Choosing site software,
and what to compare.
Seven articles written for the person who has to make the decision rather than the person selling into it, including what the money goes on and where the systems you already run reach their limit.
Choosing software, in one place.
Most construction firms do not replace a system because it broke. They replace it because the job outgrew a spreadsheet, or because the site record everybody relies on turned out to be a WhatsApp thread that nobody can search and no adjudicator will accept.
These seven articles cover the decision itself: what a quoted price does and does not include, which questions separate products that look identical on a feature grid, and why a rollout that went well for a fortnight stops being used in week three. We sell one of these products, so every claim made about ours links to the page where you can check it.
Where the office hours actually goNot in the work. In assembling positions from four places, retyping what site already recorded, and chasing paperwork that exists but cannot be found. How to measure your own before deciding anything.Read it →
Why WhatsApp fails as a site recordIt is the system most sites actually run on, and it works right up until somebody asks a question about March. Six specific failures, and the one that arrives when a person leaves.Read it →Where spreadsheet job costing breaksNot when it gets complicated. When two people open it, when committed cost is not in it, and when the true position is a week old by the time anybody has assembled it.Read it →
Choosing construction management software, and what to actually compareEvery product demos well. A buyer's checklist written to be useful even if you buy from somebody else, including the five questions vendors answer badly.Read it →
Xero for contractors, and where the accounts package stopsIt handles CIS properly and it is a good ledger. What it is not built to hold is the job: the measured schedule, the valuation, the retention and committed cost.Read it →
Document control, and the revision everybody was working toBuilding to a superseded drawing is expensive, common, and almost never anybody being careless. What has to be true for the right revision to reach the person holding the tool.Read it →What construction software actually costsThe monthly figure is the part everyone compares and the smallest part of the bill. Setup, migration, the annual uplift, and the licences you ration because they are charged per person.Read it →Other subjects