The problem
Many small builders find out a job lost money when it's finished. If one job a month runs £150 over on materials nobody logged against it, that's £150 a month you only discover at the end.
What the AI does
Job management software lets you record the quote, add supplier bills and timesheets to each job and compare them with what you quoted. You can see the position mid-job and act, for example by raising a variation or changing how the next stage is ordered.
A worked example
A two-person building firm in Norwich uses Tradify Pro. Every supplier bill and timesheet is logged to the job, and they check the costs each Friday before ordering the next lot of materials.
Before
Costs known only at the end of a job; about £150 of materials a month going unrecovered
After
Costs checked every Friday against the quote; the £150 overspend caught mid-job
What it's worth
Around £150 a month, from catching one overspend and recovering it through a variation, at a £150 example.
How to set it up
- Pick Tradify Pro, which lists costing, bill tracking and timesheets.
- Enter your current jobs with the quoted price.
- Log supplier bills and timesheets against each job as they arrive.
- Set aside 15 minutes each Friday to compare costs with the quote.
- Raise a variation with the client when a cost overrun is genuinely theirs.
What goes wrong
- It's per user: two users on Pro is £74 a month (2 × £37). The page doesn't say whether VAT is included, so check at sign-up.
- The numbers are only as good as the logging. Missed receipts mean a false picture.
- Tradify's monthly billing has no contract, so you can stop if the Friday check isn't happening.