Sheet G-01
Getting started
Five days free, no card required. Setup takes about three minutes.
Create your account
Go to buildflow.business/register and fill in the trial form:
Fields
Company name
Your full name
Work email
Password (min. 8 characters)
Confirm password
Terms & Privacy Policy checkbox
Submit with Create account. This creates your company workspace and signs you in immediately — there's no separate email confirmation step to wait on.
Onboarding
Your first login drops you into a short five-stage setup: Welcome → Company → First Client → First Project → Done. You can fill in your company profile, add your first client, and create your first project right there, or skip ahead and do it later from the dashboard — nothing here is required to start using the system.
Signing back in
Use buildflow.business/login with the email and password you registered with. The language switcher in the top corner of the login and register screens follows your browser's language automatically, and you can override it manually — English, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, and European Portuguese are all supported throughout the app.
Sheet G-02
The dashboard
Your home screen after login. Six numbers, two charts, three lists — everything that needs your attention today, at a glance.
The six numbers across the top
Active projects
Revenue this month
Outstanding (open invoices)
Open demands (awaiting triage)
Work orders (issued + in progress)
Clients
Each tile is clickable and jumps straight to that list. Revenue and demands show a small trend arrow comparing this month to last. Outstanding turns red the moment anything is overdue.
Charts & lists
Revenue received — a six-month line of actual payments collected, not invoiced amounts. Work orders by status — a bar breakdown of what's draft, issued, in progress, completed, or cancelled right now. Below that: your open invoices, active work orders, and active/lead projects, each linking straight through to the record.
Shortcut
The two buttons in the top-right corner — New demand and New project — are always there. They're the fastest way into the workflow below.
The job, start to finish
The end-to-end workflow
This is the spine of BuildFlow OS: a demand (a lead) becomes a project, which gets inspected, scoped, estimated, and approved by the client, then worked, invoiced, and paid. You rarely have to remember what's next yourself — open any project and the Overview tab shows a "Next step" banner that tells you exactly what to do next, in this order.
01
Demands
Capture a demand
Every job starts as a demand — a raw lead, before you've decided whether to take it on. Log it the moment it comes in, from wherever it came from.
Fields
Description
Source (phone, email, website, referral, insurance, walk-in, other)
Service type
Priority (low → emergency)
Property address
Existing client (optional)
Contact name / phone / email
Save with Create Demand. It lands in your Triage queue as New.
02
Triage
Triage
Decide which demands are worth taking on. The Triage screen splits your queue into what needs a decision and what's ready to become a project.
Open a demand and click Assess to add notes, then Accept or Reject. Demands sitting for more than three days are flagged so nothing goes cold.
What happens
Accepting moves it to Triaged and into the "Ready to convert" list. From there, Convert to project opens a dialog to name the project — the address, contact, and description carry over automatically so you don't re-type them.
03
Projects
Create the project
The project is the container for everything that follows — every inspection, estimate, work order, and dollar spent on the job lives here.
Fields
Project name
Type
Status (lead, active, on hold, completed, cancelled)
Priority
Street address, city, state, ZIP
Insurance claim toggle → claim #, policy #, insurer
Client
Start / est. end date
Contract amount
The project's detail page is where you'll spend most of your time. Across the top: contract amount, actual cost, completion percentage, and estimated end date. Below that, tabs for every part of the job — Overview Inspections Scopes Work orders Financials Change orders Permits Photos Documents Timeline — plus daily/drying logs, warranties, and liens as the job needs them.
What happens
If you have Google Drive connected, a matching folder structure — client, then project, then Estimates / Invoices / Permits / Photos / Contracts / Reports subfolders — is created automatically in the background.
04
Inspections
Inspection
Document the damage before you write a word of scope. A ten-point checklist keeps the field visit consistent from technician to technician.
Checklist
Moisture readings taken
Affected areas photographed
Safety hazards identified
Structural damage assessed
HVAC checked
Electrical checked
Plumbing checked
Mold / microbial growth identified
Contents inventoried
Client present
Add measurement rows per room (length, width, height), attach photos or documents directly (up to 50MB each), and note observations, risks, and materials needed.
