procorp Microsoft Project smartsheet's co-construct builder trend what's the best one probably pro core but can you afford it they want a certain percentage of your gross sales so for me you know I'm not gonna go give them like 50 grand every single year or whatever it comes down to be for this just for the software usage and it's every single year versus a small monthly fee with builder trend so as I would be transitioning in the future hopefully in the near future from a seven-figure company to an eight-figure company there's a chance I would probably switch to pro core or something that's a little bit more well-versed in the way large commercial contracting project management software realm but for now seven-figure company we do commercial construction mind you not residential I've been able to use a platform that has technically built for residential home builders for my commercial general contracting company this video is going to be an overview of how I figured out to use builder trend for my company and we do commercial general contracting and seven-eighths and then about maybe an eighth of like really large residential it used to be like 5050 but now we're moving away from residential I'll make a video on this soon a lot more headache and a lot less margin in residential commercial vice versa so how do I do it let's just jump right in this is builder trend I'm gonna blur out certain information so you don't cut me down or I just put a large bid in for a 40,000 square foot auto dealership remodel and the owners rep called me he's the day of the bid I've set my bid eleven minutes before and he calls me he goes you stand apart by far and they're going for the best value to the best bidder not the lowest bidder they had a guy that was like a hundred grand less than me but long story short he's like I'm gonna be pushing to my corporate for you for Jane Lane because no one else is doing it and I don't understand why are you guys not doing this now builder trend can deliver daily logs daily reports most project managers send emails if you want to do to do that but it's all about how you use it right so co-construct does it pro core of course does it everything does just about the same thing but how I've developed a been using billet rent for four or five years since I first started my company we're in a sixth year of business but first year or two whatever so it's been a process to figure out how I use builder trend to best suit the client and best communicate it's all about communication the biggest thing to me it's really the daily logs so under project management you come here to daily logs and I have all job selected but let's just check out the animal clinic Ryan's running this job Ryan's my superintendent on this one and we have all the photos you can see the epoxy flooring this went down heck yeah so this is them prepping and doing all the floating and stuff like that but you can see there's there's a log a lot of days of the week this is what's happening the owner can log in this is a corporate client they're in Alabama and they're like can log in anywhere that they are in the world and be like you know on their on their app or on their computer builder trend dot net login dot net when you're logging in it's calm when you go on a by builder trend but anyway my next favorite part and probably my most favorite part is that gonna have like I think Oliver gave me my favorite part honestly is the schedule so the schedule allows me to run through at the team and this is just for the animal clinic here but we can go through and list out every single schedule and smartsheet's does this like look like again they all do it but what's fun about this is you can color code so we have like electrical is always yellow and like blue plumbing is always blue and then HVAC is always green and drywall is always gray and all these things so we can just look at the schedule be like boom red that's an inspection we know that or something we have to order a order mobile office right here or the insulation inspection or whatever the latrine allows us to link our subcontractors to the schedule items and it's really cool because when things get moved they get notify then pops up with the phone logical broth is actually gonna happen three days earlier or two days later because whatever happened before then got done sooner or it's taken a little bit longer it happens okay you good bro you better run on our battery well let me know okay the point of putting together a schedule putting the other team is managing expectations another sneak tip being able to adapt it's the biggest thing I'm reading a book by John Maxwell called leader shift it's like you shift with what's happening in life it makes you a much better leader because you can have the vision and shift with the atmosphere and when things happen to you or when you create the environment where things happen to you because you've prayed that environment you're removing with that flow and people are following you and if you're just static everything's gonna stop anyway back to building trip so the schedule is great I really really love it and I'll make another video maybe I'll do a series like how I use builder trend while I'm still using it but I've been with it for five years but if I expand to eight figures which probably in the next two or three years is my guess maybe I'll stop using it but for now I love it it's awesome builder trend has gotten me to seven figures that I can get you as well now this is a Lewis is a long project this is gonna take us many months but check out this say this Bank project this is like Bing Bing Bing me Bing and we just linked everything because we won't we wanted to be able to move that first one at everything with a link or move with it that's the schedule do you check these little boxes when things are complete we just landed this contract so we didn't started this job yet so nothing's checked you can assign people to dues so you can be like yo I need you to do this certain thing by this certain date boom get it done now we personally use slack for all those things we can remind people to do stuff it's great so it's an option within Builder trend though change orders this is all under this project management tab okay so I'm blurring some of the numbers here and stuff but change orders has been epic because it's so simple to process a change order pops up on the owner screen they approve or decline you can give them options it's so streamlined there's no confusion you put the timeline this is going to extend the project timeline this many days you put the scope of work you use the cost code which I'll probably make a whole video on cost codes and earlier time but let's hop over to the financial portion this is where it gets good bills and POS let's start here I can go through and see this list I can go through and see exactly which subcontractors have approved see on the on the left column here these are all the ones