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Since the inception of BuildBook in 2018 we've been on a mission to bring residential custom home builders, remodelers, and general contractors a simple solution to their construction lives. Flash forward to today and we're still holding to our mission.
That's why we're so pumped to announce the first major upgrade of 2023—and it's only March! 😎
What has us so excited?
Read along for a full breakdown of all these new features, and don’t forget to subscribe at the end to never miss another update.
Balancing your Project's estimated Budget against what it actually ends up costing can be difficult—and even harder to communicate!
That's why we are so excited to announce our newest feature, Expense tracking! 🤩 🎉 🧡
With this incredible upgrade to your BuildBook account, you will now be able to automatically track purchases made throughout a project, upload receipts, tag vendors, and assign them to Budget line Items and/or Selections. 😲
1. When adding an Expense, here are a few details that help keep everything organized. ✅
2. Easily assign any Expense to a Vendor, existing Budget Line Item, or Selection.
Simply add a new expense, upload a receipt (or image of the product), and use the drop-down menus to quickly associate it with existing Budget details.
This amazing new enhancement will provide your clients with a better understanding of where their money is going, while also helping you keep track of how you're tracking against your Projects' original Budget.
3. When viewing a construction Project’s' Expenses on your Budget or within a specific Line Item there is a new "Cost to Date" column that reflects the actual cost for each item's Expense.
This allows you to now track the Cost to Date, against the Estimated Price and Projected Price, directly from your Budget tab or a specific line item. 🥰
We're so excited for you to experience creating and tracking Expenses within BuildBook! For a more detailed breakdown of Expenses, head to our knowledge base and read this help doc.
Templates, Templates, and more Templates!
If you've logged into your BuildBook account, you've probably seen the new look on the Projects homepage. That new addition includes a Projects, Templates, and Archives tab. 👀
The Projects tab will be the home for all your new and ongoing Projects. From your main list of Projects, you can turn them into a Project Template with the click of a button! 😲
It gets even better ...
All saved Project Templates will now be available to manage and edit directly from the Templates tab! Once saved, a Project Template can be used for any new Project.. 🤩
We've also added an Archives tab which allows you to move old Projects from your active Project list.
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You can create Project Templates from an existing Project by going to your list of Projects and using the "+ Create Template" ellipsis menu within a specific project. This will copy over assets, reset all statuses, reset assignments, and clear out comments and chats. Giving you a fresh Template to use moving forward!
A “Project” is an active job you’re managing. All updates, including task assignments and communication, will still be managed directly from the main Project.
A “Project Template” is the main component of a Project and how you can quickly jumpstart a new Project. Project Templates are not intended for notifications, project management, or inviting clients. Additionally, you will not see a Project Template Schedule, Tasks, or Activities in your Calendar or Dashboard. Project Templates are indicated by a blue notification bar at the top of the page.
To learn more about Project Templates, check out this help doc.
When we released Estimates and Proposals at the beginning of the year, an amazing feature included with that release was the Price Book with Cost Code tool.
If you’re not familiar with it, the Price Book makes it easy for you to create a list of services, materials, labor, flat fees, and selections that can be added to an Estimate or Project Financials.
You can access your Price Book, which includes a separate tab for Cost Codes, from the Tools menu.
After chatting with our builders, we set out to enhance BuildBook’s suite of financial tools.
That’s why we’re excited to introduce the Cost Code Importer!
This new enhancement streamlines the time it takes to create a Price Book and manage Cost Codes within BuildBook. Automatically syncing your construction company’s processes directly into your account!
How can you import your Cost Codes?
If you’d like to import your Cost Codes into your account, read this help doc for more information.
Have you ever sent an invite to a project, only for them to never accept? 😡
Thanks to the feedback from our builders we learned this was a major hangup in their project and task management capabilities.
With our new feature enhancement to invites, you can keep your project moving and start assigning them tasks—even if they have a pending invitation. 🎉🎉🎉
When you view your Project's settings page and see your list of Team Members, Collaborators, and Clients a "pending" status will let you know who has yet to accept their invitation. You'll also have the ability to quickly re-send an invitation directly from your contact list.
Once they've been sent an invite, you can start assigning them tasks. 👀
It's important to note, pending users will not receive updates or notifications when they are assigned a task until they have officially created a BuildBook account and joined your project. However, with this amazing enhancement, you won't get clogged up in your schedule and can still have visibility into who is handling business. ✅
Additionally, when filtering your Task list between users, you can drill down into any pending user. Pending users are identified by their email address and a grey avatar.
Ever start a new project and wish you could take all of your task lists from a previous job and bring it into that new one? You're not alone!
With our new enhancement to Task Management, you can now copy any Task list and share it with a new Project. Streamlining your ability to generate a Task list and Schedule. 😀
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Once you've chosen a task to copy, we've made it easy for you to adjust the start date with two options.
At the start of 2023, we made a commitment to enhancing the mobile experience. 🙌
Key moments happen on the job site and the BuildBook mobile app is key for you or your team to document everything in real-time.
With this most recent enhancement, we've optimized the performance when adding a PDF document to Daily Logs. You will notice faster upload speeds when adding a PDF or document from your phone into the app. Additionally, accessing PDFs within Daily Logs is faster thanks to a new PDF previewer. 🧡
Haven't installed the BuildBook mobile app?
If you're not already a BuildBook user, it's time to ditch the notepads or complicated software and get started with BuildBook with a free 10-day trial. When you sign up for BuildBook you can start immediately without a lick of training. And if you do need some help along the way - a real, live human from our BuildBook team is here to help!
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