05
Scopes
Scope of work
Turn the inspection into a room-by-room work definition — what's included, what's excluded, and what it'll take in materials and labor.
Give it a title, optionally link it to the inspection it came from, then add an area block per room: description of the damage, inclusions, exclusions, material notes, labor notes, and observations. Add as many areas as the job needs.
What happens
Once a scope's status is Approved, a Create estimate shortcut appears — every area you wrote becomes a starting line item, so pricing is the only thing left to do.
06
Estimates
Estimate
The number you're going to show the client. Line items roll up into a total automatically.
Line item
Category
Description
Unit
Qty
Unit cost
Total (calculated)
Set overhead %, profit %, and tax % in the margins panel — the summary recalculates live: subtotal → plus overhead → plus profit → plus tax → total. Already have a Xactimate estimate? Click Import .esx and the file's line items, margins, and job details drop straight in.
07
Client approval
Client approval
No login, no app download — the client signs off from their phone.
From the estimate, click Copy approval link and text or email it. The client sees the scope, the price breakdown, and a signature pad — types their name, signs with a finger or mouse, and taps Approve Estimate. You're notified, and the estimate's status flips to Approved with the signature attached.
What happens
Approval is what unlocks the next shortcut on the project's Overview tab: Create invoice, which carries every line item over.
08
Permits
Permits
Track what's been filed and what's still pending, per project.
Fields
Type (building, plumbing, electrical, mechanical, demolition, roofing, grading, other)
Permit number
Issuing authority
Applied / issued / expires dates
Fee
Status
Status runs Not required → Pending → Submitted → Approved → Active → Closed, with Failed and Expired as off-ramps.
09
Work orders
Work order
The dispatch instruction — what crew or sub does what, and by when.
Fields
Title
Type (labor, subcontract, material, mixed)
Assigned team
Description / instructions
Start / end date
Estimated hours
The detail page walks through its own lifecycle with a single button that changes with the status: Issue → Start work → Mark complete, with Cancel and Reopen available along the way. A progress bar tracks hours logged against the estimate.
What happens
The moment a work order is issued, an email goes out automatically to notify the assigned crew.
10
Purchases
Purchase orders
Order materials against a project and a supplier, and keep the paper trail.
Add line items (description, SKU, qty, unit, unit cost), plus tax and shipping — the total calculates itself. Move it through Draft → Pending approval → Approved → Ordered as it progresses.
What happens
When the order shows up, click Receive on the purchases list. That marks the PO Received and shows a one-tap Log to inventory link — receiving the PO and stocking the material are two separate steps, joined by that shortcut so you don't forget the second one.
11
Inventory
Inventory
What's on the shelf, and what it cost.
The Stock Levels tab shows every item's available quantity, reserved quantity, unit cost, and location — anything at or below its minimum stock level is flagged Low stock. Log a transaction with Log Transaction: choose Entry to add stock, Exit to use it up, or Adjustment to correct the count to a known value, note the reason and (optionally) the project it's for. Every transaction is kept in a full history log.
12
Time tracking
Time tracking
Hours worked, by whom, on what — the raw material of your labor cost.
Log an entry with Log hours: employee, project, optionally the specific work order, date, hours, and hourly rate — cost is calculated automatically. A supervisor approves entries with a single click; approved hours are what feed into the project's financials and the Labor Hours report.
13
Subcontractors
Subcontractors
Your bench of trade partners, and what you owe them per job.
Each subcontractor card shows their specialty, status, and a certificate-of-insurance indicator that turns amber inside 30 days of expiring and red once it has — so a lapsed COI never slips by unnoticed. Use Log Cost to record what you owe a sub against a specific project and, optionally, work order.
14
Change orders
Change order
When the scope changes mid-job, this is how the contract total changes with it.
Fields
Title
Reason (owner request, design change, unforeseen condition, code requirement, material substitution, scope reduction, other)
Description / scope changes / financial impact notes
Change amount (negative for a reduction)
A live panel shows the math as you type: original contract, this change order, new total.
