Public product and workflow¶

At a glance¶

The central product insight is continuity.

Scope and estimate become proposal, budget, selections, purchasing, change orders, schedule, actual costs and client communication.

A new product should protect that chain. The shared commercial record should be understandable to builders, clients and trade partners without exposing every platform feature at once.

Scope and evidence¶

This page is based on public CoConstruct and Buildertrend product pages, help articles and company material. It describes the outside-in product model and marks interpretation as inference.

For observed contractor-side behavior, compare the authenticated product and workflow.

Workflow at a glance¶

The public CoConstruct and Buildertrend material describes a construction business as a sequence of linked records rather than isolated tools.

flowchart TD
  lead["Lead / prospect"] --> estimate["Estimate and scope"]
  estimate --> proposal["Proposal / contract / signature"]
  proposal --> budget["Original budget and cost codes"]
  budget --> purchasing["Selections, allowances, bids and purchase orders"]
  purchasing --> changes["Approved change orders and revised budget"]
  changes --> production["Schedule, tasks, daily logs and time"]
  production --> financials["Invoices, payments and actual costs"]
  financials --> closeout["Client updates, closeout and warranty"]

The key design principle is that each step should reuse data from the previous step. Re-keying the same scope, price or client decision in separate spreadsheets creates the errors the product is designed to remove.

Product areas¶

Area	CoConstruct emphasis	Buildertrend current emphasis	Product significance
Estimating	Templates, cost catalog, formulas, markup, tax, contingency	Estimates plus integrated takeoff	Establishes the financial baseline
Proposals	Branded proposal assembled from estimate, bids, specs and selections	Digital proposals and signatures	Converts scope into an agreed contract
Specifications	Estimate information flows into specs and selections	Specifications are a current product focus	Keeps materials and requirements unambiguous
Selections	Client choices, decision deadlines, pricing, comments, approvals	Selections and allowances with portal visibility	Converts design decisions into schedule and money
Bids and purchasing	Bid requests, vendor pricing, purchase orders	Bids, bills and purchase orders	Connects planned cost to committed cost
Budget and job costing	Original, revised, actual and projected financials	Job Costing Budget, profit views and WIP reporting	Protects margin while work is underway
Scheduling	Templates, Gantt/calendar, dependencies, notices and selection deadlines	Scheduling, tasks, daily logs and time clock	Coordinates field execution
Change orders	Scope changes, electronic approval and financial updates	Itemized change orders, deadline, approval and invoicing	Prevents unpriced work and disputes
Communication	Job-specific comments, email, web, mobile, notifications	Chat, messages/comments, client and sub portals	Creates a searchable point of record
Client experience	Portal, visible selections, schedule, photos, costs, warranty	Portal, approvals, files, payments and AI Client Updates	Reduces status calls and builds confidence
Documents and plans	Files and photos, including jobsite uploads	Files, plans, annotations and signatures	Keeps the current information visible to every party
Warranty	Warranty requests, assignees, status and client verification	Warranty workflow	Extends the system beyond practical completion
Mobile	Schedule, budget, POs, selections, change orders, files, photos, logs and messages	Buildertrend mobile app with field and client access	Field adoption determines data freshness

Supporting public sources include CoConstruct how it works, CoConstruct mobile app overview, Buildertrend communication management and Buildertrend pricing/features.

Shared data model¶

A replacement system will need a coherent model for at least these objects:

Company — the builder organization, defaults, templates, cost catalog and accounting settings.
User and role — internal staff, administrators, project managers, field workers and executives.
Client / household — the customer relationship and one or more contacts.
Trade partner / vendor — subcontractors, suppliers and invited portal users.
Job / project — address, contract type, phase, dates, responsible staff and participants.
Cost code — the shared financial classification used across estimates, budgets, POs, bills and reports.
Estimate — line items, quantities, unit types, cost types, markup, margin, tax and scope.
Proposal / contract — client-facing presentation, terms, signature and contract price.
Specification / selection / allowance — materials, options, client decisions, deadlines and pricing impact.
Bid — request to a trade or vendor, response, comparison and accepted price.
Purchase order / bill / invoice / payment — committed costs, actual costs, amounts owed and cash movement.
Change order — scope, price, attachments, approval deadline, signature and invoice behavior.
Schedule item / task / daily log / time entry — planned and observed production activity.
File / plan / photo / annotation — project evidence and the documents people need to act on.
Message / comment — communication attached to a project or a specific record.
Warranty item — defect/request, assignees, appointment and completion verification.
Report — budget, profitability, WIP, schedule and operational views.

Commercial workflow¶

Buildertrend’s public help documentation shows a particularly explicit financial state model. The Job Costing Budget can include:

Original budget costs from the estimate.
Revised budget costs from approved selections and change orders.
Pending costs from unapproved purchase orders.
Committed costs from approved purchase orders and time-clock activity.
Actual costs from bills, expenses and approved labor, depending on accounting method.
Projected costs, cost-to-complete, client pricing, invoiced amounts and projected profit/margin.

See Job Costing Budget overview and Estimate overview.

This is an important implementation insight: the budget is not just a spreadsheet. It is a calculated view over estimates, selections, change orders, POs, bills, time entries, invoices and accounting integrations.

People and visibility¶

The system serves multiple audiences with different visibility rules:

Internal staff need operational and financial detail.
Clients need a controlled view of selections, approvals, schedules, documents, messages, invoices and possibly budget detail.
Trades need their assignments, plans, documents, bid requests and communication.
Vendors may need purchasing-related information without seeing the full project.

Visibility must therefore be attached to records and fields, not just to whole projects. Buildertrend’s public Client Portal FAQ describes configurable access to searchable project, financial, file, messaging and warranty information: Client Portal FAQs.

Product implications¶

The replacement should be judged less by the number of screens and more by whether it can maintain these invariants:

A client decision has one authoritative status and price impact.
Approved scope changes update the budget and downstream billing consistently.
Every important communication is searchable and tied to the relevant job or record.
Field activity can be captured quickly enough that staff actually record it.
Users can see what changed, who approved it and when.
Data can be exported without the customer becoming trapped in the system.

Open questions¶

Public material cannot establish which features the local builders use every week, how their permissions are configured or which integrations are essential. The authenticated analysis fills some of those gaps; builder discovery is still needed before the product scope is committed.