BuildTools Erfahrungen

Harpe Development BuildTools Review

Kommentare: Very good experience. We have been using BuildTools for 5+ years at least and have been very happy with it. Any issues that we have encountered have been taken care of right away by Hector and the rest of ECI staff. It has helped us run our jobs much more smoothly with it's budgeting, scheduling and file sharing tools.

Vorteile:

Its accessibility in the field for our project managers and sub-contractors to review all the files associated with the project.

Nachteile:

Only minor issue if file sharing via email/text is a little "clunky" due to PDF's having to run through a 3rd party reader for sending. Nothing major but it just adds a additional step in sending files in the field.

Great system for the money, but...

Vorteile:

Easy to use, made managing selections and getting change orders signed easier. Keeping all emails in one spot is great. Just starting to use the Bids feature, so far so good.

Nachteile:

if you need scheduling pick something else or get a different software, it does not schedule, it may list dates, but if a task starts early nothing is adjusted and same if it finishes late. It just has static dates.

I appreciate the value of Build Tools to communicate with our clients and trades.

Kommentare: Being able to communicate effectively to our trade partners and clients. Keeping the project managers of each job on schedule with their daily logs and for purchasing by sending PO's to trade partners to be confirmed as well as change orders to be reviewed and approved by the client.

Vorteile:

I like that our clients and trades can see the progress of their home as it is being built from start to finish. They can access anything from building permits to daily schedules and pictures of progress. It's a wonderful way to schedule your trades in advance as well to ensure they will be there when they are needed and lets the clients know who will be out at their home and when.

Nachteile:

There is no way to create a master schedule for all the jobs for in-house use in terms of accountability. We would like to be able to put all current jobs major scheduling items on one grand schedule. I was told by September there was to be a new roll out of the software including using the schedule as we need and my company would be a tester of that roll out and I have not heard anything since then. There is also little pains such as when pictures are uploaded they get turned sideways no matter that the original orientation was straight up.

My personal experience using Buildtools

Kommentare: I like how to slowly teach you how to use their software. Also, like that they stay available to support you after the training session is over. This is my second year using this software and I will continue using it for years to come.

Vorteile:

It is easy to use. You don't have to use every available modules. You can pick and choose what serves you best. For me, it is the scheduling and budgeting module that I use the most.

Nachteile:

In the budgeting module, the categories are in a drop box style and don't stay available for more then a few second. So you got to be quick for your selection. But I think the developers are working on this issue.

Best Available

Kommentare: We are very happy with BuildTools using it since 2013.

Vorteile:

BuildTools has a great budget module which ties to the financial system, a great purchase order system and change order tracking.

Nachteile:

The selection module could be tweaked to include more features (text formatting for example and list building within descriptions)

So far so good

Kommentare: Good customer support, the system is infrequently down so we can use it all the time.

Vorteile:

Ease of scheduling, project management, and proposal management.

Nachteile:

Some of it is very clicky where you feel like you are just clicking and clicking your mouse to get you where you need to go.

Transformational. Scaleable. Powerful. Appropriately priced and with solid support.

Kommentare: We have been able to tie together multiple geographically dispersed staff and simultaneously dispense with multiple different tools/desktop based software. It has increased our ability to monitor work performance, share experiences and ensure continuity of work during staff absences as all project information is always available to all permitted users from virtualy any device.

Vorteile:

BuildTools has far more features than other systems we compared in its class. This has allowed us to perform not only almost all major business functions: selections & client management, change order documentation, communications, bids procurement, budget monitoring, scheduling, and invoicing but also other important but less well promoted capabilities such as daily logs (for health, safety & schedule deviation monitoring), meeting minutes that permit tasks to be assigned & tracked (for use with clients, subcontractors/suppliers, or internally) among others. This combined with the product's progressive incremental improvements and willingness to occasionally make changes based on our own suggestions or requests add up to good value.

Nachteile:

The advantage of having so many features can also be a detriment to new users, for whom learning and navigating the system may be overwhelming at first. This is exacerbated by weak FAQs/video tutorials and lack of proactive hints/suggestions as to how to get the most out of the software. However if one is patient and implements the system section by section as each are successively mastered and while doing so makes use of the excellent and always responsive (and free) support staff, then this shortcoming can be overcome, revealing all of the features and capabilities.

Build Tools for Custom Home Builders

Kommentare: Overall our experience has been good. We are looking forward to seeing advancements in the software.

Vorteile:

Build Tools has excellence customer service. We are able to address any concerns immediately. They also, have excellent on going webinars about variou features of the software. The scheduling and document management features are the brightest features. Budgeting is also good.

