The Construction Junction featuring Jobtread

In this exciting episode of the Construction Junction podcast, we explore the intersection of accounting and construction. We dissect common issues faced by construction company owners and accountants, and discuss the role of software developers. Do they truly comprehend your needs, or is it a one-size-fits-all approach? Tune in as we delve into the significance of industry-experienced software developers and discuss the concept of 'eating your own dog food', a term representing thorough understanding of customer needs.

We also discuss the transition into the cloud-based era and the benefits it brings. Our special guest, Eric Fortenberry, founder and CEO of JobTread reveals his journey and how the software could revolutionize the industry.

The podcast provides valuable insights about transitioning from traditional project management to a modernized approach in construction business. Find out how you can bridge the gap between accounting and construction and leverage technology to your advantage with this episode.

Advancements in Construction: JobTread’s Journey to Enhance Profitability and Efficiency

In this episode, we take a deep dive into the creation and evolution of JobTread, a software built based on firsthand industry needs. The software has helped organize business operations and increase gross profit by 43% for users. Discover its user-friendly interface, automated processes, and API-first approach benefitting users with seamless integrations and real-time data synchronization.

We tackle the challenges of technological advancement, emphasizing the need for readiness to adopt newer technologies and not get left behind. Hear about the importance of budget-based estimation and how accurate budgeting and costing can prevent risky situations in construction.

Each construction company has unique needs. It's crucial to have software that can specifically cater to your business. Learn about how JobTread's versatility allows it to serve different types of businesses in the construction industry, showcasing its adaptability and the power of custom-tailored solutions.

Elevating the Construction Business: JobTread’s Impact on Customer Experience and Collaboration

Offering an exceptional customer experience can elevate your business in the construction industry. We delve into how JobTread has been able to streamline this process, from catering to clients' specific needs to facilitating seamless operations regardless of the scale of the construction job. Learn more about how JobTread's simulations help turn tough negotiations into agreeable outcomes.

This episode also highlights JobTread’s partnerships with accountants and how this program is opening up new opportunities for businesses. We also discuss JobTread’s vast experience in the construction industry and how their comprehensive resources can assist you in setting up your own business.

Tap into JobTread’s collection of training programs, live sessions, and certification modules to give your business the boost it needs. Find out how you can revolutionize your construction business with JobTread at www.jobtread.com.

Episode Transcript

(00:04):
The Profit Constructors presents Construction Junction, the junction between
accounting and construction.
Please welcome our host, Tanya Schulte.
Hi, and welcome back to another edition of the Construction Junction podcast.
I am your host, Tanya Schulte, and I am so glad that you're joining us again today.

(00:27):
Have you ever wondered as a construction company owner, or as an accountant
in the construction industry, if some of the software developers that you're
working with actually get it? Do they understand?
Are they listening? Well, today we're going to be talking to a software developer

(00:49):
that I think really does get it, does understand, and truly is listening.
And it's such a breath of fresh air There are so many software developers out
there who understand a need and maybe dive in to solve the need.
But I think it's a rare developer that comes from the background of actually

(01:11):
having to work in a construction company to develop the software before they
dive in and just start to sort of understand the need and work from outside the industry.
Have you ever heard the term eating your own dog food?
I had to look it up because I wasn't sure where it came from.
And there's actually some discrepancy.

(01:32):
Some people say that in the 1970s, Alpo advertisements, Lauren Green used to
point out that he fed Alpo to his own dogs.
Could come from that. Some other people say that Kalkan pet food,
the president of Kalkan actually ate dog food at the shareholders meetings. I don't know.
That seems to be taking up maybe a step too far to eat your own dog food.

(01:54):
But whatever the case is, you've probably heard the term.
And I think in the case of this particular software developer,
that's exactly what's happening here, right?
When you eat your own dog food, you go out and you understand what truly does your customer need.
And not only do you understand what they need from an external perspective,

(02:16):
to really eat your own dog food means to understand it from an internal perspective. Right.
This particular software developer did that. They actually got down in the trenches,
managed a construction company, and began to understand the dearth of software
for that industry that really fit, that was affordable,

(02:38):
and that could actually get the job done in a way that makes sense to keep the
contractor going out in the field to get things done that the office needs.
There's just so many parts and pieces in this industry that must play together well.
And so for me, that's one of the most interesting facets and aspects of the

(02:59):
evolution of this software.
When you think about what you need in a software, I have a good friend. His name is Jim McCarty.
He is a construction-centric CPA.
And one of the things that he says all the time is, I need to make the cash
registering. ring. If I'm a construction company owner, I need to make the cash register ring.

(03:19):
And while when we're in a retail environment, that's a simple thing to understand,
right? So how do I make the cash register ring?
Someone walks through the door, they pick up an item off my shelf and they bring
it up to the front and they say they want to buy it.
In this industry, while the goal is the same, I need to make the cash register ring.
It's not as simple a process to do that as it is in In the retail space.

(03:45):
And so in terms of making the cash register ring, which I think is one of,
if not the most important aspects of what you want to the software to help you do.
I think this particular solution and software does help you do that.
One of the things I want to talk about and point out and highlight before we

(04:06):
get into talking to our expert who is coming from this piece of software is
the idea that I keep using the term software because I'm a little bit old school.
Maybe I might have been around in that decade where Lauren Green pointed out
that his dog ate Alpo, but we'll leave it at that.

(04:27):
Software is an interesting term these days, something that's changing.
And we are moving into a cloud-based world.
Here at The Profit Constructors, one of our cultural values is embrace technological progress.
Not gonna lie, my business coach says that I am not allowed to have negative cultural values.
So he wouldn't let me keep that cultural value the way I originally wrote it.

(04:50):
And again, I'm gonna date myself here, but here we go.
Our original cultural value in that spot was don't be Kodak.
I watched the evolution of Kodak and I saw, I actually was an amateur photographer
myself back in my high school days and used to really enjoy going out and taking photographs on film.
But Kodak decided, someone in their leadership decided early on in the early

(05:14):
days of digital film, or digital film, again, dating myself,
in the early days of digital,
that real, quote unquote, real photographers would never embrace digital photography anymore.
They were very wrong, right? Now we all know how wrong they were.
And so that is one of the reasons why one of our cultural core values has always

(05:37):
been that we want to embrace technological progress.
Because I think it's very important to be looking ahead and to be seeing the
landscape and seeing how things are changing and not be drug screaming off of
a cliff and have to change our process overnight or have to change our thought
process about something overnight,

(05:58):
I think it's very important to be looking ahead and seeing, okay,
what is happening in our industry and how can we get out ahead of that?
And so the reason I'm bringing all of that up is that this term software is
something that really was invented when we bought our hardware,
which is the computer that I'm recording this on right now.
And then we often would go out and buy the software, which was a disc that we

