Studios
For mid-sized contractors whose ERP doesn’t think in jobs, phases, or change orders. Where the bid process lives in spreadsheets, the field team writes timesheets on paper, and the only person who knows how the system works left two years ago. Built around how construction actually runs, bid through punch list.
Estimators run their own spreadsheets because the ERP’s estimating module is too rigid or doesn’t exist. When you win the job, the numbers get re-keyed and inconsistencies start there.
A change gets approved in the field. It’s captured somewhere. Whether it makes it to billing depends on who remembered to forward the email. Margins leak.
To know whether a job is profitable, someone exports labor, materials, and subcontractor costs into a spreadsheet and reconciles them by hand. The answer comes a week after the question.
The system that runs your business was built fifteen or twenty years ago by someone who has since retired. Nobody on the current team can safely modify it. Every fix takes longer than the last one.
When the ERP can’t model how construction actually runs, the right move is one of three: a configured industry-specific platform, integrations on top of what you have, or a custom rebuild. We’ll tell you which one fits.
In about four out of five consultations we run with construction firms, we recommend against a custom rebuild. Sometimes a configured industry platform like Sage or Procore handles the workflow with the right setup. Sometimes the actual problem is integration: the ERP works, but it doesn’t talk to the field tools, the accounting platform, or the change-order workflow. We start every engagement by checking whether integration solves it before we ever talk about building.
For the construction businesses where custom is the right move, the engagements we run cover the same ground: estimating, project setup, change orders, scheduling, time and expense capture from the field, job costing, billing, and close-out. We build incrementally, ship one section at a time, and run the new system alongside the existing one until the team is confident in the switch.
For the deeper service breakdown, see Custom Enterprise Software or Legacy Software System Modernization if your existing system is the problem.
Their entire estimating, scheduling, and field-operations workflow ran on a single Excel sheet that had grown to thousands of rows and dozens of macros. Bids took longer than they should have. Mistakes were caught after they cost something. We replaced it with a custom application that handles bidding, scheduling, dispatch, and field reporting, built around how their operations team actually works.
Sage and Procore are industry-specific platforms that work for many contractors. They have logical workflows for jobs, change orders, and field data. The trade-off is configuration. If your business’s scope, scheduling, or sub management doesn’t match what those platforms assume, you spend a lot on customization without ever quite fitting. Custom is the right call when configuration alone can’t close the gap, or when the long-term cost of working around the platform exceeds the cost of building.
That’s the situation we work in most often. Old construction systems are usually held together by one developer’s knowledge, not by documentation. We rescue the data first, run the legacy system alongside the rebuild, and migrate functionality piece by piece so the business never goes offline. Read more on the Legacy Software System Modernization page.
Yes. Most construction engagements include integrations with QuickBooks or Sage on the accounting side and field tools like Procore, Buildertrend, or Raken. Sometimes the right answer is integration alone, no rebuild. We’ll tell you on the consultation call.
We ship the highest-impact section in four to six weeks. Full system replacement typically takes nine to eighteen months depending on complexity. The new system runs alongside the existing one until each piece has fully migrated, so the business never has to flip a single big switch.
From day one. Every engagement transfers source code ownership at the start, not at delivery. If you ever decide to bring the work in-house or change vendors, the code goes with you.
A 30-minute call. We listen to how your operation actually runs, where the system fights you, and what your project managers and estimators have built workarounds for. If a configured platform serves you, we’ll tell you. If custom is the right move, we’ll explain why. Either way, you leave with a written summary, free to keep.