Business management software for contractors

The short answer

• The contractor pattern: materials and equipment flow to jobs and must come back — the record has to follow them.
• The needs: stock across locations, items reserved to jobs, install-and-consume on invoicing, service history per asset, and invoicing that hands off to the ledger.
• BSimple covers the stock-and-jobs side through its projects feature — from $180/month (AUD) with a free trial.
• The boundary: quoting-first or scheduling-first job tools are a different category; the honest page names the difference.

What contractor software actually has to carry

A contractor's week is a materials-and-assets relay. Stock in more than one place: the warehouse or shed, the ute, and half a dozen job sites — quantities live at each, or nowhere. Items reserved to jobs: materials staged for Thursday cannot be sold from under the job; equipment loaded on the truck is unavailable to the next callout. Consume on invoice: what the job used becomes what the client pays for — installed on approval, not guessed at reconciliation. Service history per asset: the boom gate, pump or switchboard installed at that customer has a warranty, a maintenance schedule and a story — which the next callout needs. Invoicing to the ledger: Xero or MYOB, pushed clean.

Software that handles the scheduling of people but not the truth of materials leaves the expensive half unrecorded. Software that handles materials but treats jobs as an afterthought leaves the relay unmanaged. The right pattern is both on one record — the same pattern business management for contractors describes from the jobbing side.

Where BSimple fits

We build BSimple, so weigh that. For contractors it runs the stock-and-jobs relay: multi-location live stock (shed, vans, sites), the projects feature — group inventory and on-site assets under a customer, reserve items without consuming stock, install and consume on invoice approval, warranty and maintenance history per job — purchase orders from demand, counts from any phone browser, a portal for trade customers, and invoicing handed to Xero or MYOB. From $180/month (AUD), and the free trial runs one real job through it.

The boundary, plainly: BSimple is not a quoting-first job management suite — no scheduling calendar, no quote pipelines, no subcontractor management. Contractors whose pain is winning and scheduling work should start in that category; those whose pain is materials, assets and the record behind the jobs — the construction inventory guide shows the pattern — are BSimple's home ground. The inventory management overview shows the record underneath.