that have green checks and means they've signed their signature check the box being like yo I understand my signatures electronically binding anything they've checked the box saying I understand my electronic signature is legally binding and then I can go and see the ones that are yellow circles means we've released it it's pending so we're waiting on you and then you see these lien waivers here kind of getting cut off but I can go in here they mark their work as complete and ready for inspection the superintendent inspects it they let me know and the paperwork paper works digitally you know don't get me wrong comes through and the project manager the office assistant or me can go in and hey them online through builder train right on this purchase order so it the sub there's two different steps the subs actually have to do to login the builder trim they just sign up to build a tree and get their username and password they're going to link their bank 60 to 75 percent of our subs get call it seventy two point three of our subs actually to link their bank account to builder training everyone else is like man just send me a check okay I'll send you a check but the ones that do this it makes it so easy no gas money driving to the bank no truck tag now I'll meet you at the whatever or come to our office and pick it up which oh that's fine and I can mail it to them too but it's just and I like developing relationships and person with people but I can do that on the site and anywhere else you know you're talking them all the time anyway but I go and you can send them the money say they have a twentieth twenty thousand dollar purchase order I can go and sell you want $7,500 okay seventy-five hundred I could pretty much go here I can click put the payment section click make a payment that can go and i can select once it loads I can select the cost codes how much percentage I want to pay thus far you can see I've give him about 8,500 bucks so far and it's gonna send a quick book so it goes straight to my accounting software automatically I just match it up later once it comes through my bank and I just click pay online so once I click that and I you know fill everything out here I of course I can click the lien waiver button actually do this first but you apply the lien waiver and then once you pay them online they get email got a plane is flying over their house nothing like a good glass of water I'm a huge water drinker by the way I'm in the middle of my sentence when they sign that lien waiver money straight to their account but not until they sign a lien waiver got it yeah that's a frill it's really great that's what we do as general contractors for a living we pay subcontractors and that's everyone's looking to you for their money you know your employees subcontractors your vendors all kinds of people so a platform like this is extremely helpful you're not sitting there frantically writing checks and your account number and your routing number are on the check so it's kind of like is this really secure like who knows but like with this boom it's just there they have to sign a lien waiver before they get their money so to me it's super super super convenient and I would say this is actually my favorite part this is my favorite part of Builder trend for sure now I'm gonna blur literally all these numbers because none of your business okay so I break my cost codes down into cost groups within builder trend which I completely kind of retrofitted builder trend cost codes for my commercial contracting business so general conditions site work concrete masonry like all these things that are more of a commercial part division situation that's what I did and so I can track I can roll up the the numbers I can see the totals of say I've estimated this much my bills and POS whatever bills and POS I create goes right to that column across from what I estimate so at the on the right backwards for you but for me it's on the right I'd be like estimates versus total costs and that's the number so I can be like oh I'm above 50 grand I'm not that much I'm above 5 grand on this line item or I'm a below 5 grand on this line I'm it tells you where you're at on your cost on the project then you can I'm not gonna show you of course because that's another business but it's scroll all the way down on the bottom you can see your gross profit I don't track my overhead this is a whole other video but I don't track my overhead within Builder trends because it's more about the job costs you know and I'll make a whole video about this I'm gonna give you a little I'm not gonna give you anything more about gross profit cost of goods sold overhead net profit and how all that fits together video coming soon so builder trend budget area is fantastic to see your job costs which because it all links to QuickBooks or 0 or whatever you use you can send estimates through here I used to do that I stopped because I have like a beautiful template within like word that I PDF and send to the client my photo and like team's photo and schedule of values broke it down I'll show you guys some time you can kind of see maybe I'll even give you kind of like a little template you could download you know so that's how I do proposals another video coming up on the Hat of course a lot of videos coming up probably right here in this spot because this is epic I love it I feel at home this is great I'm looking for a spot in this house owner invoices they can go here see you like what they owe me any change orders come in to the owner invoice area and you could just see everything all in one spot so change order goes in there the pay application goes in there which I'll make another video if you want about how I send you know pay applications to clients you know I'm not gonna show you numbers and stuff again business but I'm gonna show you kind of like the idea behind it so messaging there's files there's Doc's like look I do put the documents in there man it's awesome I got the submittals okay they got drawings and plans I got folders full of stuff contract documents I put the proposal in there our side I put our signed contract in there I put any submittals in the client or the architect and go in and even write a comment you can comment on anything in better trance like my favorite part about builder trend deed is like comment on anything you want a file a daily log a schedule item you could comment on electrical rough if you wanted to plumbing you'd be like I don't like that toilet and you could then the whole team would be like ding he doesn't like the toilet what do we do and then we start slacking each other that is in a nutshell builder training not gonna dry this video out although I could to get more watch time which gives me more views which now gives me more money because I'm putting ads on these videos I made 40 bucks so far in the last two weeks so help me make more money on YouTube by giving 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