What happens
The project's contract amount only updates once a change order's status is set to Approved — it recalculates from the latest approved estimate plus every approved change order on the job, so the total always reflects reality, not just what's been proposed.
15
Invoices
Invoice
Bill the client for what's been approved and done.
Pick a project — the client fills in automatically — and add line items, or arrive here already filled in via the Create invoice shortcut from an approved estimate (you'll see a banner confirming what was carried over; double-check tax % and payment terms, since those reset to defaults rather than copying across). Set a due date and payment terms, then Print / PDF for a paper copy or Send invoice to email it to the client directly.
16
Payments
Payments
Close the loop — record what actually came in.
From an invoice with a balance owed, click Register payment: amount (pre-filled to the full balance), method (check, wire, ACH, credit card, cash), and an optional reference number. The invoice status updates itself — Partial if there's still a balance, Paid once it's covered — and the client gets an automatic receipt email if they have an address on file.
17
Reports
Reports
Where every step above rolls up into numbers you can act on — or hand to your accountant.
Project Status
Financial Summary
Accounts Receivable Aging (0–30 / 31–60 / 61–90 / 90+ days)
Labor Hours
Change Orders
Every report exports to CSV. Set up a recurring one under Scheduled Reports — pick an email, a weekly or monthly cadence, and BuildFlow sends it automatically from then on.
Sheet R-01
Other modules
Everything above is the spine. These sit alongside it — visit them as the job calls for them.
Clients
Every client's contact and insurance info, plus their full project history in one place.
Files
Every document uploaded across every project, filterable by job.
Notifications
A running feed of what needs your eyes — new demands, approvals, overdue invoices.
Templates
Reusable starting points for scopes, work orders, and estimates so you're not typing the same job twice.
Teams
Group your crew so a work order can be assigned to a whole team at once.
Daily & Drying Logs
Day-by-day site notes and moisture-drying readings, kept with the project record.
Warranties & Liens
Track warranty coverage issued and lien filings tied to a job.
Users & roles
Invite your office and field staff and set what each of them can see and do.
Sheet R-02
Settings & billing
Company profile
Under Settings → Company: legal name, trade name, EIN / tax ID, license number, phone, email, website, and address. This is what prints on your estimates and invoices, so it's worth filling in before you send your first one.
Plan & usage
The Billing page shows three usage meters — active projects, users, and estimates this month — against your plan's limits, color-coded as you approach them. Three plans are available:
Starter
$149/mo
$119/mo billed annually
- 5 active projects
- 3 users
- Unlimited estimates & invoices
- Work orders & time tracking
- Client portal
- Email support
Recommended
Professional
$299/mo
$239/mo billed annually
- 10 active projects
- 6 users
- AI assistant
- Google Drive sync
- Inspections & permits
- Priority support
Enterprise
$499/mo
$399/mo billed annually
- Unlimited projects & users
- Change orders & draw schedule
- Subcontractors & inventory
- Warranties & liens
- Dedicated account manager
Upgrade hands off to a secure Stripe checkout; once you're on a paid plan, Manage billing opens Stripe's own portal to update your card, change plans, or cancel.
Sheet R-03
Status glossary
Status colors mean the same thing everywhere in BuildFlow OS, whether you're looking at a demand, an estimate, or a permit.
| Badge | Meaning |
|---|
| Grey | Not started, or doesn't apply — draft, not required, unassigned. |
| Blue | In motion — new, submitted, ordered, active. |
| Amber | Needs a decision or is close to a deadline — pending, partial, expiring soon. |
| Green | Done, approved, or paid — the good outcome. |
| Red | Needs attention now — overdue, expired, rejected, cancelled. |
Plan limits
Active projects, estimates created this month, and invoices created this month are all capped by your plan (see the Billing page for your exact numbers). If you hit a limit, the system stops you right at the point of creating a new one and points you to Settings → Billing to upgrade — nothing you've already built is ever hidden or locked.