(06:19):
could insert somehow into that.
Well, I don't know about you, but I haven't bought a computer that I could put
any sort of external disk, like slide that disk right in, in years.
Those don't exist anymore.
So when we talk about software, like I said, this is sort of this outdated term,
this sort of kind of going away because we all are moving into the cloud.
And that's one of the things that very much excites me about this particular

(06:43):
app is that they are cloud-based and that the information that is entered into it can be
accessed from almost anywhere if you have a good internet connection and can be utilized real time.
Again, if you don't want to be Kodak, sorry, Brian, my business coach.
If you want to be able to embrace technological progress, if you want to present

(07:05):
yourself as a contractor who understands the latest and greatest technology
and knows how to leverage it and use it for the betterment of your clients.
Then you're going to have to get into that cloud-based world.
Not only that, and that sounded almost negative, right?
Like you're going to have to get into that cloud-based world.
That's not even how I want it to be taken.
You really have this grand opportunity to step into the cloud-based world and

(07:29):
to be able to present yourself in a light that other contractors aren't and
to be able to be that contractor that can get some information to your clients at the drop of a hat,
that has a selection portal for your clients to select, you know,
what finishes they want to have in their remodel or in their new home build.
So being able to be that cutting edge provider of services really is going to

(07:52):
give you a leg up against some of your competitors.
And that's something I think that should be also super important to you above all other things.
So what's important to you in an app, not software.
What's important to you as we move forward in this technological age and what
types of things can hand, help you make the cash register ring,
help you set yourself apart from your competitors,

(08:13):
and at the end of the day, help you sleep better at night because you truly
understand your numbers and what's happening on each of your jobs.
Well, I'm going to tell you when we come back, and you're going to meet a friend
of mine who's built just such an app. We'll talk soon.
If you would like to share your company or product on the Construction Junction,
email hello at theprofitconstructors.com to become a sponsor.

(08:40):
Welcome back to this segment of the Construction Junction podcast.
My name is Tanya Schulte and I'm thrilled to be joined by my guest today,
the founder and CEO of JobTread, Eric Fortuneberry. Welcome, Eric.
Thanks. Appreciate you having me on, Tanya. Yeah, it's so good to have you.
I know we've kind of been like chatting with each other online and I met several

(09:03):
members of your team and and got to chat with Riley a little bit recently,
who's a great person on your team.
But it's so great to really sit down and have a conversation with you finally.
Yeah, I know. It's been a long time coming, I feel like. Yeah.
Well, tell us about JobTread. As you know, I met Riley about a little over a
year ago because we met at last year's International Builders Show up in Las

(09:26):
Vegas and got to chatting.
I've had a chance to dive in and play around and do some testing in your software.
A little sneak peek, I think a good friend and colleague of mine,
Matthew Fulton, are going to do some recording and testing in your software
and actually record that.
So that's coming up. So if you're listening to the podcast now, keep an eye out for that.
But tell us about JobTread. Tell us sort of what got JobTread going.

(09:50):
Tell us the kind of story of JobTread.
Yeah, so I was just kind of helping a buddy of mine who was running a construction
company here in Dallas, Texas.
He had asked me to come over, help him figure out how to scale the business.
They were, you know, doing about 5 million in revenue at the time,
had about 10 employees, but just really, really struggling to,
to break through that $5 million glass ceiling.

(10:11):
You know, they, I think this is their fifth year in business or so.
And he, you know, he's like, can you just come over to the office, see what we're doing?
I'm like, all right, sure. I'll come over and check it out. And,
you know, I walk in and I just, I see like, you know, papers and binders everywhere.
Like it just, it felt very chaotic, if you will, very unorganized.
Like, you know, I literally see the time sheets walking in the door,
you know, going into to this folder and then, you know, they turn off every

(10:33):
bill, put it in this, you know, binder, and then they're putting it on the wall,
waiting for the project manager to come in.
And, you know, whenever that may be, and he would, you know,
sign off on it and then someone would take it and, you know,
type it into this spreadsheet.
And then that got copied to this other spreadsheet. And then it got manually
entered into QuickBooks.
And I was just like, holy cow, like my mind's like a little bit blown here thinking
like, wow, like you guys just need some software or something to streamline this business.

(10:56):
And, you know, that was when I essentially just kind of did a,
did a deep deep dive. I was like, let me just go find you something.
And, you know, looked at everything out there, made this massive spreadsheet,
comparing all the features, the, you know, the pros, the cons, the cost.
And the, at the end of the day, they're like, I struggled to make a recommendation
for these guys because, you know, I felt like a lot of the software out there
was either, you know, seemed a little bit antiquated, had been started 10, 15, 20 years ago,

(11:20):
you know, or it looked like it might take a lot to, to implement,
to customize, you know, or super super expensive.
And, you know, I just, I, I struggled, you know, to, to, to,
to pick one for, for these guys.
And, you know, they were like, well, you know, Eric, you're,
you're a software developer.
Can't you just build us something? I was like, whoa, hold on.
I'm not, not, not trying to create another one off that you're going to have

(11:40):
to maintain and deal with.
Like, you know, you guys are construction guys, not software guys.
So me creating something didn't, didn't really seem like the best fit,
but you know, eventually they, they, they kept pushing me and,
you know, just spent a lot of time thinking about it.
And, you know, I ended up coming back him saying look you know this is
this sounds like you know a great opportunity and i told him i'd
give him you know three three conditions you know and i was willing to do it

(12:01):
you know one i took over a ceo you know two i give them one year and three everything
i built was my intellectual property so that if this had the potential to be
my next software company because i had previously built and sold one you know
i'd have that have that option you know after that one year so,
They agreed, made me partner, made me CEO. You know, I took over the business
and just started at the beginning and started focusing on, you know,

(12:24):
let's, let's figure out like, why can we not hit our target profit margins?
You know, it was, it was like just a total crapshoot on how we were going to
perform on any given job.
And so like, I was like, you know, okay, let's just start at the beginning of
estimating, you know, how are we coming up with our price? Like what, what is going into this?
And I started shadowing the estimators and, you know, sure enough,
you know, a lot of them are just kind of pulling number out of thin air,
just kind of making things up and, you know, some, a lot of,

(12:46):
a lot of, you know, buddy, buddy deals, you know, back of the envelope type things.
Well, you know, push come to shove, you know, they're like, Hey,
yeah, we agree to the work. We'll hand that off to the project manager.
Like how in the world did you come up with that?
You know? So again, it's a total, total crapshoot on, on that.
And you know, some of the guys are using markup to, to calculate price instead
of margin. You know, that was a huge difference.
And so I realized I was like, all right, put away your calculators and we're

(13:09):
going to build what is what, what they really became the foundation of job which is the budget,
you know, and so every job now has that budget tool where I wanted them to focus
on figuring out what are all of the costs that are going to go into this job,
you know, whether it's the labor, the material, the, you know, permits,
equipment, anything and everything that you could think of that is going to go into this job.
I wanted them to focus on documenting that and having a well-defined scope of work.

