Story · Trades · Automation
Three trades, one bid, one job number.
A contractor assembled by acquisition: electrical, plumbing and HVAC, three departments that had been three businesses. All three would bid the same new building, and each arrived with its own systems and its own place to keep documents.
The situation
Job information was scattered across three sets of habits. The same building might exist in three document stores under three naming conventions with three different reference numbers.
For the people doing the work this is survivable. For anyone trying to see the business as one business, it is not. Nobody could answer simple questions across all three trades without asking three people.
An ERP is the usual answer to this, and an ERP is an enormous amount of money and disruption for a contractor running thousands of jobs a year.
What we did
We built a workflow using the automation tooling already included in what they were paying for, plus a custom intake form.
Now a job starts in one place. It generates a bid number, and that bid number creates a standard folder structure automatically: bid information, site photographs, conversations, all under one job number, named the same way every time.
Visible to the whole business, across three formerly separate companies, on thousands of jobs a year.
"An ERP is what you buy when you want everyone working identically. They got the same outcome without buying one."
How the engineer on this one puts itWhat changed
ResolvedOne job number carries a job across all three trades. Anybody can find anything without knowing which company used to own it. New staff learn one convention.
It cost a fraction of the software that normally solves this problem, and it uses tooling the client already owned.
Order the internet circuit the week the lease is signed. Carriers take six to twelve weeks. Nothing else on a move fails as often.
The relocation checklist Did you knowA backup that has never been restored is a hope, not a plan. Ask for the date of the last tested restore.
What to actually testQuestions people ask about this
Do we need an ERP to get everyone working the same way?
Not always. Sometimes what you need is one intake point and one naming convention, enforced by automation rather than by memory.
What does this kind of automation actually run on?
Usually the tooling already bundled with the Microsoft licensing a business is paying for and not using. That is the first place we look before anyone buys anything.
How long does something like this take?
Weeks rather than months, and most of that is agreeing the convention. The build is the easy part.
"Matt was super friendly and helpful. He figured out my issues right away and scheduled a follow-up with me."
Client, 2024 surveyMeet Matt- A technician who knows your setup takes every request. Not a dispatcher, not a queue.
- Every closed ticket is surveyed and a partner reads every response.
- 99.5% of surveys come back positive.
- Family-owned since 2005. 21 years in the same corner of Wisconsin, not going anywhere.
"Thanks for the hard work. I was kept informed with regular updates until the concern was resolved."
Jeff, insurance brokerageDoing the same job three different ways?
Often the fix is a form and an afternoon of automation, not a new platform.
Talk to a partnerTalk to a partner, not a sales script.
Tell us what is going on. A partner will call you back the same business day, look at what you have, and tell you honestly whether we are the right fit. No pricing pressure, no pitch deck.