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Choosing software

Choosing site software,
and what to compare.

Twelve articles written for the person who has to make the decision rather than the person selling into it, including what the money goes on, what the support arrangement is really worth, and where the systems you already run reach their limit.

12 articles

Choosing software, in one place.

Most trade and contracting 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 12 articles cover the decision itself: what a quoted price does and does not include, why so few vendors publish a figure at all, 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. Three look at the system itself: whether to buy a package or adapt a working platform, whose name the staff app carries, and how changes are made after go-live. We sell one of these products, so every claim made about ours links to the page where you can check it.

Technical drawings and a toolbox on a workbenchChoosing software··6 min readBespoke or off-the-shelf software for trades: the third optionCommission a system and you pay again for foundations every contractor shares. Buy a package and the firm adapts to it. A third route starts from a working platform, and four questions test any vendor who claims it.Read it →Site operative in a hard hat and safety glassesChoosing software··5 min readYour firm's name on the staff app, not the vendor'sAn operative asked to install an app is being asked to trust it with a phone, a camera and a location. The name on the icon decides how that request lands.Read it →A technical drawing being marked up at a deskChoosing software··5 min readChanges after go-live, and how to ask for themA firm learns what it needs from its software after go-live, long after the contract decided what a change would cost. Configuration against development, the day-rate trap, and how to test and accept a change.Read it →Two people talking across a table with a laptop between themChoosing software··6 min readSupport is the part you cannot see in a demoIt is scored last on most selection matrices, it is the only criterion you cannot test before signing, and it is what decides whether anybody is still using the system in week three.Read it →A hand writing on documents at a deskChoosing software··6 min readWhy there is no price list, and how to judge a quote without oneA rate card looks like transparency, and for plenty of products it is. For software that has to fit a five-person firm and a hundred-person one, a single published figure is a decision about which of the two it was written for.Read it →Two people working through a drawing at a desk with laptopsChoosing software··5 min readWhere 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 →A team working together at a shared tableChoosing software··6 min readWhy 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 →Two people working through a drawing at a desk with laptopsChoosing software··5 min readWhere 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 →Two colleagues at a desk after reaching an agreementChoosing software··6 min readChoosing trade and construction 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 →A hand writing on documents at a deskChoosing software··5 min readXero 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 →A technical drawing being marked up at a deskChoosing software··5 min readDocument 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 →A team working together at a shared tableChoosing software··6 min readWhat trade and 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

Site servicesThe three services a site cannot open without, what each one costs to put in, and the compliance estate that sits behind them once it is running.3 articlesGetting paidTen articles on what the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 gives a subcontractor: a right to be paid on a fixed timetable, and remedies for when that timetable is missed.10 articlesCommercialEleven articles on the commercial side of a contracting business: what belongs in a price, what routinely gets left out of one, and where the margin goes between winning a job and closing the final account.11 articlesHealth and safety13 articles on what the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 and RIDDOR require, who holds each duty, and what an inspector asks to see first.13 articlesTax and CISSeven articles on the two tax regimes that touch almost every construction payment made in the UK, and the deadlines that carry an automatic penalty when they slip.7 articlesChoosing softwareTwelve articles written for the person who has to make the decision rather than the person selling into it, including what the money goes on, what the support arrangement is really worth, and where the systems you already run reach their limit.12 articlesWinning workThree articles on the paperwork that decides whether you are allowed to price a job at all, which is a different problem from pricing it well.3 articlesReducing riskSix articles on spotting a main contractor in difficulty early enough to act on it, and on what can still be recovered once it is too late to.6 articlesSubcontractorsFinding them, checking them, and paying them without an argument about what the invoice should have said.3 articlesPlant and assetsPlant and stock cost money in the same quiet ways: kit nobody can find, materials bought twice, a delivery never checked against the order, hire nobody stopped, and an examination date nobody was watching.6 articles
Next step

See it running for yourself.

Feature grids make every product look the same, which is what they are for. Thirty minutes on the working platform answers the question a grid cannot, which is whether your people would still be using it in week three.

Book a 30-minute demo → Ask for a quote