What BuildersAI Does: Every Feature, in Plain English

This is the short answer to “what does it actually do”. Each line links to the detail, and the full feature list has a page for every one.

Drawings and documents

• Drawings with revision control: the current sheet is the one everyone opens, superseded issues are marked, and admins can see by name who has not opened a reissue yet.
• Revision names: every revision goes by the name its title block prints, such as Rev E, P2 or C1, not “v5”.
• Drawing and PDF markup: ring a detail, point at an opening and write a note on a drawing or any PDF, with the same pens as on a photo. Markup stays on the revision it was drawn on.
• Documents and file versions: a revised document supersedes the old one instead of sitting next to it, with the conversation kept on the file.
• Specifications: the definite facts read off drawings and schedules, each one pointing back to the document it came from, and to the page where the file has pages.
• Search inside documents: finds the words written in a PDF or a spreadsheet, not just the file name.
• The handover pack: everything the project holds for one plot in a single download: its drawings, a record of each inspection and snag, its photographs and its documents, with an index you can print.

Getting work done

• Tasks, snags, deliveries, RFIs and inspections: everything raised the same way, so a team learns one thing.
• Boards and saved views: one tab for deliveries, one per trade, one for this week.
• The programme: list, board or Gantt with dependencies, so moving one date moves what follows.
• Prerequisites: the conditions a job needs before it can start, with a warning the afternoon before if tomorrow is not ready.
• Snagging with a verify step: marked fixed by the trade, then checked and closed by a project administrator, and nobody else can close it.
• Task templates: a standard programme applied to a new plot in one press.
• Materials to charge: what went to site from the yard, the van or stock, on one list across every job, opening on what has not been charged yet.
• Price enquiries: ask several merchants for a price at once, each on their own email, compare the quotes side by side before VAT, and send the order to the one you choose.
• Project email: email a merchant, the client or building control from the job. Their reply and its attachments come back to it, and drawings, files and photos attach in one go.
• Task invitations: invite building control, the client or a trade to a task at a set time, and keep every answer on it.

The site record

• Site photographs: dated, located, described, searchable months later, with the conversation on the picture.
• Photo markup: arrows, shapes and pinned points on the image, so “this bit here” has an answer.
• The site diary: assembles itself from the day’s check-ins, photos, tasks and weather, and you add what happened in your own words.
• Log activity: a button on the phone’s Home. Anybody on the team says what they did, adds photos and taps what held them up, and it goes into today’s diary. No hours to fill in, and it works with no signal.
• The delay register: delays recorded with a cause and time lost, then totalled.
• Evidence packs: photographs exported with their dates and locations for building control or a warranty provider.

People and compliance

• Check-in and site presence: people check in on their own phone, and you see who is on site now.
• Timesheets: hours are added up from the check-ins people make and export as a bill for Xero or QuickBooks.
• The day-by-day timesheet: for people who move between jobs all day. A line per job saying what you did and how long, on the web or the phone, shown beside time on site and never added to it.
• CSCS cards and certifications: stored with their expiry dates, and anything expired or due in the next 30 days is flagged to the admins, so an out-of-date card is found before an inspector finds it.
• Card scanning: on the phone, photograph a card and the type, number, issuer and expiry are filled in from the photo, for you to check and save.
• RAMS: risk assessments raised and signed with a finger on site, counter-signed by the manager, the gang signing on at the briefing.
• Site inductions: each person reads the site rules and signs on their own phone, the site manager countersigns, and you can see who has not done theirs.
• The site poster and visitor sign-in: a QR poster for the gate. The crew scan it to check in, a new starter scans it and asks to join, and a visitor signs themselves in and out with no app to install.
• The visitor register: visitors signed in and out with inductions recorded, and a roll call for the muster point.
• Permissions: admin, member and follower. Followers, usually clients and subbies, see only the tasks they are on plus anything shared with everyone, and cannot change anything.
• Availability: record who is off on holiday, sick or training, and be warned when a task is given to somebody who is off for it. Only owners and admins of the company see the reason.

Running the job

• Announcements: things everyone should know, with read receipts. Tasks are things somebody has to do; announcements are things people should know.
• The project dashboard: what is overdue, who is on site, what changed.
• Every project at once: your whole portfolio on one screen, with search across all of it.
• All projects on the phone and tablet: for the people who administer a job or run the company account, the app opens on every job they run, with the work, people, hours, plant, materials, documents and photos across them. Members and followers see no change.
• The Cost Tracker: the quote, what has gone out and what the client has paid on each job, typed in by hand, showing whether you are ahead of the client or behind. Only the job’s admins see it.
• The plant board: machines booked across sites in half days, double bookings named.
• Weather: the ten-day forecast on the home screen, and frozen into the diary as it was on the day.
• Weather warnings: mark the work that stops for wind, rain or cold, and the people on the task are told before the day comes when the forecast breaks its limits. A warning, never a go or no-go.
• SiteBot: ask in plain English what is overdue, who is qualified, what the drawing says, or tell it to raise the task. It has 58 tools, 16 of which change something, and it reads the change back before it writes.

What works where

The phone records, the browser arranges.

On a phone	In a browser only
Drawings, photos, tasks, diary, check-in, RAMS, visitors, roll call	Building the programme on a Gantt chart, with baselines
Taking photographs with the date and place recorded	Creating boards, views and templates
Signing and counter-signing a RAMS	Bulk uploading a folder of drawings
Working with no signal, syncing when it returns	Printing, the accounting exports and evidence packs
Your own tasks, and the project’s boards	Who is off, and the work they were given
Log activity, your own timesheet and scanning a card	Mail, price enquiries and inviting people to a task
Marking up a drawing	The Cost Tracker, the handover pack and the diary by week and month
For administrators, every job at once: work, people, hours, plant, materials, documents and photographs	Every job at once for members and followers

What it does not do

It is not estimating, valuations or CVRs, and it is not an accounts package, though the hours go into Xero and QuickBooks. It will not fix a programme nobody maintains, and it cannot make a crew use it: that is decided by whether two or three of your people are in it during the first fortnight, which is the one thing we would rather you tested than took our word for.

FAQ