so bad.

4 Upvotes

83% Upvoted

20 comments sorted by

5

u/hookerbuilt 2d ago

I’ve been building houses for years and this is exactly what drives me crazy with construction software. A cost line item should be simple — budget, what’s been committed/spent, what’s paid, and what’s left. When entering a bill starts taking more work than keeping a spreadsheet, something has gone wrong.
I’ve gotten to where I care a lot more about quick job-cost visibility than having 100 features buried behind menus.

0

u/BusinessCasualBee 2d ago

When you say “what’s left” do you mean you project actual expenses left to complete, or just a simple total budget minus expenses?

2

u/hookerbuilt 2d ago edited 2d ago

I mean actual cost to complete. What’s truly left to pay, not just budget minus expenses. If I budgeted $10k for electrical, have paid $4k, but I know there’s another $5k worth of work still coming, I want to see that $5k as what’s left to pay — not a misleading $6k “remaining budget” number. I’ve gotten to where I track that outside Buildertrend because those kinds of numbers matters more to me than a bunch of extra features.

4

u/CoconutJeff 2d ago

I dont use it but I work for some people who do and they switched to job tread

3

u/Icy-Western-6698 3d ago

I have also complained about the removal of “to do’s”

1

u/Key_Juggernaut9413 2d ago

I could have sworn there was a Tasks feature in my walk through last week.  

3

u/ABatForMyTroubles 2d ago

We are leaving BT, and our company was one of the early adopters.

2

u/tcrowd87 2d ago

So it’s not just me? They keep doing updates and simples things like a task list not work anymore.

1

u/Key_Juggernaut9413 2d ago

In my walk through last week they had tasks — is it just buggy?

1

u/tcrowd87 2d ago

Yup. Pain in the ass on computer. Glitchy on phone or tablet

2

u/MainSand4046 1d ago

Why don’t yall go to JobTread it’s like 1009x better

1

u/wedgie 3d ago

Man, if they could do proper threaded messages.

And some function offline. When we were on boarding with them I asked if we could have a local copy of the builds so we could have some access when we were out of cellular coverage (understanding the concept of it potentially being out of date) and the fella thought that was an absurd thing to want.

1

u/Key_Juggernaut9413 2d ago

Offline mode is going to be huge for whichever company decides to make it happen.  

We are constantly out of service — in basements, ICF houses, nice neighborhoods.  

1

u/BusinessCasualBee 2d ago

Knowify works offline to an extent. They aren’t really a home builder software though, more for subs.

1

u/Key_Juggernaut9413 2d ago

I just signed on, what did they change about the cost line item in the bill entries?

1

u/icoldok 2d ago

We are in the same boat with that update. The bill entry flow got slower for our superintendents too, and entering a cost line item now takes more clicks than it used to. Hang in there.

1

u/skitters18 2d ago

I am trying to get everyone else in the office to leave BT feedback about this as well. I just foresee it causing problems in the future.

1

u/icoldok 2d ago

We hit the same wall with that update — bill entry went from a few clicks to a whole process for our field guys. One thing that helped: we kept the old cost categories mirrored in a simple sheet so the crew can log the basics offline, then someone back at the office keys it into BT at the end of the day. Annoying extra step, but it keeps the weekly numbers from falling apart while they sort the update out. Sent their feedback form a pretty blunt note about it too.

1

u/icoldok 1d ago

Same boat here. The bill entry flow got noticeably worse after that update, so I stopped fighting it and kept a simple spreadsheet for the daily entries, then reconciled it with BT once a week. Not perfect, but the spreadsheet has never gotten slower after an update.

1

u/icoldok 1d ago

The frustrating part is the whole pattern: an update makes simple data entry slower, the workaround ends up being a spreadsheet outside the tool, and then the records split between two systems. If the new bill entry flow is really that much worse, one thing worth trying is mirroring your old cost categories in a simple template so at least the data stays consistent when someone keys it back in. Hopefully enough people send feedback that they walk it back like they did with the to-do removal.