(13:34):
And then ultimately the software would just calculate the price based on the cost.
And I'd say that was probably one of the biggest biggest transitions that we
had, but it really helped us to focus on like documenting everything,
you know, because we weren't able to even issue change orders because there was nothing defined.
You know, when we got into it. And so this was like a huge transition for us.

(13:55):
And after, you know, focusing on the estimate and then I turned to the project
management, you know, the scheduling pieces,
the, you know, leveraging purchase orders and work orders to track our cost
in real time, doing all the job costing, you know, and then kind of at the last
last phase, it was, was really integrating with QuickBooks.
And, you know, I might've should have started there. Like when I stepped into
this business, we had over $800,000 of AR, like almost a million dollars of

(14:19):
hard-earned money that we weren't even focused on collecting.
Like, you know, to make things worse, the owners, they kept taking the AR and
they would go back to the bank and they were collateralizing that AR and they
were taking out $200,000 lines of credit it one after another.
I was just like, guys, hold on. This is crazy.
We had already earned the money, but we were going to have to write off so much

(14:41):
of it because we never followed up.
It kind of got me like, well, how did this even happen? And so I found that,
field guys, they would tell the, you know, we had a, we had one person in the office.
She was awesome, but like, you know, you can only do so much,
you know, doing AR, AP, you know, and so they would say, Hey,
can you send that invoice?
Well, she would send it. But then, you know, she just assumed that the field

(15:02):
guys would be able to follow up because she was dealing with everything else.
Well, you know, they had no visibility into QuickBooks, so they had no idea
if we got paid or not, you know, so they're both sort of looking at each other
and assuming the other ones doing the follow-up, nobody did the follow-up.
And consequently, we just, you know, ended up with hundreds of thousands of dollars of AR.
So that's where I was like, all right, we got to integrate this with QuickBooks,

(15:23):
automatically creating the invoices, having that payment status go back and forth.
So the neat thing out of this whole thing is that we built JobTread out of a needs basis.
It was created as I was running this construction company firsthand,
understanding what are our challenges and how do we need to solve these to get
a much better, much more well-run construction company.

(15:45):
And at the end of that That year, we grew them from 5 to 8 million in sales,
increased our gross profit by 43%. You know, lo and behold, you implement a
system, processes, you track the right KPIs, you can hit your goals.
You just got to, you know, go about it in the right way.
And, you know, that was in 2018.
So started JobTread officially in 2019, you know, recruited some developers from my last company.

(16:08):
They came on, rebuilt everything, did a much better job than what I did creating it.
But we started selling it in 2021, got it to like 200 companies.
70s, 2022, we got it to around a thousand, 2023, we, I think we ended around 2200. Our goal was 2000.
We got to like 2200 this year. Our goal is 4000 or it was 4000.
We've already passed 3000.

(16:28):
So I think we're going to need to up our goal a little bit, but,
uh, you know, it's, it's just been really taken off.
Awesome. I love that. I love the whole story. I love your concept that you are
saying you built it from a needs basis, right? Like you were in the day-to-day work.
I think that's one of the best founder stories I've heard in terms of like a
software for the construction industry,

(16:49):
because it is so hard sometimes to come in as a developer with no understanding
or basis in this industry and really truly understand the needs of the industry.
So, yeah, there's definitely a lot of a lot of software gets built with people
who don't fully understand the needs and understand, like, you know,
what it's like to be in those those roles in those positions.

(17:11):
I mean, you know, it's it's something that, you know, I just I feel very strongly
about, you know, being able to build something while you're using it so that
you can truly understand it. Yeah, no, it's fantastic.
You said quite a bit of stuff in there that I want to dive into and learn some more about.
You said when you first started researching what's out there,

(17:31):
and believe me, you know me, been there, done that.
I want to touch every piece of software that's out there for the construction
industry and find out, right?
I always want to know what's out there and what's available for contractors
to use. So I've touched so many of them myself.
But one of the things that you said was that there were so many that were either
antiquated or hard to implement or expensive.

(17:52):
So I'd love to find out, like, how does JobTread solve for all those things?
Obviously, it's new. It's fresh. You just built it not that long ago.
But how do you like kind of solve for all those things you were finding that
that didn't quite work with those other softwares?
Yeah, I tell people all the time, look, we're not reinventing the wheel.
The fundamentals of managing a construction business, they haven't really changed.

(18:12):
We're just leveraging modern technology.
You know, we're able to build an easier to use, easier to learn,
you know, much faster application that, you know, just it's just it's just more
intuitive, you know, compared to what people may be used to.
To, you know, I mean, the Facebooks and kind of the standard,
you know, Gmail and all those things that people are used to using this day
and age, you know, we're able to take a lot of those kind of designs and those

(18:36):
concepts to try to implement and make it feel a lot more kind of what they're
used to using versus kind of that old,
you know, Windows 98 or DOS looking interface or something super antiquated,
you know, everything is tied together in a much more seamless experience,
you know, so that you're not reentering the same information over and over.
I mean, I mean, I saw a lot of those systems where, you know,

(18:56):
you create, you know, your budget or you do your estimate.
And then when you come in to create your purchase orders, your work orders,
you're having to reenter all the same information over and over and over again.
And so with us and with JobTread, I mean, it's all linked back to that budget.
And so you can just seamlessly select the things that need to be on a document
and just add them to it. You don't have to reenter the information.

(19:16):
You know, I think that also one of our approaches that's different than a lot
of others is that, you know, we're, we're, we're what we would call like an API first company.
So, you know, from the very beginning, my, my co-founder is really,
really big on making sure that everything we do, you know, is,
is done first at an API level.
And what that means is, and not to get too techie here, but like,

(19:36):
that's like an application programming interface.
So our, our user interface, the application that people use is built on top of our own API.
But what this really does is this makes it easy for us to be able to connect
and integrate with other systems.
You know, we're, we're not this like closed gated, like, you know,
you have to use it this way. You know, we, we enable, you know,

(19:56):
other software applications.
I mean, really even our customers, if they want some of them do,
you know, to build and extend the functionality of job tread beyond what you
can do within our interface.
I think in this day and age, it's so important for, you know,
software companies to, to really understand that, like, we don't have to do
everything and we can't do everything.

(20:17):
I mean, we could try, but it wouldn't be great. You know, and so I believe very,
very strongly that like, it's important that, you know, we're able to play well
with others and that, you know, what construction companies needs is one connected
ecosystem of all of their software and their applications.
And so information can seamlessly flow from one to the other without having

(20:37):
to be manually reentered, without having to worry about, you know,
fat fingering issues and typos and things not, you know, going back and forth.
You know, that's the real power of, you know, an API based, you know, software.
And so I think that that's been a huge differentiator for us.
A lot of people don't really fully like kind of grasp what that means,
but it enables us to, to, to integrate with other applications.

