How a construction project management company runs its jobs
A company running several jobs at once, each with its own programme, its own subcontractors and its own claims. Below, one of them runs from end to end, and every point where a person has to say yes is marked.
Four businesses on this site run on the same building blocks, arranged for days that look nothing alike. This page is the arrangement for a construction job: projects and tasks, time on site, documents, and a notification when something needs a person.
Who it is for
For New Zealand construction project management companies and builders running a handful of jobs at once, where the project manager is also the estimator, the buyer and the person chasing the subbie’s invoice. It suits a business of five to fifty people whose record of a job is spread across a phone, an inbox and a folder in the ute, and who want that record kept properly without hiring someone to keep it.
One job, from the template to the final claim
Three things start a step. Somebody asks the agent in the channel the team already talks in. Something arrives in a connected mailbox. Or a date comes round on a job. Asking happens in the chat; approving happens in the admin app, signed in, because the sign-in the agent holds cannot approve anything.
The job is created from a template, with its phases and dates
Asked to open a job, the agent reads the project template for that kind of work. Pre-start, foundations, closed in, fit-out, handover: the phases you named, with the tasks each one needs, their dates and their owners. The programme exists on the day the job does.
The board is what everyone works from
Tasks carry assignees, subtasks and comments. A messaging rule you switched on emails whoever a task lands on and leaves the same notification in the admin app.
A rule you switched on sends on its own, because you switched it on. A message the agent writes to somebody outside the business waits in the queue.
Subcontractor and supplier orders are drafted
The agent reads the phase that is coming up and drafts the purchase orders it needs against your own supplier and subcontractor list, each with its lines and the job it belongs to.
Each order waits in the approval queue for a signed-in person. The agent cannot send one.
Drawings, consents and site photographs carry their history
Documents attach to the job. A new revision supersedes the old one and the chain is kept, so which drawing is current is a fact on the record. A document that has to reach a subcontractor or the client goes as a link with an expiry on it.
A link expires on its own. The document stays on the job and a new link can be made.
People on site clock in, and the hours land on the job
A clock-in inside the site boundary is matched to that job. Who was on which site, and for how long, is a record on the job by the time the claim is built.
If no site is close enough the entry stays untagged for the office to place, and the clock-out gets a second chance to match.
A variation is quoted before it goes anywhere
The agent prices the change from your own rates, versions it, and attaches it to the job.
It waits for approval before it reaches the client and before it can be claimed.
The progress claim is an invoice off the billing stage
A job carries its stages: a percentage of the contract, a fixed amount, or the remainder. The agent raises the claim from the stage, with your branding.
A signed-in person issues it. The agent prepares the claim and stops.
Claims cannot add up past the contract total. The platform refuses one that would, and cancelling a stage releases its share again.
Supplier invoices arrive in the mailbox on their own
The mailbox poll runs on a schedule. Invoices and statements sent to the connected mailbox are read out of it and matched to the purchase order they bill, then listed as payables with what is owed and when.
Approving or paying is a signed-in person’s action.
An invoice that does not match an order is still recorded as a payable and flagged as an issue for the office to place.
What is claimed, what is owed, what the job cost
Payments are recorded against the claims they settle. The orders, the payables and the hours hang off the same job, so the price of the job and the cost of it are two figures on one record.
Questions we get asked
Is this a scheduling tool with a Gantt chart?
No. Jobs have phases, and tasks have due dates, assignees and a board, which is what most small builders actually keep. There is no Gantt chart or critical-path planning; if you run one, keep it and attach the programme to the job as a document.
Do subcontractors need a login?
No. A subcontractor receives a purchase order and, when needed, a share link to a document. Your own staff use the admin app and the phone app; the records stay inside your business.
Does it replace our accounting system?
No. The platform holds the operating records: jobs, purchase orders, supplier invoices, claims and time. Your accounting system stays where it is, and when we set the agent up we connect it to the systems you already run.
Can the agent send a purchase order or a claim on its own?
No. Drafting happens without you, but sending a purchase order, sending a claim, approving a supplier invoice or recording a payment can only be proposed by the agent. A signed-in person approves it, and the platform enforces that rather than trusting the agent to behave.
We set it up with you
Nobody running jobs has time to become the AI person. We map how a job moves through your business, stand up the agent, connect the systems you already use and stay until it sticks.