Contractor Foreman vs. Workamajig

As the name suggests, Contractor Foreman is GREAT for general contractors. However, being a consultant, I feel as though if upper management within the company I serve were more tech-savvy, they could accomplish much of the same tasks on other platforms that could give more advanced metrics. I also feel that the platform may feel outdated on purpose to ensure that those general contractors who aren't as tech savvy can understand the platform more.

Incentivized

I think this holds true to almost any CRM, but if you want to truly utilize it you sort of need to go all in. This can become tough with WMJ because it doesn't offer some critical options that many other CRMs do, like the ability to create and send emails, e-newsletters, to throttle and invite outside clients to look at projects, etc. As such we're pairing Workamajig with Hubspot (and slowly phasing out Mailchimp) and trying to keep the data clean and flowing between them all is pretty tough. I'm also not aware of any API bridge from Wordpress to Workamajig so while I can program and feed my leads from my site into the other spaces, Workamajig remains a manual entry for any insertions you want, even if simply as a CSV import.

But - if you're not worried about that and simply want to manage projects, budget time, and scope things, it's a robust system allowing you to do so.

Incentivized

• The service is top notch. You would be hard pressed to find other options with this kind of service.
• The ability to have your project flow through the modules makes it a breeze to use.
• Being able to track time as well is a key feature.

Incentivized

• WMJ is a full-stack solution, so you can track the life of a project from beginning to end, and all of the financials associated with it.
• Time entry is easy.
• Project management is robust and yields a tremendous amount of information.
• WMJ has a "sheets"-based interface, which makes navigating thru modules easier.
• There is more than one way to complete any particular task.

Incentivized

• In the CDB, I'd like to be able to create a line item with a specified percentage, and when I pull that line item into an estimate or proposal, I'd like the system to automatically calculate it based on that contract value. (Example, Contingency line is always going to be 15% of the contract value).
• I'd like to be able to rearrange "blocks" on a page when I'm getting ready to send or print it. Lots of dead space on pages. Estimates 4 pages in total when it could be 2.
• I'd like to be able to create budget summaries. Where the line items are grouped into their respective master format categories, and the category has the sum of all the line items in that category.

• Auto-schedule population - The most inconvenient thing about using JIG was that the dates wouldn't auto-populate. Example: I move the review date but the rest of the dates stay the same. Depending on each project level, if one date is adjusted the rest should update as well. That way we aren't spending a lot of time moving dates around manually.
• Notifications - JIG should have desktop notifications so we can see when tasks are on us even when we aren't in JIG.

Incentivized

We have compiled so much information on CF it would be counterproductive to move to another software. We have also sold a lot of clients on the client portal feature. It is crucial for our communication between customers. The only reason we wouldn't renew the service is if somewhere offered the exact same service but at a lower cost

Incentivized

Overall, Contractor Foreman is a great product, and I’m sure we’ve only scratched the surface of everything it has to offer. It can be a little quirky at times, occasionally displaying a 'Bad Gateway' message, but we haven’t experienced any timeout issues in the past few months. As we continue to use it, I’m confident we’ll uncover even more ways to streamline our workflow

Incentivized

Availability was good, FUNCTIONAL availability was more spotty

Incentivized

Many times we had issues that turned out to be errors and bugs. At first, we would be told forcefully that there were no bugs, then we would document them, and we would get an acknowledgement but no apology for essentially either gaslighting us or being ignorant of their system

Incentivized

We have only had one issue the entire time we have had Contractor Foreman and that was that we had the hardest time getting the platform to allow us to log in, but we called our support and within 5 mins we able to log back in

Incentivized

The team that does your implementation is amazing. They're skillful, kind, they will take as much time as you need, and they have a sense of urgency

Incentivized

A few of them were too specialized, and we're trying to limit the amount of software we have data entry into. Buildertrend was probably the biggest competitor we reviewed, but the cost and migration effort didn't seem enticing to us as a business. I think Contractor Foreman has its own quirks, but once you understand the methodology behind the software, it works very well, and at the price, it's hard to imagine migrating away to something that does the exact same thing for 2-3x the cost (plus all the data migration).

We've used QuickBooks and it didn't align well with our business, so there were a lot of insights I wanted from the numbers, but couldn't get. We use Basecamp, which is easy, but can get disorganized pretty quickly and takes discipline to stay structured.

Incentivized

We had just 2 users

Incentivized

• It has allowed for more structure within the company
• It has given more clear communication from the sales office to the field
• It has increased the capacity of projects we are able to take on by allowing them to flow smoother and have less wasted time on projects

• The subscription expense and IT overhead has been substantial. That being said at the time of implementation, most other competing platforms were in line with their pricing.
• As more competitive alternatives have come to market we would have probably gone with an entirely cloud base alternative at a lower price.
• We ended up with ClickUp as our primary project management platform. If our finance/accounting software wasn't already so integrated with Workamjig we would probably switch to it entirely.

Incentivized