Dave Kowalski runs Summit Build — a small building company working on home extensions, renovations and small commercial fit-outs across South Morang, Mernda and Doreen. Dave has two full-time carpenters and subcontracts plumbing, electrical and concreting. He handles all the quoting and customer communication himself.
The business was growing steadily through word of mouth. But the admin was not keeping up. Dave had a spreadsheet for leads — a multi-tab Excel file he had built himself over four years — that was increasingly hard to use and increasingly unreliable.
Dave's Excel file had grown organically. There were 11 tabs including a quote log, a customer list, a subcontractor list, a materials reference sheet, and a tab called "OLD DO NOT USE". The file opened slowly. Formulas broke. Columns had duplicated.
To see which quotes needed following up, Dave had to scroll through multiple tabs and use his memory. On a busy week, this meant quotes sat for two weeks without a reply simply because he could not see them at a glance.
Dave tracked two specific instances where he lost jobs he believes he would have won, had he followed up within the week. One was a $38,000 extension. The customer went with another builder who called them back three days after the quote.
"The spreadsheet worked fine when I had 10 clients. At 60 or 70 active leads across a year, I could barely find anything. I knew it was broken but I didn't know where to start fixing it." — Dave, fictional example based on common small builder admin patterns
Dave has not missed a quote follow-up since switching. The pipeline view makes it impossible to overlook a quote that needs attention.
Morning pipeline check. Update job statuses. Review follow-ups. Send any outstanding messages. Done before the first coffee is finished.
The cost of the tool. For a building business turning over $600,000–$900,000 per year, the cost of one recovered lead more than covers the annual subscription.
We help small building businesses move from broken spreadsheets to simple, reliable systems that are actually used. We start with a review of how your leads, quotes and follow-ups currently work.
Related support
These tradie pages connect back to our main small-business services, so you can move from one admin problem to the right practical support.