Nachteile:

Financial features are confusing for our clients. On their own they are fine as an overview of the project financials, but there is no direct invoicing feature without creating a special report.

A work in progress!

Vorteile:

The folks at Build Tools are friendly and accesible, which they need to be because they have no training manual, which is a challenge for a product that spans so many functional areas. No average team member would be able to puzzle out this rubics cube by themselves. However, the tech support always does their best to help you figure it out! The scheduling and warranty modules are the easiest to work with and once you figure out an appropriate notification regime for your company, you can get the schedules to work. Although its a bit awkward to update schedules (too many clicks to just say something is "done", the basic idea is pretty good.

Nachteile:

After using schedules and warranty for two years, we are dying to try selections, budgets, and PO's....and integrate into Quickbooks. However....there are a lot of levels of data entry to get this set up and not a lot of guidance on what the best practice should be. A LOT of cross links and that generates nervousness. Some challenges just getting the budget to show expected profit. All must be workable, however without a clear manual, its hard to know.

good customer service but its extremely slow

Vorteile:

good customer service, but you will need them quiet many times.

Nachteile:

extremely slow for people which time is an asset, many basic stuff dont exist

Kommentare: We're a small design build company focusing on high-end remodeling and custom homes. We produce design in house, and then provide construction services with in-house project managers and carpenters, as well as subcontractors performing the work. Every client goes through the same process, however, since each project is unique we always have unique tasks to accomplish for each job. We chose a BuildTools primarily because of their task management feature, which is outstanding. From my perspective, it is the only option out there with a Meeting Minutes feature tied to tasks, scheduled events, users and deadlines. We had previously used two other programs that were awesome and I have nothing bad to say about them; it simply came down to the task management feature between these programs. This feature is fundamental to our productivity. The task feature is an undersold feature of the program Working Gantt Chart versus Published schedule. This means I can go in and edit a job very quickly, with drag and drop functionality; I can pull lines for dependencies, easily move items up or down, and group according to my will, with indent and outdent capability. I can play around with different scheduling scenarios, without huge save and alert times. When the schedule is firmed up, I can Publish it and send out notices and so forth. Its a great Gantt Chart and very similar to MS project. There is a Quick Book sync; Purchase Orders and Change Orders are tied to the budget, and eliminates double entry. Picture sharing is very easy and fast, and not limited to 3-4 at a time. Messaging is also very easy, where I can send an email directly from my schedule, selections, and tasks. I can then see this thread in the the aforementioned sections, or in the messaging center. This is also an undersold feature of the program, and it worked really well. Another point of interest, BuildTools operates on a unique database structure, which avoids having to open and close a window every time you want to reform task. There is a marked difference in productivity and performing tasks. The leads and prospect section is also very useful. There is also no limit on the number of projects, so I can keep all of our projects (large or small) in one place. The leads feature needs some work, but they are pursuing it. Our transition into BuildTools was very easy and fast. Customer support has been very good and steady. They are a small, but growing, company and you can see the commitment to customer service. Using this product has directly led to increased project size, as well as increased productivity from our internal team and subs/suppliers. I can't stress enough the positive effect of their task management system. I highly recommend Buildtools for remodelers and custom builders.

Kommentare: Minton Homes is a small custom home builder located in St. Louis, Missouri. We have been in business 25 years. We only build custom homes (no specs, no remodels). In the last 10 years, the size of the homes has ranged from 5,000sf to 25,000sf. We go to extremes to make sure we exceed expectations. In January we attended the home show in Las Vegas. One of our goals was to preview all of the companies that offered complete software systems for our industry. For years we have been interested in finding a program that would allow us to "bring most of what we do under one roof", allowing great collaboration with all parties (homeowners, subs, suppliers, etc). After sorting through a dozen or so possible companies at the home show, we decided to give BuildTools a try. While we are not fully implemented at this point, I would say we are 75%. So after 3 months of getting familiar with BuildTools and loading a couple of projects onto the system, I can tell you I am extremely impressed with the product and with the service Chad and his group has provided. Even more importantly, the feedback from our customers and subs has been good. While any new software program has a learning curve, the feedback from our partners has been very good, and implementation has been better than expected. Every day it seems like we learn about another new feature. We are in the process of sending a project out for bid now and decided to use BuildTools for that purpose. The amount of time we had in that process (as compared to how we used to do it) is reduced, and the ability to manage the process is greatly enhanced. Managing customer selections is one of our biggest challenges; has been for years. I have to say that BuildTools significantly enhances things on our side and even more importantly the customer side. I was skeptical about the BuildTools scheduling program, having used Microsoft Project for years. After two months, I am not using Project anymore. BuildTools does everything I need to do and, quick frankly, the interface is a little nicer. Very happy with that. We used to do RFI's via email. While that worked for us, it was hard to manage effectively. I love the RFI module in BuildTools. It is a very efficient way to manage information and get the answers you need. The due date and reminder dates are a great feature for those people that need reminders. In the next 30 days, we hope to be integrating the budget with Quickbooks, so more on that later. I have not used the service/warranty module yet - but looks like a very good process. In summary, great product; great service; saves us time; makes us better at what we do; helps further separate us from the competition.
I highly recommend it. I'll post again in another couple of months with an update.