(20:59):
And so we've been very, very big on that. And, you know, it's been really neat
seeing other companies are, are now building applications like into JobTread
without us having to do much at all, which is, which is awesome.
You know, a lot of times, like, you know, we, we do build the integrations ourselves.
You know, like with QuickBooks and things like that, obviously,
like we need to make sure that that's built, you know, very,
very kind of, you know, kind of natively within our application.

(21:21):
But other things can be built and extended on, you know, based on the,
you know, the customer's wants and needs.
And I think that's a really, really neat differentiator between us.
It is. It's amazing. It's actually one of the things that I've been arguing
for the entire lifetime of our accounting firm,
The Profit Constructors, is that's, to me, one of the great benefits of moving

(21:44):
forward into this cloud-based world is being able to have that app ecosphere
where everything is talking to each other.
I've argued for a long time that a lot of the construction firms that were really
tied to QuickBooks Desktop and they were reluctant to give up and move into
QuickBooks Online were giving up a lot of functionality because once you pair QuickBooks Online,

(22:07):
which is rightfully so quite limited.
Once you pair it with another piece of software that's actually built for the
industry that you work in, whereas QuickBooks Desktop never was.
It was just built for accounting.
Once you pair QuickBooks Online with all these other apps, and in your case,
you're doing the same thing.
You've got JobTread sort of now functioning as that like center hub of,

(22:29):
and then you have these spokes of the wheel, right?
So I love that. I think that that's one of the most brilliant ways
facets of this new cloud-based world that we live in is having the ability to
have these softwares integrate almost seamlessly, right?
Yeah. And in real time too, you know what I mean? It's like being able to just
like when something happens over here, it's instantly over there.
Like, I mean, that's, there's tremendous value in that, you know,

(22:51):
with QuickBooks desktop, you know, you're waiting on the sync schedule and having
to use the web connector.
I mean, like I would say like we did and we do have an integration with it,
but man, it is a whole whole different, you know, ballgame, you know,
compared to being able to integrate with web-based software.
You know, I think, you know, it's just a huge challenge and people don't,
I think it's hard for people to understand what they're missing when they haven't

(23:14):
actually experienced the benefits of, you know, the whole cloud-based software
and just the instant, you know, communication between the two.
But, you know, I don't regret integrating with the QuickBooks desktop,
but I sure wish everybody would move over.
I do feel like early on for us, like it really opened the door because I,
you know, again, several years ago, I saw so many companies that were on it.

(23:36):
And it really was like the larger builders, you know, who, who were on QuickBooks
desktop that, you know, they'd tell you, absolutely, we're not leaving,
we're not changing. And it's like, you know, so finally we're like, all right, fine.
Well, we'll, we'll go figure this out. And, you know, luckily one of my developers
was willing to dive in and do it.
But, you know, we've, essentially we've actually been like intuitive has asked
us to stop adding features, you know, to the desktop version,

(23:56):
probably like around a year ago, because they also, you know,
see the challenges with supporting that.
And it's just so hard when, you know, we can't get access to any of the logs
or any of the information.
It's all on whatever computer or server that desktop version is being hosted on.
You know, so I do think it'll, you know, eventually people will be forced to
move over at some point. Yeah.
Actually, one of our cultural values

(24:17):
at The Profit Constructors is embrace technological progress, right?
And it's the whole idea of not losing sight of that. Like, Some technology is
just going to go out the door.
And so you have to be looking forward and making sure that you're available
and ready to use the next piece of technology.
And I would encourage people to do that before the door has been slammed shut on you.

(24:40):
You don't want to be put into a position where, hey, now I just can't use this
thing that we've been operating in our business on.
You know, it probably, you know, I see people, it gives them a little bit of
peace of mind to be able to kind of run, you know, and try things in parallel
before making the full jump over, you know, but I think it's always better to
not wait till that doomsday is actually here.

(25:00):
Right. No, I 100% agree and counsel clients on that all the time.
Another thing that you said that is near and dear to my heart that I really
love about JobTread is the whole idea of budgets based estimating.
I came from the corporate construction world where I was blessed to work in

(25:21):
a number of corporate accounting departments and kind of got to see how really
well oiled machines can run and how that works really well.
And I was always surprised when I started working with smaller construction
companies to find out that a lot of their estimators didn't start with budgets.
It just still to this day kind of blows my mind of how you could estimate without

(25:43):
having any idea of what your costs are going to be.
So give us some more of your theory around that as well and why you also think
that's so important to start with the budget.
Yeah, I mean, again, it's, it's, if, if you don't know what is going to go into
a job, how could you ever accurately price that job?
You know, I mean, so, okay, well, let's, let's unpack that a little bit more.
So, you know, one way you could do it is if you were, you know,

(26:04):
essentially had pre-negotiated, you know, hourly rates, daily rates.
Okay. So, you know, fine. You can kind of come up with an estimate for how many
days it'll take you or how many hours it'll take you.
I mean, that's, that's one approach, you know, I found though that trying to,
trying to run your jobs, you know, time and material based, you know,
is a very, very challenging thing in and of itself,
you know, but when, when you don't know what is going to be in that budget or

(26:29):
what's going to be included in that job, then, like I said earlier,
like when you get into the job and then something comes up, well,
how's the customer supposed to know if that was supposed to be included or not
included, you know, having a very, very detailed,
you know, budget, you know, scope of work kind of pre-defining what you are
including in this contract and in this job.

(26:51):
I mean, you really, you can't run a job like, you know, you shouldn't run a
construction company by not having the details,
you know, behind every single job, because all it takes is one contract,
you know, one job to go South where you don't have yourself protected.
And now that customer saying, you know, look, you, you know,

(27:11):
this is on you, you know, you got, you know, tens of thousands,
hundreds of thousands of dollars of unknown work that now has to be,
you know, completed and, you know.
No contract or some, you know, very vague contract that, that,
that, again, it is a huge liability and a huge risk for you as a business owner to enter into that.
And so there's, there's so many reasons that I think it's very important that

(27:32):
you take the time to do the takeoff to accurately, you know,
come up with every single piece of that job.
And again, I'm not saying that like, you have to know everything that's going
to happen because you can still use contract language, you know,
around unforeseen circumstances around,
you know, you know, price escalation clauses, if the, you know,
your price of steel goes up tomorrow, you know, there are ways that you can

(27:55):
protect yourself in these situations.
But like, if you don't have that budget and that foundation,
then it's very hard when you do get into those tough times to be able to fall
back on that and have, you know, a little bit more of a defense there,
you know, for how you came up with that.
And so, you know, our approaches, and again, I believe that,
you know, it's, it's, it's something that you should be able to come up with is, is, is your cost.

