Buildertrend Reviews

Buildertrend (BT) is PM software for construction, especially residential. I used this software for project tracking, cost, and communication with the customer. This software has many different features and levels to us it. You have PO's , Change Orders, Invoicing, Blueprints, Selections, etc. Having everything you need in one place makes it easy to have a high level overview of the project and see any detail needed. BT also sync's with Quickbooks making accounting a breeze!

Setting up BT can take quite sometime and training is needed for the software. If you are tech savvy, you can probably get away without training but will be missing alot of the features that BT offers that makes it worth it. Also, when syncing with quickbooks, you can get errors and everything must match 100%. It is best if you build everything in quickbooks and then import it into BT when setting up so that you know everything is correct and the accounts are linked.

Has nice TAKEOFF features. Has customer facing features

Not true estimating software, but was portrayed as such. No labor units. The free trial is not really free, because extensive training and setup is needed to even use the software. Need to have someone to set up the software, and learn it fast to be able to recoup the expense of the software. Continued taking money out of my account, even with no contact for months. It's better to purchase on-site software, and have someone train on site. That way you're not paying a fortune every month, for something you cant use.

Clients and Sub-Contractors love it, and it nails-it with respect to the execution of task scheduling and overall project management, the most essential functions.

It feels more complicated than it needs to be. Perhaps it's a reflection of their broad and deep capabilities, but I sense and suspect that we're missing out on easily-accessible value-creation potential merely because adoption & utilization is slower than it could/should be due to not focusing on the most high-impact essentials.

A great construction management tool. Offers flexibility in formatting of different components within the program. Leads are easily tracked with notifications, summary page is very thorough and useful, job info, templates, scheduling, daily logs, To-Do's, Change Orders, time clock c/w geo-fencing, docs & photos, surveys, estimates, bills & PO's, Budget and owner invoices all flow well and again are customizable to fit individual company needs. Owner view is a great option and allows for owner participation and information flow.

No tax module is addressed within the system. This adds a lot of steps and confusion to make sure taxes are added independently in QuickBooks Online (QB). It also confuses the customer on their Buildertrend site. We send all invoices out of QB for contract invoices and change order invoices. A big negative. A great management tool but weak on the interface with QB.

I really like that there is unlimited storage and that since it is cloud-based, everyone sees the same data as soon as it is entered. There are also ways to customize the software in several areas, especially To-Do's. Permissions are very granular which can be good, although it can be complex as well.

Understanding how all areas of the software interact is complex, you can't customize fields in Events/Schedule, most of all I dislike the search and filter settings. They are very poor and make it hard to deal with large data sets. Their filters are missing exact matches between items in the same category. There are a handful of other little complaints, but they really need to add custom fields to Events and then update their filter settings to allow exact matches only and also use standard search engine criteria in the text fields.

This software is outstanding in many different areas

We initially purchased it initially to manage our clients selections for new homes and it quickly got integrated elsewhere to the point its the backbone of many of our processes

We use this now to manage client change order (it pays for itself on this alone every month) selections, materials ordering from site, daily logs, H&S management, RFI's for the design team and photo storage and programming to name but a few

We couldn't go back to the old ways of doing many of these

There are a lot of different features and you'll certainly find many that'll make it worth your while to use

Oh and the customer support is ace

Overall roll out is great and intuitive but you do need to comit to integrating BT to your business and this takes time and effort. THis is a software that gives back 10 fold what you put in, but it does need your comittment.

Buildertrend has a mobile app that allows team members to access project information and communicate with each other while on the go.

Limited customization options: While Buildertrend is highly customizable in terms of the information you can track and manage, the software does have some limitations when it comes to customizing the user interface and other aspects of the platform.

The live updates in communication with subs and clients makes this software very desirable for my clients. Simplifies the process of communication and keeping people up to date.

For a single person that handles all day to day operations for a company and trying to learn a new software is a challenge. Not necessarily a con but to integrate the software makes for a bigger workload for a couple weeks.

Daily Reports, Budgets, Owners Portal , Lead tracking and use. file management great. All information is in one place & organized.

