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Commercial Trade Work

Commercial Contractor Software for Trades That Bid, Draw, and Get Retained

Track bids and prequalification, build a schedule of values from the accepted contract, bill in monthly draws, administer change orders before they become write-offs, and produce a WIP schedule that supports the bonding line you actually want.

See It in Action
Commercial contractor software dashboard showing multi-phase project tracking and billing status

Most Contractors Grow Into Commercial Work — and Their Software Does Not

The commercial book rarely starts as a decision. A property manager asks you to quote a second building. A general contractor you did a favour for invites you to bid a package. Two years later a third of revenue is contract work being administered in spreadsheets, because the platform that runs the residential side was never designed to hold a schedule of values.

The failure is rarely dramatic. It shows up as a pay application submitted late because the percentages had to be assembled by hand, a change order performed in the field and approved three weeks afterwards, or retainage nobody chased because no report listed it by job. Each is small. Together they are most of the margin on the contract.

What commercial work needs is not a bigger residential tool. It needs a second path through the same platform — one that treats the contract, not the sale, as the object being managed. If your work is specifically mechanical or piping scope, start with mechanical contractor software.

The Contract Path, End to End

Bid and prequal tracking

Keep bids, addenda, and the documents prequalification keeps asking for — financials, bonding letters, EMR, insurance certificates — attached to the opportunity rather than in somebody's inbox.

Schedule of values

Break the contract sum into billable line items that inherit from the accepted bid, so the first pay application does not begin with a blank spreadsheet.

Draws, retainage, closeout

Monthly applications with percentage complete, stored materials, retainage withheld, and previous certificates — plus the closeout documentation that decides when retainage is actually released.

Change order control

Price it, get it approved, add the line, re-baseline the contract value. The discipline that separates a profitable commercial job from a break-even one.

Build My Platform
Commercial construction project tracking with phases, milestones, and cost to date

Where Commercial Margin Actually Goes

Commercial jobs are rarely lost on the bid. They are lost in administration — work performed before a change order was executed, a draw submitted late, retainage left unchased through closeout, or a cost forecast that stayed at the original bid until the job closed.

Every one of those is a tracking problem with a dollar value you can calculate. Run the numbers on your own jobs with the free change order calculator, retainage calculator, and WIP schedule calculator.

See the Platform
One platform running both residential replacement quoting and commercial contract billing

Two Paths, One Platform, Multiple Trades

SubcontractorHub was built for specialty contractors running more than one trade — roofing and HVAC, HVAC and solar, or all three — which means it already models the awkward case: the same customer buying a residential replacement one month and a commercial package the next.

Fast-path quoting closes the replacement on site. Contract-path billing administers the package across eight months of draws. Same customer record, same equipment history, one set of reporting. Explore roofing, HVAC, and solar on the platform.

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This is built for contractors who:

Commercial work has outgrown the spreadsheet, but a full ERP is more system than the business needs or wants to implement.

Talk to the Team
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Bid trade packages to general contractors, owners, or property managers

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Bill in monthly draws against an approved schedule of values

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Carry retainage on multiple jobs at the same time

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Get asked for prequalification documents you have to go hunting for

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Need a WIP schedule for a surety, lender, or CPA

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Still run residential replacement work and do not want two systems

Common Questions

What is commercial contractor software?

Commercial contractor software manages work sold to businesses, institutions, and property owners rather than homeowners: bid and prequalification tracking, contract documents, multi-phase scheduling, progress billing against a schedule of values, change orders, retainage, lien waivers, and the WIP reporting that supports bonding. The defining difference from residential software is that a commercial job is a contract administered over months, not a sale closed in an afternoon.

How is commercial contractor software different from residential?

Residential platforms optimise for speed to signature: quote on site, present financing, collect an e-signature, schedule the crew. Commercial work optimises for contract control. The buyer is a committee, the proposal is a bid against a spec, payment arrives in monthly draws with 5–10% withheld, and the difference between a profitable job and a loss is usually change-order administration rather than close rate. Both matter, but software built for one handles the other poorly.

Can one platform handle both residential and commercial work?

It can, and for most growing contractors it has to, because the commercial book usually grows out of a successful residential business rather than replacing it. What matters is that the platform runs two genuinely different paths rather than forcing commercial jobs through a residential workflow: a fast path that closes on site, and a contract path with a schedule of values, draws, and retainage. Shared customers, equipment history, and reporting across both is the point.

What is contractor prequalification?

Prequalification is the process a general contractor or owner uses to decide whether you are allowed to bid at all. It typically requires financial statements, a bonding letter, safety records including EMR, licensing, insurance certificates, and a schedule of completed and current work. Because much of that comes straight off your WIP schedule and job history, contractors with disciplined job cost data get prequalified for larger work more easily than contractors of the same size without it.

Why does commercial work require a schedule of values?

Because you are paid before the job is finished. A schedule of values breaks the contract sum into line items so progress can be billed against measurable components each month, with the sum of all lines equalling the contract sum exactly. It is submitted for approval at the start and becomes the billing baseline for every pay application afterwards — which is why an SOV that was rushed or front-loaded causes problems for the entire duration of the job.

How does retainage affect commercial contractors?

It withholds a percentage of every draw — commonly 5% to 10% — until substantial completion, and because that withheld amount is close to pure profit it is one of the least visible cash flow drains in construction. On a job carrying a 10% net margin, 10% retainage means roughly the entire profit is held until closeout while you pay labour and materials in real time. Running several retained jobs simultaneously is how a profitable contractor runs short on payroll.

What reporting do commercial contractors need that residential ones do not?

Chiefly the work-in-progress schedule, which shows each open contract's percentage complete, earned revenue, and whether it is over- or underbilled. Sureties and lenders read it to judge whether reported profit is earned or borrowed from future billings, and it is the primary input to your bonding capacity. Alongside it, commercial contractors need change-order logs, retainage receivable by job, and committed-cost visibility that residential work rarely justifies.

How long does it take to roll out commercial contractor software?

Expect a few weeks rather than a few days. Cost codes, schedule-of-values templates by job type, billing cycles, retainage terms, and approval workflows all need configuring before the first pay application, and that setup is what determines whether the reporting is trustworthy later. The most reliable sequence is to configure around one live job, run a real draw through it end to end, then roll out across the backlog once the billing output is trusted.

See It Against a Live Contract

Book a demo and bring one open job. We will run a bid through to a pay application and show where the schedule of values, change orders, and retainage sit.

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