Client Case Study

Building an ops platform a painting contractor can actually run their business on

How a specialty contractor went from spreadsheets and gut feel to a live financial ops system — in 8 weeks.

Industry
Commercial Painting
Company Size
10–30 employees
Timeline
8 weeks

They were running a $3M+ business without being able to see it clearly

A commercial painting contractor in the Southeast — 140+ active jobs, mix of residential and commercial work. Growing fast. But flying blind.

Estimating in spreadsheets. Job costing only visible after job close. AIA invoices drafted from scratch every billing cycle. JobTread and QuickBooks both active — but not connected to anything useful.

"They were paying for two good platforms and getting maybe 20% of the value. The data was there — it just wasn't surfaced anywhere useful."


A live financial dashboard connected to their actual data

A live financial ops dashboard pulling from JobTread and QuickBooks simultaneously. No exports. No manual updates. Refreshes automatically.

Fig. 1 — Financial Operations Dashboard
ops.contractorname.com/dashboard
Financial Overview — YTD
Live · Updated just now
Pipeline Value
$1.24M
Active + Approved
Revenue YTD
$842K
vs. $1.1M goal
Avg GP%
38.4%
Across active jobs
AR Outstanding
$117K
7 open invoices
Revenue vs. Goal76%
GP% vs. Target (35%)38.4%
AR Collected63%

Pipeline, GP%, revenue vs. goal, and AR outstanding — one view, 30 seconds to read on any device.


An AI estimating tool that turns a scope description into a JobTread budget

Every estimate was being rebuilt from scratch. I built an AI estimating tool — describe the scope by voice or text, it generates a structured budget and pushes it into JobTread as a draft. Ready to review in minutes, not hours.

Fig. 2 — AI Estimating Tool
ops.contractorname.com/estimator
AI Estimator
Scope → JobTread Budget
Interior repaint, 3-story office building, approx 18,000 sq ft. Walls and ceilings throughout, 2 coats. Doors and trim included. Currently painted — no drywall work needed. 3 crew, estimated 8 days.
Labor
$14,400
Materials
$3,840
Total Budget
$18,240

The tool supports both typed scope descriptions and voice input — useful for estimators on job sites who want to capture scope notes before they leave the property. The budget pushes to JobTread automatically, tagged with the job and ready for review.


A per-job scorecard showing cost burn, AR status, and invoicing completion

The financial dashboard shows the business at altitude. The job scorecard goes one level deeper — it tracks each active job in real time, showing cost burn vs. budget, what's been invoiced, what's been collected, and whether the job is trending profitable or not.

Fig. 3 — Job Scorecard
ops.contractorname.com/jobs/scorecard
Valvoline — Warner Robins
On Track
Contract Value
$21,108
Projected GP%
40.1%
Cost Burned
$9,840
AR Outstanding
$7,200
Cost Burn
78%
Invoiced
65%
Collected
34%

The scorecard updates daily from live JobTread and QuickBooks data. When a job's cost burn is outpacing its invoicing, the owner sees it immediately — not at job close when there's nothing to do about it.


From zero ops visibility to a full platform in 8 weeks

8 wks
From first conversation to a deployed, role-based internal ops platform the whole team uses
5 tools
Built on top of their existing JobTread + QuickBooks stack — no new software licenses required
Live data
Pipeline, GP%, AR, and job cost visibility updated in real time — accessible on any device
One hub
Role-based internal platform with auth, user management, and tool access control — built for the whole team

"The goal wasn't to replace what they were already doing. It was to make it actually work — and give the owner visibility he could act on, not just data he had to go looking for."


Work With Me

Running your business on spreadsheets and gut feel?

If you're on JobTread, Buildertrend, or QuickBooks and not getting real value from them, I can help. I work with specialty contractors to build the ops infrastructure they actually need — scoped, fixed-price, and delivered in weeks.

Or email directly: andres@tradeopslab.com