From survey to payroll without typing it in three times

One office platform, 252 screens, built next to a working refurbishment contractor over a year of real jobs. The survey becomes the quote. The week sheet the lads fill in becomes the payroll figure. Nothing is re-typed on the way.

It runs that contractor's live payroll and live jobs today. If it stopped, their office would notice within the hour.

The four pillars

Win. Price. Ready. Run.

01 · WIN

Chasing quotes until they're won or dead

Every quote and call-out on one board, sorted by how long it has waited — the screen shows which jobs have gone quiet, and the chase is queued instead of forgotten.

Quotes — live this week Flat refurbishment — Weybridge £48,200 · sent 6 days ago · no reply chase queued today Kitchen strip-out — Esher £9,400 · sent 2 days ago reply received Office refit — Caterham £22,750 · sent 14 days ago lost — reason logged nothing on this board goes quiet without someone deciding it should
The quotes board — every open quote, oldest silence first. Drawn to scale; sample data.

02 · PRICE

Pricing a refurbishment job from the survey

Survey photos and notes go in; a scoped, priced draft comes out for your check. Once trained on your past quotes, it drafts from what your firm has actually charged — never from an industry rate book — and a person checks every draft.

Survey → priced quote draft — your check SURVEY — BATHROOM, FIRST FLOOR 14 photos · 6 rooms · voice notes “strip out full bathroom, retile walls and floor, new sanitaryware throughout, make good ceiling after leak” photo photo SCOPE & PRICE — DRAFT Strip out & prep £2,380 Re-tile walls & floor, 22 m² £1,890 Sanitaryware supply & fit £1,240 Ceiling — make good & paint £640 Labour total £6,150 + materials from your suppliers’ prices drafted from this firm’s own past quotes — corrected by a human before it goes anywhere
Survey in, priced scope out — drafted from the firm's own history, checked by a person. Drawn to scale; sample data.

03 · READY

Certificate expiry, tracked before it matters

Insurances, accreditations and licences in one vault, each with a countdown — the lapsed one is red at the top of the screen, not a surprise in a tender.

Company vault — expiry watch Employers' Liability insurance LAPSED — act now CHAS accreditation 14 days Public Liability insurance 26 days Waste Carrier Licence 88 days Gas Safe registration 203 days
The vault — every certificate, its evidence and its countdown, worst first. Drawn to scale; sample data.

04 · RUN

Site hours into a payroll figure

The lads log hours against the job with a PIN — no app, no training week. The office sees the week build up live, and the payroll figure comes out the other end of the same screen.

Week sheet — week 34 live OPERATIVE MON TUE WED THU FRI TOTAL Carpenter — D.R. 888.587.5 40.0 Plasterer — P.L. 89888 41.0 Electrician — S.O. 88108 34.0 Decorator — C.R. 7.58888 39.5 + 4 more on site this week 8 operatives · 312.5 hours logged against jobs rates applied · overtime split out · ready for payroll export the figure
The week sheet — hours typed once, by the person who worked them. Drawn to scale; sample data.

Said plainly, before you ask

The pricing engine is not useful on day one — it has never seen your jobs. It is trained on your firm's own quotes over its first ninety days, a person checks every draft while it happens, and that training period is part of the work — sold as training, never as finished. Anyone who tells you their pricing software is right out of the box is describing a rate book, not your business.

Against BigChange, Planyard and Simpro

Six things the platforms can't say

It prices the job, not just tracks it

BigChange manages the job after you've won it. Planyard costs it after you've priced it. Neither turns a survey into a priced quote. This does — survey photos and notes in, scope and price out.

Your prices, not industry averages

Every other tool ships a rate library you maintain by hand and nobody maintains. This one is trained on your firm's own past quotes, and it records every correction your estimator makes, against the job it was made on — the rate book it prices from is yours.

One system, not five

Most firms this size are running a job tracker, a spreadsheet for quotes, a WhatsApp group for the week, a folder for certificates, and a bookkeeper for the hours. One login here. The week sheet the lads fill in is the same data the payroll comes out of.

It's yours — your domain, your server, your data

Not a seat you rent. Not a queue position on somebody's roadmap. You can export it, and if you ever stop, the data is still yours.

Changes happen in days, because it's your copy

Ask BigChange for a field on the week sheet and it goes on a roadmap. Ask here and it's live this week — the whole system exists because a refurbishment contractor kept saying "can it also do…" and it kept doing it.

Built for the office manager, not the software buyer

Runs on Windows. PIN logins for the lads on site. No app to install, no training week. It was built next to the people using it, in the language they already use — the office says "the week sheet" and the system calls it the week sheet.

Asked plainly, answered plainly

Before you ask on a call

Is there software that prices a refurbishment job from the survey?

Yes — this platform turns survey photos and notes into a scoped, priced draft, once it has been trained on the firm's own past quotes over its first ninety days. It is not useful on day one, and a person checks every draft. Most job-management tools track the job after you have priced it; this one drafts the price.

How is this different from BigChange, Planyard or Simpro?

BigChange manages the job after you've won it and Planyard costs it after you've priced it; neither turns a survey into a priced quote. This platform also runs on the firm's own domain and server rather than a rented seat, and changes ship in days because each client has their own copy, not a place in a product roadmap.

How do site hours become a payroll figure?

Operatives log hours against the job from a phone with a PIN — no app, no training week. The office watches the week build up live, rates and overtime are applied, and the payroll figure is exported from the same screen. Nothing is re-typed.

How quickly does certificate and accreditation tracking work?

From week one. Certificate tracking, the week sheet, job boards and the other operations modules need only typed-in data — upload the documents, set the expiry dates, and the countdown starts. Only the pricing engine needs a training period.

Where to start

Not ready for a platform? That's the normal case.

Most firms need the work coming in reliably before a system earns its keep. Before the System is the ladder for that — starting with a free teardown of your own firm, in writing. There is also a working demo of this platform with a login and made-up data: ask, and it lands in your inbox — no meeting attached.

Get the free teardown WhatsApp