Features
Everything your business needs, in one place
Punchlist combines CRM, Marketing, Bidding, and Invoicing into a single AI-native platform, built specifically for independent contractors and small crews rather than adapted from enterprise construction software.
Built around one 3-minute workflow
Sitting in the truck, from a phone: an accurate, sendable bid in about 3 minutes for templated, repeatable job types — the cost catalog does the heavy lifting. Fully custom estimates get a fast first draft in that same window, refined and sent shortly after. Everything else — CRM, invoicing, marketing — is what keeps you there once this workflow has already won you off spreadsheets.
CRM
The operating core
A single contact record for every lead, customer, subcontractor, and vendor, with a full communication history attached — not scattered across text messages, email, and sticky notes. Every job is a first-class record with its own timeline, documents, tasks, and financials, not bolted onto a generic deal object.
Every job, one record
- Built-in two-way calling, email, and SMS — every conversation logged automatically to the contact and job, not living in someone’s personal phone
- A job record consolidating communication, tasks, documents, and financials — pipeline view offered as both a sortable list and a drag-and-drop board
- Multiple job types for different stages (active bid, contracted job, subcontracted-out work) with tailored fields for each
- Configurable milestone dates per job type (estimate sent, contract signed, start date, completion, warranty expiration) that trigger automations
- A full task system — assignable, recurring, and linkable to a job so completed work is visible to the client
- A unified calendar aggregating every scheduled site visit, consultation, and inspection across all active jobs
- Attach subcontractors, vendors, and inspectors to a specific job for coordination
- A centralized Message Center aggregating every team member’s calls, texts, and emails in one view, with rich media and no rolling-window cutoff
Contact & pipeline management
- Two distinct views — an active Leads list vs. a full People database covering past customers, referral sources, subs, and vendors
- A construction-specific need-type field (new project, repeat customer, referral, warranty/service call, subcontractor, vendor) kept separate from pipeline stage
- Freeform notes on any contact or job, with @mention tagging to notify a teammate
- Bulk actions (tag, email, reassign, delete) and duplicate-merge tooling
- Soft-delete (“Trash”) instead of permanent deletion, so bad data can be hidden without losing the audit trail
- Dynamic merge-field placeholders in templates — auto-fill name, job address, appointment date
- Standardized project-intake questionnaires for structured discovery calls (scope, budget, timeline, site conditions)
- Bulk data import for migrating off spreadsheets without getting blocked at onboarding
Client communication
- A client-facing portal giving customers real-time visibility into job status, completed tasks, and documents — no phone call needed
- Automated progress updates pushed to the client by text or email, triggered by job events (task completed, milestone reached, new photos) — zero manual effort once configured
- Job-site photo documentation tied directly to the job record (before/during/after, organized by date), visible to office staff and the client portal alike
- A daily site activity log (photos, notes, questions) shareable with the client
- An auto-generated client handoff/warranty packet at job close — photos, materials used, warranty terms, and a maintenance schedule, compiled automatically
Scheduling & field
- Crew scheduling: a drag-and-drop calendar assigning specific workers or crews to jobs, with availability and capacity visible at a glance — distinct from the client-facing appointment calendar
- A mobile field app so crews can update tasks, leads, and job status on-site, syncing back to the office automatically
- Dedicated portals for subcontractors and vendors to submit bids, accept work orders, upload photos, and submit bills
- A structured job-specifications tool to document scope details and reduce on-site confusion
- Warranty tracking tied to a completed job, feeding directly into repeat-business prediction
- Full call routing with response-time tracking and voicemail handling
- Automated address validation on entry, for accurate job-site routing, permits, and mapping
Team, permissions & reporting
- Role-based visibility — owners/admins see everything, team members see only what they’re assigned to
- Individual and team-wide performance dashboards, task accountability reporting, and a visual sales funnel from lead to closed job
- A central home-screen dashboard surfacing new opportunities, inbound activity, and automation status — the default landing screen for daily work
- Role-restricted data export
Integrations & extensibility
- General-purpose connectors for syncing with other apps without custom development
- A developer-facing API for programmatic access, gated to owner/admin permissions
- No-code workflow automation for repetitive tasks and timed follow-ups, extending drip-campaign automation to any part of the job lifecycle
- Per-company billing and data isolation, so multiple businesses can share a login without job or financial data ever crossing between them
- A longer-term marketplace for third-party add-ons
AI-native in CRM
- Predictive lead scoring and a “likely to need service soon” signal on past customers
- Voice-to-structured-data field capture — narrate job details on-site, and speech-to-text plus an LLM auto-populates job notes, a time entry, material usage, and a draft change order
- Offline-first mobile architecture — local storage and background sync from day one, built for crews working without reliable connectivity
- Weather-aware scheduling — proactively flags exterior jobs at risk from the forecast and suggests rescheduling
Marketing
Staying top of mind, without manual work
Less about campaign creation, more about automated, ongoing relationship maintenance — and knowing which channel actually produces jobs.
