Tankersley Construction: Accurately track construction labor costs with a time tracking app

Their story: Bringing large-scale project management skills to smaller jobs

With their background in the industry’s commercial sector, Steven and Heather were no strangers to construction tech. The duo knew when they founded their company they needed an advanced system to keep job details organized, traceable and recorded in one spot. However, they also knew the tech tools used for their previous repertoire of large-scale jobs might be overkill in the residential space.

It was time to find a new solution – a happy medium. Tankersley Construction needed a system that gave them the scalability and agility they were used to without being cumbersome or loaded full of features they would never use.

Six months into business, they found Buildertrend. It was just what they were looking for.

“I liked how Buildertrend gave us the ability to keep everything centralized like we were used to on commercial jobs, but it was made on a scale to fit our new scope of projects,” Heather said. “I knew this was the tool to keep the guys organized. So, if it was Saturday at 2 p.m. and they needed to find something, they could do that. I got excited and said, ‘Let’s dive in!’”

Their solution: Mastering construction tech at their own pace

Next-level organization and collaboration doesn’t happen overnight. That’s why even as the Tankersley Construction team dove into Buildertrend, they made sure to not drown in everything the system could do.

There are more than 20 features and limitless ways to leverage their combined might. It’s easy to get overwhelmed or want to pull all the levers at once. Instead, Steven and Heather followed the guidance of their onboarding team and kept the learning process simple.

“Let’s say an employee has five jobs to go to that day. To-Do’s is how they keep track of it all,” Heather said. “We can assign something, change dates. They can add pictures and check stuff off as they go. In real time, the team knows what needs to happen and if it got done.”

With these initial features under their belts, the team has since conquered most of the program, including Daily Logs, Selections, the Budget and Messaging. All that knowledge came together recently to save them thousands on a job.

Tankersley Construction was wrapping up a project and needed a sub to come in and finish some work since they had $3,000 left on their contract. When the sub stopped responding, Steven and Heather’s team finished the work themselves. A year later, they received a bill from the sub for the remaining amount.

“We didn’t remember what happened, but because of Buildertrend, we were able to quickly figure it out,” Steven said. “We saw the amount remaining on the contract matched to invoices. Then we went through messages, timecards, punch lists and logs. Anybody picking up the pieces could figure out we didn’t owe him. It all worked together to create a detailed record of the project.”

Their success: Digital documentation that helps both contractor and clients

For Tankersley Construction, the old adage rings true: The best things come to those who wait. They didn’t impatiently tackle all of Buildertrend at once, only to become overwhelmed and quit the program. Instead, they mastered Buildertrend’s features one by one, before moving on to the next. This allowed them to truly strengthen their business by better leveraging each digital tool’s capabilities together.

Today, that patience has paid off. The efficiency has allowed them to grow in the number of building projects they handle each year.

“It’s kept my sanity,” Heather said. “I don’t see how we would keep everything aligned and deliver a project in a timely manner without Buildertrend.”

For this team, the real win goes back to their original goal of organization. Our construction tech platform has allowed the team to keep a tidy archive of all project details, which has protected them financially throughout several renovations.

“There are hundreds of photos stored throughout a project’s lifespan. That documentation has been a big saver for us when recording existing damage. It protects us and the client.” Steven said. “We took it slow, but now Buildertrend is a game changer.”