The To-do Ap is great and has a task check off sheet which is great except for one fatal flaw.

Messaging comes from Buildertrend and not from our own email or our name in front. Confusing clients, reducing branding opportunities for us, creating junk-mail issues with our clients. - We just do not use it.

The Billing side is weird but improving. The payments to subcontractors has improved and can be done on a percentage basis but the billing to clients does not. We use an AIA billing form and use that with the Buildertrend system but the Change orders appear and add to the bill making it awkward and we have to tell clients not to ignore the amount owed on the bottom of the billing.

The selections ap is a good idea and is believed in by some in our organization. It is awkward and confusing and I personally think it would work better if it was treated somewhat like a change order. I think if the change orders show up on Billing page so should selections.

The To-do Ap is great except that it allows the task to be assigned to multiple people. In a way that is good but if more than one person is responsible than no one is. I think it should have a primary responsible person (this can bye done by assigning tasks but that is cumbersome and has other issues.
-The To-do Ap is great and has a task check off sheet which is great except for one fatal flaw. The task check off sheet inside the to-do task is great except that the task can be marked complete by anyone though not all the sub tasks have been marked complete

I like that Buildertrend brings together all aspects of residential construction - homeowners, sub-trades, vendors, internal users, and allows everyone to see the information they need to see, as well as provides them the ability to upload photos, documentation and even provide comments to certain areas within the program. This gives everyone an overall sense of what is happening within the project.
Having everyone tied into the program eliminates a lot of extra searching for information, as well as lessen the overall messages one needs to send out to verify parts of the projects - selections, drawings and pricing can be Approved or Declined. This also helps to eliminate outdated/non-approved details from occurring.

The program has a lot to take in, which I suppose is expected, but for me, knowing how things affect something else is really important, as we are a Canadian company trying to work with an American program and American terminology. I have had to experiment a bit with how best to enter information, and sometimes redo it altogether.
I do not like how often I have to press on users to be entering information and using the platform for communications, but that does not have anything to do with the program itself.

It is better than most I have worked with. It is very easy to understand without having to use codes to get into sections.

It tends to freeze a lot when I am uploading documents . I have noticed that when I am inputting information it doesn't always save despite hitting the save button numerous times. Thank goodness one of my employers knows this programs faults and doesnt think I am not doing my job correctly. Although it has caused issues with other management wanting to know why certain projects were missing items that I know I completed. Another issue that would make my and many others very frustrated is when we have worked with a client and sold a job then we get another project from the same client on the same property months later we have to create a whole new lead and copy and paste all the information on the old lead and paste it into a new lead in order for us to be able to create a new job. It is very time consuming to do this. It would be great if there was some way we could attach or add another job to the same lead and be able to create another job from the same lead without all the copy and paste steps we have had to do. Also when I am creating a todo on the bottom it asks which salesperson is this job from so I select it. If I do not add the salesman to job assigned to he will not be able to see what is happening with the job. It would be great if I could just hit the button on the bottom where I select the salesman and he automatically will get a notification and access to all information on this job instead of me having to assign it to him and select him on the bottom as well.

It does seem to have considerable functionality... some of which has been very helpful to us

Where to start. Response time is slow, even when I am connected to fibre. Some of the functionality is hard to use.. For example we are using the leads features, but it seems like we need many clicks to get a decent summary of a lead.... The window where activity is stored is very small...and does not seem expandable... so we can only see 2 or 3 lines of the data at a time....ie no ability to enlarge the window.
Next, I have enrolled in the credit card payments...and was helped initially by a BT specialist....but then was handed off to Wepay. After 2 weeks the account is still not set up. WePay regularly send emails asking me to submit documents I have already submitted.... I do and then the send another email asking for the same documents.... I reply asking to talk to someone...but no one seems interested in talking...only sending confusing emails.....
The hours of the help line seem very limited... As I try to grow my business I need to do considerable admin work after a shift has gone home...but so has buildertrend. Folks on the help line do work hard to resolve issues, but are often not available...for example.... the whole support team seems to be required for the same regular internal meetings... In an ideal world the customer would not have to wait so long for help.