- Pre-built, long-running nurture sequences for past customers and referral sources — seasonal maintenance reminders and repeat-business prompts
- Automated seasonal-content emails (maintenance tips, service reminders) built on the same nurture engine as the drip campaigns
- Lead source tracking with ROI reporting, and dedicated tracking phone numbers per marketing channel — so ad spend, signage, and referral programs can be measured against jobs won
- A referral incentive program — every customer gets a unique referral link/code, the platform automatically tracks referred signups and triggers a reward once the referred contractor converts to paid, no manual tracking or payout required
- Web-based instant-estimate forms that capture a partial lead (project type, address) before a full conversation happens
- Real-time website visitor identification and page-view history per lead, so a follow-up call can reference exactly what a prospect was looking at
- Curated content matching — hand-select and send a lead relevant portfolio examples or project references, saved to their record
- A built-in blog/content tool with SEO-oriented settings, and public team-roster/profile management for the company website
AI-native in Marketing
- AI-native prospecting — pulls public signals of who’s likely to need a contractor soon: building permit filings, recent home sales, storm damage reports, code violations
Bidding
Backed by real construction-software patterns
AI-assisted takeoff and estimate generation, a reusable cost catalog, structured sub-bid collection, and a polished, financeable, e-signable proposal experience that closes deals on the spot.
Estimating
- AI takeoff and estimate generation — auto-measure uploaded plans, generate a complete editable estimate from historical data for a given project type
- An AI estimate reviewer that automatically checks a finished estimate for missed line items before it’s sent
- A reusable, centralized cost catalog (assemblies) that speeds up estimate building across jobs
- A built-in project cost/financing calculator usable live during in-home consultations
- Live material pricing pulled from connected dealers directly into estimates, with inline quote requests
- Third-party regional labor-cost benchmarking, to price consistently across a growing crew instead of relying on one estimator’s gut feel
Proposals that close
- A branded, templated proposal builder with embedded inspection photos and markup annotations
- Multi-option (good/better/best) quoting, with a standard upgrades menu to increase average job size
- E-signature on the proposal itself — enabling an in-home close, with a real-time notification when the customer opens the quote
- An online client-selections tool where customers choose materials, finishes, or fixtures themselves
- Embedded financing in the customer-facing quote — attach financing plans, show monthly payment options, connect to a lender directly
Sub-bids, margin & conversion
- Digitally collect competing pricing from subcontractors and vendors, then convert an accepted bid into a purchase order or work order in one click
- Visual bid-profitability analysis showing margin breakdown before a bid is sent, plus per-job tracking comparing estimated to actual value
- A granular, admin-controlled permission model limiting who can discount, edit pricing, or change margins
- One-click conversion from a signed quote into an invoice, a material order, or a production-ready work order — no re-entry of line items
AI-native in Bidding
- Vision-based photo scope/damage detection — a vision model analyzes uploaded job-site photos to flag scope and pre-fill a draft estimate line item
- A real-time margin guardrail — flags any line item priced meaningfully below the historical average for that cost code while a bid is still being built
- Subcontractor risk tracking — cross-references sub-bid history and reliability with license/insurance expiration, flagging a lapsed certification before a job is assigned
Invoicing
Tied to the job, not bolted on
Milestone-based tracking, configurable fee/split structures with auto-calculated payouts, and documents attached directly to the same job record and milestone dates already established in the CRM — not a separate system.
Billing & documents
- Document storage and e-signed agreements attached directly to the job record — estimates, contracts, change orders, permits, insurance certificates
- Milestone-based financial tracking (deposit, progress payments, final payment) tied to the same job milestone dates used elsewhere
- Configurable fee/split structures with auto-calculated payouts for subcontractors and crew
- Standardized progress-payment application documents (an AIA-style format) for billing partially completed work
- A structured change-order workflow specifically designed to prevent unbilled scope creep
Visibility & accounting
- A client portal view showing invoice/payment status alongside job progress, so customers see one unified picture
- An integrated financial statements/reporting dashboard
- Two-way QuickBooks Online (and Xero) sync for invoices, payments, and job costs — not a one-way export
- Automated job costing comparing real-time actual income and costs to the original budget as the job progresses, with field time tracking feeding directly into it
AI-native in Invoicing
- Natural-language business analytics — a conversational query interface over your own job and financial data (“which crew has the best on-time rate”, “how many jobs did we lose to price last quarter”) instead of static dashboards
See it running in your business
Every module above is part of the same AI-native platform — request a live walkthrough or start a free trial to see how it fits your crew.