(28:16):
You know, whether you, you, you bought that material before,
whether, you know, you, you've paid, you know, your, your subs or these people
that you're using to, to do the work, like, you know, you could send out bid requests.
You can, you know, collect real-time pricing, like whatever it may be,
take the time to understand and to price out, you know, the job and what it's
going to cost you so that you can then accurately, you know, add your margin on top.

(28:38):
So if you, you know, if you want to make, you know, 30% profit margin on this
job, you know, then, then you actually need to mark up, you know,
if you're, if you're going to use market, that's a 43% markup.
You know, we, we, we, we, we, again, we were targeting a 30% profit margin,
but the guys were only marking up their cost 30%, which was really only going
to get us a 23% profit margin, you know?

(29:00):
And so like, it's very important that like, you know, again,
detailing everything out instead of just coming up with numbers in the back
of the envelope, you know, it,
it also is going to help you when you get into the scheduling phase of it,
you know, and you're ready to figure out, you know, okay, who do I need to come
in here? What materials do I need to order?
You know, what lead time do I need on these materials? I was like,
again, having that already kind of built out in a budget is just such a powerful tool.

(29:22):
And that's how you can scale your business.
You know, when I first took over that construction company, we could manage
anywhere from 10 to, you know, maybe 15 concurrent projects at a time, depending on the size.
You know, when I, one year later, like we could manage like 60,
70, 80 projects at one time without, you know, we, we barely hired anybody either.
Like, but we were able to then see, and as an owner and as, as,

(29:44):
you know, kind of the, the person in charge, like I went and I focused on the
jobs that were either over budget or they have overrun the schedule,
you know, and then that's how I could go and just focus my time to make sure
that we can, you know, get those jobs back on track,
you know, but without having all of that defined at the very forefront going
into that job, then I couldn't compare how are we doing? How are our actuals compared to our budget?

(30:07):
You know, what, what is our projections looking like? Are we going to hit this?
Are we going to be way over? Like something isn't right.
And so So having that budget, we throw the flag, you know, when you see numbers
in red and job, that means something is not right.
You are over budget. You know, you need to go and drill into that and figure out why did that happen?
Yeah. As I said, it always amazes me when folks don't have that budget first

(30:30):
mindset and they'll just sort of throw the estimate out.
And I'm always surprised when they say, well, can't we work backwards from the estimate?
And I always go, I don't know how to do that. I don't know where you came up
with the numbers for the estimates. I'm not sure exactly how we would work backwards.
So I just always think that's an interesting mindset. And it's like,
if you don't, if you don't have that, then how are you ever going to know, how did you perform?
I mean, like in order to like, you know, if, if, if you truly want to stop,

(30:53):
you know, making the same mistakes over and over again, then you need to be
able to, to implement changes.
And so, you know, I'll give you another example. When, when,
when we, we sold like fencing jobs and whenever we sold these fencing jobs to
as a commercial, you know, customer, but they had a bunch of locations.
So whenever we sold fencing jobs into Houston, we would lose 10 to 12%.

(31:15):
And, you know, again, I take over the business. I'm wondering what in the world
is this? Like I suspected some fraud or some kickbacks.
I had no idea how that was happening and it took forever.
But ultimately I, I was able to drill it all back down to, we were using outdated
material costs for, for, for the actual fence.
And, and, and we were just, you know, basically paying this multi-billion dollar

(31:36):
company to put up their fences. Yeah.
We're like losing money, but nobody ever saw it because we couldn't compare.
We had no idea if we came in under budget, over budget, what,
you know, what is the actual compared to the, to, to the estimate.
If it doesn't exist, how can you continually improve your business?
Right. And so that's why it's so important. Like we were able to then go and
immediately fix the issue. Okay.

(31:58):
Here is the correct, you know, cost for that material and every job moving forward.
Sure enough. Now we're making the profit margin. Right.
Yeah. And it's so interesting as well. You know, you were talking about understand
the difference between markup and margin.
That's another big one where I will step in and start working with clients all the time.
And they'll say, I don't understand every single job that we estimate,

(32:20):
you know, where we are guaranteed to make 30% profit on, but we're still like losing money.
It's like, well, how are you guaranteed to make 30% profit?
And there's, it's usually two pieces. One is they don't understand between the
difference between markup and margin.
And the other is Because they're never taking into account any sort of overhead
that they sought to pay at the end of the day, right?
So they always consider the job profit, gross profit to be net profit.

(32:42):
And that's just not what works at all. So you have, but you,
if you don't even have, like you said, if you're not even tracking anything
from a budgetary standpoint, there's no way to even start to make any of those
other changes because we have really no idea what's happening.
We can't understand where the money is going. Yeah. And I really,
I mean, I think, I think, you know, being able to leverage the gross profit
margin is such a great tool because, you know, one, when you set out on a job,

(33:07):
you know, here's what I'm expecting to make.
And then throughout the entire job lifecycle, you can, you can compare how are
you tracking relative to your expected profit margin.
I mean, if you, if you log in and look at any of your accounting statements
and look at your QuickBooks, your income statement, like markup is nowhere to be found. Right.
Markup is literally just a nice little easy formula. It's super easy for people

(33:29):
to say, okay, like I got a hundred dollars and I want to mark it up.
Well, a hundred times, you know, 1.3 is going to mark it up, you know, 30%, but like,
you know, it's, it's a little bit harder to, to, to take a hundred divided by
one minus 30%, you know, so it's, it's a little bit harder to do the math,
but like, it's such a great tool that you can use to benchmark your,
your, your progress and your performance throughout the entire job.

(33:51):
Instead of just, you know, again, you markup used it one time and then it's
gone. Like it's totally worthless after that.
Yeah, no, 100%. I'd like to kind of switch gears if you don't mind.
I want to find out from you, Eric, who do you think is your ideal target market?
One of the things that we talk about all the time is that I'm often asked,

(34:12):
okay, hey, Tanya, you're the construction industry expert for accounting.
Which software should I use for my construction client?
And I can't just answer that off the cuff, because a lot of different construction
software is built differently.
And it's actually built for different segments of the industry.
You know, there it could be anything from a service based company that's just

(34:33):
going out, you know, repairing toilets or HVAC systems all the way up to a large
commercial general contractor, and a lot of different things in between.
So kind of how do you guys view your target market in that in that industry? Yeah.
So, you know, when, when I, when I originally set out to build JobTread,
the engine thing, I still remember, I think it was.

(34:53):
I want to say, I think it was 2019 or whatever, when I, when I went to the,
the, the international builder show and it's kind of walking around looking
at everything, trying to sort of, you know, conceptualize all of this,
you know, and, and I had somebody, I can't remember who it was.
It was probably one of our competitors, you know, told me, he's like,
you know, you have to either choose, are you, are you going to be,
you know, for home builders or are you going to be for remodelers?
You know, are you going to be, you know, like, and so it was,

(35:15):
it was such an interesting thing that I was like, well, you know,
from my perspective, I mean, a construction job is a construction job.
Like the, the, the size, you know, whether, whether you have,
you know, one line item or a thousand line items, or you're,
you know, you're, you're doing something simple or you're, you know,
building a commercial building.
Like I wanted to very intentionally design job tread to be able to meet the
needs of any construction based business.

