Likelihood to Recommend In this case, CF is the best of the 'OK so far' category in my mind. NONE of the software available today gets close to a truly effective, user friendly GUI and functionality set. I have used 7 different systems over the years, with the top 4 big names having the largest hours operating. Most have less functionality, others are severely overpriced and under featured. Still others are so complicated you need an entire IT department to implement them. Contractor Foreman does much of what it does the absolute best for the money, meaning this is probably the best value for construction management software I'm aware of. I believe I can say with confidence, that if CF does it, it strives to do it well, and continues to strive to get it better. Picking a feature or two that excels is rather pointless in a company with that outlook. THAT is a company I can get behind...
Read full review Plutio is great for the individual who is constantly on the go, managing a wealth of online information and projects. I can see those who work in education, such as administration, or technology coaches/teacher coaches using a platform like this to stay organized. Freelance or consultants would also benefit as it can manage your digital self.
Read full review Pros Estimates Project management Lead management - tracking where they are in the funnel and having web lead automatically pull into the system. Read full review Task management is excellent. It can be broken down into so many levels and makes it easy to keep track of what needs to be done. The ability to customize your method of using it is key. Setting it up to both look and work in a way that fits your company and employees is very important and Plutio does this very well. Read full review Cons Some of the modules like checklists and forms are confusing and hard to use some of the training videos or versions of an old outdated version of the software Would like to see a more efficent way of creating a submittal log generated from a specification book Read full review The design of the invoices, when I used it, was not as sleek as I would have wanted it to be. There wasn't a proper template that I could use. Similar to the design of the invoice, there wasn't a proper email template I could use. The app itself didn't seem to be very secure, when I used it, it seemed to be buggy/clunky in some areas, not updating properly, etc. When I used this, there wasn't a professional-looking contract, and there was no auto sending of the contract once an action was taken by a client, such as payment. It didn't make for a smooth enough workflow for me. Read full review Likelihood to Renew Eliminated the need for our team to log into multiple systems to do their jobs which aligns to our Lean approach
Read full review Usability The GUI is not always so intuitive for non IT people, like some customers. The GUI is still being developed constantly. Leo is very committed to taking this platform forward and making it more and more professional
Read full review Support Rating I rarely give anyone a 9 or 10 rating for service. The main reason for this rating is Contractor Foreman's dedication to improvement. To be completely frank, CF has fallen down on their tech help with me several times, but I am an exceptionally difficult user to service as I tend to use a product up to it's limits and want more. CF has actually addressed these wants several times (after waits that seemed interminable, but were actually pretty damn fast in the reality of software development)
Read full review I have only needed to reach out for support once and got a quick response. There was an issue with the Mac app, but I knew it was in beta. Leo, the owner, was quick to reply thanking me for letting him know about the issue, that the Mac app is still in beta, and that I can use the web version in the meantime until the bug was fixed.
Read full review Alternatives Considered I've used
Buildertrend and Conconstruct near daily for a little over 10 years. They were both pretty solid. But the price kept going up without much value being added to the software. As they grew, they didn't upgrade with the growth, so the sites became slower. Contractor Forman has all the functionality of the others, and several other tools that they don't. There are several tools our company doesn't even use yet that look great. It's not perfect, and the learning curve due to its increased capability is a bit of a challenge. But overall, it is superior in every way that mattered to us, and more affordable.
Read full review I have tried Suite Dash, Agiled, FlowLu throughout the process of finding a tool that fits our business the best. Plutio was the easiest to deploy and use by far. The other systems had more features and capability but was pretty difficult to learn how to use and set up. We were up and running with Plutio in a matter of hours with a business process, rather than a spreadsheet and an independent proposal and invoicing process.
Read full review Return on Investment We don't have to double enter our job information anymore (estimates, bills, labor hours) to show employees what they need to see. Specific access within Contractor Foreman does that for us. It's taken us longer to learn how Contractor Foreman works within itself than we thought it would, so implementation is taking a little longer than ideal. However, we have been learning a lot along the way about the easiest ways to use the workflow that Contractor Foreman has. Read full review This has afforded my colleague and I a place to stay organized and keep track of projects we are working on without losing documents. We have been able to hold each other accountable on tasks we are working on and delegate projects. This has sped up our time in gathering everything we need when meeting or running a show. Read full review ScreenShots Contractor Foreman Screenshots