We have been using Build Tools for several years now. We appreciate the attention to the details.

Kommentare: We have been using Build Tools for several years now and love the way it helps us stay up to date with our projects for our clients. Our clients love the continual feedback (weekly updates) and appreciate how they can access pertinent information for their project virtually anywhere in the world at any time. It saves us time and money. We have shopped other competitors and have found the functionality and commitment to continual improvement the best in the business. We will continue to use Build Tools. Thank you TEAM BT for an excellent application.

Vorteile:

Build Tools has done an excellent job at listening to what the customer needs in their software development. We are a custom home builder and appreciate the details in the day-to day use of their product. Our clients like the access to the information and that helps us look more professional and gives a higher level of customer service. We send out the weekly reports (updates) on all of our jobs on Tuesdays. Clients love this interaction and ability to stay informed. Happy client, happy projects!!! Thank you Build Tools.

Love the program, here are the issues

Kommentare: We manage with it. We have looked at other programs in detail. We Still come back to Build Tools. It covers the most and has what we feel we need.

Vorteile:

it has all the modules needed for a project management company to accomplish their work

Nachteile:

reports and exports do not appear to be set up or created by anyone who actually uses these reports.example, you take a page or two of information and turn it into 12 pages of unreadable font changing gobble-gook. there is no way I can send it to a client. I have to export it several different ways and make something presentable.

Kommentare: We are a custom builder, remodeler, and service company in the San Diego area. We work in the higher end of the residential market with over 40 employees. We have been implementing BuildTools over the last two months and should be complete with implementation by Dec.1 (a four-month process). We are currently using Timberline for our accounting package and Microsoft Project for our scheduling. We plan to shift our accounting to QuickBooks Enterprise at the first of the year. We selected BuildTools because of the integrated job costing with client and design team management features. It is working out very well. There are many options and almost unlimited user group features. We are trying to maximize this flexibility and making those choices does take some time. The biggest benefit of the software from our point of view. Forcing us to use consistent best practices while still allowing us to customize the client experience. Producing billings is exceptionally easy and fast. A client actually commented on how clear and easy it was to understand their billing (this was a cost plus bill). The scheduling module is limited as compared to Microsoft Project but that is far from a bad thing. The RFP process is also easy. Project document control, photos, etc are very simple. The ease of integration in the field with iPhone and Android tablets has been great. Taking meeting minutes with a tablet microphone greatly improves accuracy and tracking. I could comment on each module, but suffice to say it does what it says it does and it does it well. They are still improving the program. We have had a very close working relationship with Chad and his team. They have been pretty responsive but our company also has a deep background in project management and that may have an impact on how they deal with us.
The pricing is extremely reasonable and the database appears to be very robust. I would purchase this software again. A commitment like this is at least a five year deal to me and we selected carefully. I am very satisfied with the software.

Build tools has been very helpful for our business, and for our clients

Vorteile:

Ability for client log ins, lead tracking, Financial and Change order processes, the customer support team is great, reports, and the client dashboard. We also like the scheduling side, but think a few tweaks could be made.

Nachteile:

Selections - This tab is great to have but is very difficult for us to use (inputting items for selections, modifying and general use is difficult). General Back end items - making changes to the settings or back end items is not intuitive. We updated our cost codes this year and making those changes on the back end and then the front end was difficult to do. Some setting changes are also hard to find in the administrator.

Great Value for your product

Kommentare: Over all I am very pleased with BuildTools

Vorteile:

You get all of the construction management tools you could possibly need in BuildTools. The program is full and robust of options and capabilities for our company to use.

Nachteile:

It isnt the easiest to use quite yet but for the value I am learning how to maneuver through it. I feel that the buttons or keys could be easier to activate or select from, or it could be less confusing to maneuver through than it is at times.