(35:35):
You know, now with that being said, like, sure, service jobs are,
are, are not currently like our, our forte.
They're not our strength. Like, I think for any job that like your custom bidding,
like you're, you're going into every job and it's not just, Hey,
here, you know, I'm going to come and mow your lawn. Right.
And you're going to pay me 50 bucks every single time.
I mean, I think that's where like, you know, a job or, you know,

(35:56):
or a service Titan or something where it's just very much more about kind of,
you know, that, that, that dispatching that scheduling those service calls.
Like, I think, you know, that, that might not be our, our strongest, you know, suit there.
I mean, we, we just, just not there yet, but like, if you're wanting to,
you know, again, Again, build a house, build a kitchen.
Build a deck, anything where you're coming in and you're having to custom bid

(36:20):
that out, you're having to come up with and do a takeoff and build a budget.
You may start from templates and that's great. That's very much encouraged,
but it's a custom job for each one of your customers.
That's where I think it was very important that we wanted to be able to meet
the needs of, of, of, again, a very small, you know, just handyman type, you know, small budget.

(36:41):
You know, if, if you want to have one line item for your budget, you know, fine.
I, you know, I don't recommend it, but you know, you could have one line item
for labor, one for material, you know, that that's your thing,
but you know, it should be able to go all the way, you know,
up to being able to support, you know, home builds, you know,
commercial buildings, you know, whatever it may be like.
So we've, we have very intentionally designed job tread to, to meet the needs

(37:02):
of, of all of those construction-based businesses.
But I will say, as it kind of turned out, like right now, I would say about
85% of our customer base is residential focused.
So we have found...
One, it's very, very large.
There are just hundreds of thousands of residential contractors out there.

(37:25):
The commercial space, we do have a handful of commercial customers,
but there are a few additional needs that we very frequently hear about wanting
to be able to export into AIA format, the G702, 703.
It's probably the number one thing that we hear from people.
And I've talked to AIA.org, the group that has the AIA form,

(37:49):
and I've asked them about integrations.
And I think they do have something now that they can do, but it was a pretty
expensive fee for our builders to be able to use that.
And so all of our current commercial guys are like, look, we already have our
own format. We're not paying them per job.
So you just keep doing what you're doing, and we'll just take it and put it
in that format when we need it. You know, so we haven't kind of gone into as much of that realm.

(38:13):
I mean, and I know there's like some very, very intricate, you know, RFIs,
RFPs, you know, kind of going through some of those processes where,
again, I mean, a Procore is very, very strong at having that,
you know, kind of that very in-depth kind of back and forth,
you know, for some of the commercial requirements that are there.
But, you know, at the end of the day, you know, our, our sweet spot,

(38:33):
I mean, the, the, the largest kind of bulk of our, of our customer base,
I mean, it's probably, you know, remodelers, you know, hands down,
you know, we have more, you know.
An interior, you know, kitchen and bath, you know, home additions,
kind of, you know, things like that, you know, kind of remodelers.
Um, and then the next biggest segment would probably be pool builders,
you know, home builders,

(38:53):
deck builders, outdoor living, you know, but, but remodelers are certainly the,
the, the largest group, you know, and kind of one other thing that I,
that I sort of differentiate too, like what I've seen is that the more trades
that are involved in your projects,
the much, you know, harder it gets to, to kind of coordinate everything.
So, you know, when you got to, you know, you got, you got to come and you got

(39:14):
your demos, you got your concrete,
you know, you got your framing, you got your interior finished out,
you got, you know, your plumbers, your mechanicals, like, you know,
the more different trades, that's where, you know, I think the value of job tread just,
you know, astronomically goes up because we can help you not only coordinate
the financial aspects and the job costing the POs and assign out the work,
but the scheduling pieces of it, you know, the communication aspects,

(39:37):
you know, sharing all that information, having one place.
Becomes just even more valuable the more people that you're trying to keep involved and coordinate.
Yeah. No, I think that's huge. And that's why, you know,
earlier something that I had said about this is one reason why I feel like it's
so much better for our clients and commercial contractors and residential contractors

(39:59):
who are trying to coordinate all that stuff.
It's so much better for them to have a solution like JobTread that can handle
not only some of the job costing and all of those types of things,
but also what you're talking about, the project management piece.
That's a much better use of resources in
my opinion than having QuickBooks desktop which is
taking up a lot of space but you can't

(40:22):
do all of those other things in QuickBooks desktop right so it's very disjointed
and disconnected and like you said you guys have that integration with QuickBooks
desktop but that is going to come to an end and I think that we're we're looking
at what the future of this is going to be and I think it's a much better future
I think that there's so much more that can be done in terms of automation and
efficiencies and keeping all of
that in one organized system. I love that.

(40:45):
Yeah. I mean, and, and, and just to kind of touch on that a little more,
I mean, like, you know, the, the number one thing that, that I,
that I heard was holding people, you know, back from switching was,
was all of the, the desktop reports that were available.
I mean, they, they, they, they really like, you know, some of the,
you know, the whip report and some of the different kinds of,
you know, job costing reports that, that they sort of kind of hobbled together,

(41:05):
but that, that, that worked well for people because they'd been doing it for so long, you know?
And so that's why, you know, it was probably maybe, I don't know,
six months ago or so, we spent a lot of time and focused on, you know, building out.
And I worked with a lot of, you know, bookkeepers and accountants to really
help us understand the needs for that WIP report.
And, you know, and, and, and so I think that what, what people would tell you
today is like, you don't, you know, you, you don't need to worry about losing

(41:27):
those, those kinds of construction reports that you may feel like,
you know, you, you had on desktop, but wouldn't have on, on QBO,
you know, at the end of the day, like Intuit is not for construction,
it's for every type of business out there.
And so you You really need a software that's, you know, specialized in your industry.
And that's where you can leverage job tread to view all of the job costing that,
you know, being able to understand, you know, by cost code,

(41:49):
how you're performing by cost type, by, you know, all of the whip,
the work in progress so that you can see, you know, how are you doing across
all your jobs or, you know, you're over invoice you under like,
you know, we give you those tools
because we're construction specific and have been able to set that up.
So like, you're not losing that by going, you know, by leaving desktop and going
to QuickBooks online. line.
Yeah, that's a fantastic point. And you're right. I do think it was the one.

(42:13):
That and probably some time tracking payroll related things.
I know that a lot of people really love how desktop does job costing from a
labor standpoint because it is so integrated.
But again, if we're finding that sort of cohesiveness because we're using something
like JobTread, then that's something else that just goes out the window.
Now we're getting job costing on labor right within JobTread. So I love that.

