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Builders and main contractors

Software for builders and main contractors

A build runs for months, is paid in stages, involves people who are not on your payroll, and ends with a chunk of the money held back for six months after you finish. Every one of those is a thing ordinary invoicing software quietly gets wrong.

What is different about this trade

An invoice paid short by retention looks exactly like an invoice from a customer who has not finished paying. Without somewhere to record it, the balance reads overdue, the debtor ageing counts it and the chasing starts — on your biggest customers, for money that is not late. That single gap is what makes most products untrustworthy for this trade.

How it handles your day

Held back is not owed

Retention is recorded, excluded from what you are owed, and never chased. Past its release date it becomes ordinary money owed and is named as retention, because that is a different phone call.

No date, never late

"Six months after practical completion" is often not a date anybody has yet. An undated retention is never treated as overdue, rather than every one of them appearing on the chase list the day it is recorded.

CIS, done the way HMRC wants it

Labour only, on the net, with the total unmoved. Tax months run the sixth to the fifth and a deduction counts when they pay, not when you invoiced — so March work paid in May is a May deduction in next year's reclaim.

Stages that total the job

Claim at agreed points with the final stage being the remainder, so rounding can never make the stages add up to more than the contract.

Your subcontractors' days, counted

Two men on site for six weeks at a rate per man per day is a count, not an estimate, and the diary already holds it.

Questions, answered

Does it handle retention properly?

Yes, and it is the reason the rest of the money side can be trusted. There is one answer to what an invoice is owed, used by the invoice page, the lists, the dashboard, the customer's copy and the chasing, so they cannot disagree.

Does the customer see why their invoice is short?

Yes. An invoice whose balance is six hundred pounds short of its total with nothing explaining why is an invoice somebody rings about.

Can I do applications for payment?

Not as a document type of their own, and that is worth knowing before you start rather than discovering later. A staged invoice is the nearest thing. Retention held across several invoices as one contract-level pot is not supported either.

What about the reverse charge?

Handled, along with the deduction, the statements and the tax-year reclaim. Where a statement you have received disagrees with your invoices, the statement is what can be proved and the reclaim is made against the paper.

Can I bill a housing association for a month of jobs at once?

Yes — one statement, a line per job with its reference and the date it was done, on their terms rather than yours.

How much is it?

£29.99 a month for the whole business — every feature, every person, no add-ons. 60 days free and no card to start.

Before you start

When you sign up you are asked what the business does. Pick Building & Construction — the app uses it to decide what to show you, so the screens arrive already suited to the work rather than needing switching off one at a time.

The arithmetic behind this is free to use without an account — try the retention calculator, which runs the same code the invoices do.

See it being done

Step-by-step guides with a short recording of each one, free to read without an account.

Retention held back on a contract

Money the contract keeps until practical completion — recorded, shown to the customer, and never chased as a debt.

Getting your CIS back

The statements contractors owe you, which ones are late, and what the tax year adds up to.

Take the money in stages

A deposit, then materials, then the balance — each one its own invoice, always adding up to the quote.

All the guides and videos →

Also worth a look

Most businesses on this list do more than one of these. It is the same product and the same price either way.

Electricians

The certificate is the work. Your own forms, versioned, signed on site, and an amendment that needs authorising rather than quietly happening.

Landscapers and groundworks

Weeks on one site with two or three people on it. A job with forty visits, crews on each, and the money claimed in stages against it.

All trades and field teams →

Try it on your own work

60 days free with everything switched on, and no card to start. If you would rather ask something first, there is a person on the other end.

Start your free trialTalk to a person07976 748850

£29.99 a month for the whole business after the free 60 days.

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