Kommentare: My company builds custom homes in upstate New York. We were looking for a software program to primarily do our scheduling for projects. Once I saw what was out there, I became interested in using a more robust program to organize the budget and selections besides the scheduling. There are many similar software setups out there that do many of the same things. Software Advice was great as far as directing us to four companies that offer what I was looking for. I chose BuildTools because they were claiming to have QuickBooks integration almost ready. Where QuickBooks would sync in each direction, with the budget tracking feature of the software. This was great, because I could see labor savings in this feature by entering costs of materials and labor on my own time and having it sync up with our QuickBooks file and all of our bookkeeping and tax prep. After four months of waiting for this feature, it still isn't up and running. There are other features to the interface that are not intuitive. I was hoping to use this software on site with my Ipad, but the processing is so slow that I gave that up. Maybe this is perfect for a smaller, one man operation, contractor. One of the other features that is nice about BuildTools is the selections entering and approval. Our current client logged in once and said it was too confusing for her, so she doesn't use it at all. If we are building a whole house, and the client doesn't want to use this software because it isn't intuitive enough for her, then this doesn't save me any time whatsoever. The scheduling feature of the program is actually very nice. It works great and is easy to use. But I don't want pay each month for a scheduling program. I have found other scheduling software for much, much cheaper. The tech support was actually very helpful as well, but it would save them (and us) a bunch of time if they just give you a manual to go over all of the basics and be able to refer back to.

Benefits we use.

Kommentare: Overall, customer service department has been quite responsive and helpful when issues come up.

Vorteile:

As we have many "out of town" clients, the ability to upload pictures for their viewing pleasure is crucial for transparency and communication.

Nachteile:

We find the scheduling Gantt chart format is a little awkward and not as user friendly as it could be.

Quest Homz, LLC Review

Kommentare: The ability to manage multiple projects in real time has enhanced our capacity to scale our business and improve profitability.

Vorteile:

Total construction scheduling, document storage, bid package, and cost accounting

Nachteile:

Would like the ability to add data fields to align with internal processes

Kommentare: We have been researching our options for PM software after using another software for several years. I began speaking with BuildTools and did the online demo. The software seemed to offer many more features than what I had been using. I spoke with Chad at Buildtools and said that I'd like to try BuildTools to compare to what we were using (BuilderTrend). They set us up an account. I did an online 'training' with someone who told me that he had just started. I literally had to show him how some of the features worked because he didn't know (I only knew from watching the online tutorial!). Several of the items I wanted clarification on were related to the sync with Quickbooks. The functionality of that interface wasn't working and I was told that it's coming on the next update. After deciding that the functionality and learning curve was more than our company was willing to suffer through at the current time, I told Chad that we may be interested in the future, but we were going to continue to utilize the other software. I was told that our account would be cancelled. When I noticed (6 weeks later) that my credit card was still being billed I sent an email. Chad replied with a copy of the electronic agreement that I had to sign before we could try the software. What he didn't tell me about that several page long agreement, was that they had locked me into a contract for 12 months and that I would be locked into paying a monthly fee of $249 even though I wouldn't be using the program. So much for the trial time to 'compare'. I really have never had such lacking customer service from anyone. Bottom line - while BuildTools has some great features, I will never use or recommend them simply because of the treatment I've received by their support team.

BuildTools, a foundation to build on.

Kommentare: BuildTools is allowing us to be more agile and efficient both in the office and in the field. The digital platform and mobile access capabilities have allowed us to take a good system and make it great.

Vorteile:

BuildTools utilizes an user friendly interface that is easy to rollout to a team of varying tech skills. The customizable nature of the platform has allowed us to keep a lot of our legacy procedures while updating to more effective and efficient digital platform.

Nachteile:

The biggest issue that we have had is how the platform integrates with our QuickBooks accounting system. The QuickBooks integration has been fine, however it is more rigid and less customizable to our legacy procedures.

Great for Home Builders

Kommentare: Customer service is great! We feel like they listen and try to resolve issues. They cater to home builders which is not like the other softwares that are commercial, subcontractors, renovations contractors, etc. They are all different industries so it won't work like that.

Vorteile:

Ease of use and implementation. We have found that even older, none tech savy employees can still understand it.

Nachteile:

We are unable to control some of the notifications to people it's not applicable to.

Simplicity

Kommentare: Experience has been good through integration and the ECI team is more than accommodating.

Vorteile:

The system is user friendly for all skills levels and integration has been seamless.

Nachteile:

We should have gone to BuildTools a year earlier.

Build Tools

Vorteile:

The support team has been great to work with.

Nachteile:

You have to commit to the implementation, but once you do, it is worth it.