Know what a job is costing while you can still do something about it
Willowark builds custom software and AI automation for general contractors and builders: job costing that updates while the job runs, change orders captured in the field before they become arguments, and the paperwork machinery — RFIs, submittals, lien waivers, insurance certificates — kept current without one person chasing it full time.
We build around your accounting system rather than replacing it, because that is where cost codes and payroll live. From there we automate documents in and out: sub invoices read and coded, waivers requested by pay period, submittal and RFI logs showing what is holding up the schedule. Where a spreadsheet became the system of record, we replace it with a tool your PMs can use on a phone.
A first project with a contractor usually starts at the inbox where sub invoices land. We take a month of real billings — PDFs, photos of handwritten tickets, emailed spreadsheets — and build the processing that reads them, proposes a cost code, and routes them for approval, because that is the feed everything else depends on. Live job costing follows once the costs are arriving coded. We sit with your PMs and bookkeeper on-site across the Capital Region, and work remotely with builders and GCs nationwide once the build is underway.
Reviewed
Sound familiar?
If you've said any of these, we should talk.
“I find out a job went sideways at the end, when the numbers finally come in.”
We build job costing that updates continuously, pulling committed costs, sub invoices, and labor hours into your cost codes as they happen and comparing against budget. Overruns surface as they develop, with the code and the job named, while there is still a decision to make.
“Change orders get agreed to in the driveway and billed three weeks later, if at all.”
We build mobile change order capture: scope, price, photos, and signature taken on site, posted straight to the office and accounting. It appears in job cost and the next pay application automatically. Unbilled extras are a reliable margin leak.
“Every month I am chasing lien waivers and insurance certificates from twenty subs.”
We automate the request and tracking cycle: waivers requested per pay period on the correct conditional or unconditional form, reminders escalating on their own, and a dashboard of who is outstanding before the draw. Certificate expirations are tracked the same way.
“Every sub invoices differently — PDFs, emailed photos, one guy still writes on a legal pad.”
We build document processing that reads invoices in whatever form they arrive, extracts the job, amount, and line items, and proposes a cost code from how you coded similar work before. A person approves; nothing posts without review.
“Nobody fills out the daily report, and then a year later a lawyer asks what happened on that Tuesday.”
We make the daily report something a superintendent can finish in a few minutes from the truck: weather pulled in automatically, crews and subs on site picked from a list, photos, delays, and visitors noted by voice or a few taps. It files itself against the job and the date, and it is there when someone asks.
How this industry actually runs
The operation as we usually find it.
A contractor's margin is decided in the gap between what was estimated and what is being spent, and that gap is usually visible too late. Costs arrive from a dozen directions — sub invoices, material deliveries, self-performed labor hours, equipment rental — each needing the right cost code on the right job. Change orders start as a conversation in a driveway and only sometimes become a signed document. RFIs go to the architect and wait. Submittals come back revised, and long-lead items on them drive the schedule. Every draw needs a schedule of values, correct retainage math, and conditional and unconditional lien waivers from every sub who touched the job. Certificates of insurance expire mid-project. Daily reports and photos matter enormously when something is disputed a year later, and they are the first thing to slip.
From the phone and the truck to the office, without re-typing
Components:
- Calls, texts, forms (customers)
- Crews in the field (photos, hours, parts)
- Automation layer (AI + rules, review)
- Quotes & invoices (drafted for approval)
- Schedule & CRM (one source of truth)
Connections:
- Calls, texts, forms to Automation layer (capture)
- Crews in the field to Automation layer
- Automation layer to Quotes & invoices
- Automation layer to Schedule & CRM
What we build
Starting projects that fit Construction & General Contracting.
- Live job costing against budget by cost code, fed by sub invoices, labor, and commitments
- Mobile change order capture with pricing, photos, and signature that posts to accounting
- RFI and submittal logs showing what is open, with whom, and how long it has waited
- Automated lien waiver requests tied to each pay period and pay application
- Certificate of insurance tracking with expiration warnings before a sub goes uncovered
- Invoice processing that reads sub billings and proposes cost coding for approval
- Daily report and photo capture in the field, plus an owner dashboard of margin by job
- Pay application assembly from the schedule of values, with retainage math and waiver status checked before it goes out
Capabilities we bring
What we'd build first
Three places a first project usually starts.
01
Live job costing against budget by cost code, fed by sub invoices, labor, and commitments
02
Mobile change order capture with pricing, photos, and signature that posts to accounting
03
RFI and submittal logs showing what is open, with whom, and how long it has waited
On-site across the Capital Region and remote nationwide — see where we work.
Working in Construction & General Contracting?
Tell us the line.
What runs by hand, what is not connected, what you are trying to build. An engineer replies within one business day with whether and how we would approach it.
Common questions
What Construction & General Contracting teams ask first.
Do we have to leave our accounting system to get real job costing?
No. Your accounting package already holds the cost codes, payroll, and general ledger, and moving that is expensive and risky. We read from it and write back to it, adding the live commitment and field data it does not capture. You get current job cost without a migration.
How accurate is automated coding of subcontractor invoices?
Good enough to be useful, and structured so mistakes are cheap. Extraction of job, amount, and line items is reliable, and the cost code is a proposal based on your own coding history. Every proposal goes to a person before it posts.
We are a residential builder, not a commercial GC. Does this still apply?
The mechanics differ but the failure modes are identical. Residential work swaps submittals and pay applications for selections, allowances, and lender draws, and clients change their minds more often, which makes change order capture more valuable rather than less.
Our PMs and supers are not going to sit at a computer. How does field data actually get in?
From a phone, or it does not get in at all; that is the constraint we design around. Change orders, daily reports, photos, and hours are captured with a few taps or by voice, work without a signal, and sync when the truck is back in range. Anything the office can infer, like the job, the date, or the weather, is filled in automatically. Typically a super is done in the time it took to text the office before.
Can you pull our estimates into job costing so budget and actual line up?
Usually, yes. Most estimating tools export the bid by line or by assembly, and we map those lines onto your cost codes once so every new job sets up its budget automatically. Committed costs from subcontracts and purchase orders then land against the same codes as actuals arrive. The mapping is the tedious part; we do it with your estimator, and where a bid does not line up with the code list we say so before it becomes a reporting problem.
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Engineering for Construction & General Contracting.
Describe the problem in your own words. An engineer reads it — not a sales script — and tells you plainly what it would take.