(42:35):
Talk to me some more about the templates.
You just sort of like glanced on like you could templatize things, right? Right.
And I think that is so helpful, again, in the aspect of like automation, efficiency, scale.
How do you guys utilize templates and what's your what's your thought process around that?
Yeah. So, you know, I tell people, look, I mean, my recommendation is when you

(42:58):
first get into job trade, like, you know, however you're doing it today,
whatever spreadsheets or whatever system, whatever it is.
Like, I encourage you to share that with your customer success manager on our team.
Like, and we will help you essentially get that set up as a template in your catalog.
Catalog, you know, or if you don't have that, because, you know,
again, a lot of people that just don't have that, you know, once you build out
that first job, you know, if you like it, if you think it was a good kind of,

(43:20):
you know, good job budget that you built out, you can save it as a template into your catalog.
You know, my belief though is like, again, like I realize every job is going
to be a little bit different,
but if you can have the same starting point, you know,
it's a much better approach to include everything that
you may possibly need and then remove the things
that you don't than to potentially forget things that

(43:42):
ultimately are going to come out of your pocket you know
unless you know somehow again you can get a change order for it but i mean
you know even even little things i can't tell you the number of times we forgot
to include permits we forgot to include our equipment costs and our rentals
and things it's like have that in the template so that you can very quickly
generate those new you know jobs and build out those budgets and have that starting

(44:02):
point and and furthermore if you want to take it to the next level like.
One of the really neat things that we also have is the ability for you to use
formulas and to create parameters that can very, very quickly enable you to
create a job, you know, bring in the template.
And let's say you wanted to, you know, maybe you want to, you know,
maybe you're building a deck and you want to have kind of my linear feet,

(44:24):
you know, for the perimeter, you know, you can just pop those in there.
You know, maybe, you know, how many stairs are you going to include?
Do you want to include railing? Like you can fill out kind of this very short
form of all these parameters. And then if you have done the,
the, the formulas on the cost items, it can just instantly do your quantity
takeoff from those few inputs.
And so like that, that, that furthermore, just like really streamlines this

(44:48):
process, you know, to, to get you to the point where you can very quickly build this out.
And that's where like leveraging, you know, unit, unit cost,
unit price, you know, being able to understand your costs per square foot per
linear foot per cubic foot.
But like when you have all of this data, you can start to really understand
and really refine and kind of narrow in exactly what your cost should be.

(45:09):
So that's going to really improve and streamline your estimating because you
can now just kind of drop in a few numbers and the whole thing's built out for you.
I mean, we have countless, you know, hundreds of our customers like this is
the number one, their favorite features that, you know, they went from spending
days, you know, to build out an estimate to now like minutes.
Yeah. You know, and they can do it right there on the job site.
You know, you pull up your, your phone or your, your, your iPad or tablet,

(45:31):
and you just new job pulling the budget.
Plop in the few different numbers you need and bam, there you go.
Now you got a, you got a ballpark price, you know, maybe you want to go in and
kind of refine a few things later, but like, it just very, very seamlessly, you know, creates that.
And, and I encourage people, I got, I think it's so important,
you know, people buy from people they like and people that are responsive and easy to work with.

(45:52):
And so one of those things is being responsive. I mean, how many times have
you had a contractor come out to your house and then say, they'd send you something
and then they never do. And now you're following up with them. Like, yep.
And that's why you're, they're going going to go to the next person and keep
going and shopping because, you know, contractors just, you know,
typically aren't getting back to them very quickly, you know, or if at all.
And so by making this a very seamless process, like do it in your truck,

(46:14):
do it right after, like get that out there.
I mean, I'm not saying cut corners and I'm not saying make up numbers,
but when you've set yourself up for success, then you're going to be able to
be so much more responsive than that next guy.
And you're going to win so many more deals. If you can just come in,
give that customer a great experience, meet them from their budgetary standpoint,
be the one that's easy to work with, allow them to e-sign, bam,

(46:37):
you just collected the order before they could even figure out who to call next.
Yep, no, 100%. I was over here grinning because you brought up something,
not necessarily from the standpoint of the software we're talking about today,
but one of the reasons that we chose the pool guy that we did when we had our
pool redone a couple of years ago was because we met him at a home show and
I said, okay, do we have to schedule

(46:57):
for you to come out and measure the pool or what do we have to do?
He goes, no, we use the same software that roofers use to see the roof on your house.
We just measure it from the air and we'll send you a quote. And it was brilliant, right?
I was like, why don't the other pool guys do that? Why do I have to take time out of my busy day?
Why can't you just look it up on whatever they're using, Eagle Roofer,
measure it out and give me a quote, right?
And so, yeah, it's exactly what you're saying, that people want ease,

(47:21):
they want convenience, and they want someone who actually is responsive,
cares, does what they say they're going to do, and by.
By taking process and putting that process into your business,
you can just move the needle so, so much.
I think, you know, one of the things that I really love about JobTour,
too, is that we give you the ability to share as much detail or as little detail as you want.

(47:44):
I'm not a big proponent of giving a breakdown of your labor,
your material, your unit price.
Like, you know, but again, if you're doing a commercial job,
you know, we, when we ran commercial jobs, we were required to give them a unit
price, you know, by, by, you know, trade, you know, because that's how they would keep all of us.
That's how they beat up all the different vendors and subs is because they know,

(48:05):
and they have a not to exceed, you know, unit price for every single thing,
you know, but like, again, like
being able to say, Hey, here is a detailed scope of work and a breakdown.
Now, now maybe you're not giving them the price breakdown at every single line
item, but like they see that you have a true understanding and that you're very
organized and detail oriented.
Like that's so important in this day and age when, when they're comparing you

(48:25):
to the guy, you know, the, the, the Chuck in a truck, who's got,
you know, a cheaper prize, you know, written on a piece of paper versus a very
detailed, here's everything we're going to do.
Like people, you know, as much as everybody sometimes thinks people,
you know, are looking for the cheapest solution.
That's not, that's not the case because this is their dwelling.
This is their, this is their number one, most valuable asset is their home.

(48:47):
You know, they want a quality project. Now, yeah, they, they might want to make
sure, and it needs to be within their budget, but that's the cool thing about
job trade too, is that you can give them the ability to make their own selections.
Hey, here's the good, better, best model. You know, pick the things that,
you know, that, that work for you.
The most important things you get the best, the other things,
maybe it's just the good, you know, you get to kind of configure that.

(49:07):
And instead of haggling the contractor on price, the, the, the,
the customer that, you know, the end, you know, consumer there gets to choose
the things that fit within their budget.
They're controlling the price of the job by making selections,
you know, that they can afford.
Right. And not taking any time out of the contractor's day to go and manually
make any of those changes on the back end. Yeah. I love all of that.

(49:30):
So the one last thing I want to talk to you about is because this is the construction
junction and, you know, our tagline for the podcast is we're construction and accounting meet.
You guys actually have a fairly new program that you've just rolled out where
you're doing accounting partnerships.
Tell us something about that and how you're working with accounting partners
now. Yeah, so we, you know, again, we see all these kind of,

(49:50):
you know, accountants that are helping construction companies.
You know, probably the number one thing that I see when a construction company
signs up is they need help with their books.
You know, they either don't have anybody, they have nothing,
they're using a spreadsheet or, you know, their spouse who is,
you know, just not qualified to be their accountant.
Or really tired and doing it after they're done at their other day job too. Yeah, exactly.

(50:14):
Like, so, you know, the number one thing we see is that people need help with
their books getting organized.
And so, you know, it is something that's very important that we want to help
get them connected with qualified bookkeepers.
But, you know, our challenge was that, you know, the ones that we kind of knew
because we see them getting added to all these different people's organizations,
like they basically got tapped out, you know, and like there's only so many

(50:37):
clients that anyone can take on any given month.
And so, you know, we, we realized that it was very important to continue to
build this network of, of, of accountants who, who, you know,
understand, you know, job costing, they understand software,
they're able to go through.
Nope did we freeze are we there you're here you're

(50:57):
good all right so yeah so i don't know
why my screen's frozen so we built
this program to essentially help bookkeepers and accountants to be able to come
in learn job tread we actually put together a full certification program that
will help them to get you know bookkeeper certified on job tread and then that

(51:19):
will allow Allow them to be able to,
you know, then get added to our marketplace so that we can promote them to others
who are looking for their services.
I love it. I think one of the things that really excited me about that when
I was talking with other guys on your team a week ago, Riley,
is the idea that it's a really great way to connect like-minded service providers, right?

(51:41):
Because it's always surprising when people just reach out and say that they
need a bookkeeper and they may call me. I'm a pro-advisor list on Intuit's pro-advisor
site and Intuit asks you to list your specialties and I've listed one on my
pro-advisor site, construction.
But people still reach out all the time because they've seen our name there
and they'll say, hey, we're at this retail shop down the street from you. Can you do our books?

(52:03):
We end up referring them on to others that we know that do retail really well.
But I love that by being listed on your marketplace, they, one,
have to be certified in JobTread and have to be at least like-minded enough
to understand the processes that are happening in job trend, right?
So I think it's a really brilliant way to find the right people.
And frankly, it's also been a great way for us to be able to have a great pulse

(52:28):
on how do we need JobTread to function from a bookkeeping standpoint.
Being able to have these partnerships with these bookkeepers and accountants,
they have made countless improvements based on their feedback.
And so it's like, you know, it, it, you know, I hear from, from people that,
you know, some of those other companies out there, like they,
they, they don't want to listen to or value, you know, a, an accountant's feedback.

(52:52):
And I'm just like, that's crazy because like, they're the ones that are working
with dozens and dozens of clients.
Like that feedback is not just, you know, representative of one client that's
representative of a whole group of them.
And, you know, very often it's, it's going to be, you know, kind of a similar
thing that others may, may, may, you know, have that same feedback.
So, you know, I think from, from that standpoint, it's been really helpful.

(53:12):
And then, you know, again, we, we see, you know, a lot of people when,
when, you know, a bookkeeper is like, Hey, you know, they, they,
they work with us with one, one of their clients.
They're like, well, I got a whole, you know, dozen more, you know,
that, that are using something else that like, I'd like to move them over.
And so like, this is also sort of opened up this, this tool,
you know, where, where you can like, you know, very easily switch between all of your clients.
And we're going to continue improving kind of the onboarding process so that

(53:35):
like, you know, a lot of times they want them to be set up the exact same way,
you know, the same kind of cost codes and the same cost types.
And, you know, maybe even, you know, if they want to provide,
you know, the catalog or not, you know, kind of depending, you know,
but like there's, there's ways that we can further streamline that.
So that again, like the whole goal is that we can help, you know,
get somebody migrated over and get them up and running as quickly as possible.

(53:57):
And then anytime that, that, that bookkeeper needs help, you know,
we're, we're here. They have a direct connection, you know, so whether it's,
you know, the client coming directly to us or if the client goes to the bookkeeper,
well, maybe the bookkeeper needs some support or whatever.
Like, you know, they have a direct phone number, you know, their customer success
manager is there to help them just like any other client.
And so I think that's like a great resource, you know, for them to have just

(54:20):
knowing that you can instantly get help.
I mean, I'm sure you've tried to get, you know, Intuit and some other people
on the phone for help and it can be a little bit challenging.
Well, you know, at least you've got someone else and we have kind of,
you know, that other other, you know, sort of avenue to kind of help if there
ever are any integration or sync issues or just general, you know,
trying to figure out how this would work or that would work. Yeah, I love it.

(54:41):
Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us today,
Eric. How can people find out more about JobTread?
Yeah. So I'd probably suggest just going to our website, www.jobtread.com.
We've got a ton of information on the website, you know, a lot of videos,
you know, you can also watch a YouTube.
We've had, I think hundreds of, of, of videos on YouTube there,
but you know, I'd encourage you, if you're interested in learning more,

(55:03):
you know, just hit the schedule a demo button right there at the top of our website.
You know, we are happy to take the time, you know, to walk you through the product,
make sure it'd be a good fit.
You know, I think that's, that's something that's like very,
very important to us is making sure, you know, that you know,
that we are people behind the software. We are here.
Every single person on my team is located in Dallas, Texas, in our office.
You know, we're not outsourced or spread out. We do every single thing in-house,

(55:27):
you know, my entire customer success team.
So whenever you create your job trade account, you'll automatically get assigned
to customer success manager.
The entire customer success team has experience in construction.
We very much understand, you know, how, you know, you need the software to work,
what you're doing, kind of what the industry specific, you know,
kind of, you know, features are.

(55:48):
And so we can be, you know, a great resource to help you, you know,
migrate over or, you know, get set up, you know, whatever it may be,
I would encourage you to tap into those, you know, resources.
We've got a phenomenal onboarding and training program too.
You know, we do live trainings every day. Our director of learning and development,
she actually has a doctorate degree in organizational change management and leadership.

(56:09):
And so she has put together this awesome, you know, online training curriculum,
you know, you can either watch it live or you can, you know,
watch the recordings if that's easier, you know, and then we also have our certification programs.
You know, once you get signed up, like you can go through, I think there's JobTread
Estimator, Project Manager, Bookkeeper, as well as the admin one.
So, you know, a lot of great resources are out there, but we'd very much appreciate

(56:31):
the opportunity to show you JobTread and to hopefully work with you and help you get up and going.
I love it. thanks so much for joining us today and um we will talk again soon
i'm sure sounds good thank you for having me tanya thanks eric thank you for
tuning in to construction junction to find out more about the junction between

(56:53):
accounting and construction.