The TradeGOAT Blog
Pricing, proposals, getting paid, and running the office, written by a contractor who's been doing it for twenty years, not a software company.
Your proposal becomes your template, your payment terms become dollars on the job, and your own rates price the bid — TradeGOAT starts from the paperwork you already use.
What TradeGOAT DoesPrice the job, send the proposal, get it signed, run the work, bill it, and see what it made — one job followed all the way through TradeGOAT, from the first number to the last dollar.
What TradeGOAT IsProposals, jobs, service tickets, the crew’s hours, receipts and what a job made — the office half and the field half of a trade company in one place, running on the paperwork you already send.
PricingIn a lot of shops one person prices the work and everything waits on him. Put your rate and your margin on the services they belong to, and somebody else can build the bid and send your number without seeing what is behind it.
Running the OfficeCrew hours are usually the biggest cost on a job and the last thing anybody writes down. Take the record from the phone at the job, let the week arrive with the rows that need a look already marked, and approve the rest in one move.
Getting PaidNo job runs in the order the payment schedule says it will. When a draw is stuck in the wrong place, the schedule starts lying about your money. Put it where it belongs, and leave everything you already billed frozen where it is.
Service WorkWhen one building has six machines on it, chasing a signature for every ticket is what pushes a tech into writing one ticket for the whole stop, and that is how you lose the record on each machine. Sign once, keep six signed tickets.
Maintenance WorkEvery maintenance agreement turns into the same phone call from the field. Put your coverage on the equipment itself, in your own words, and the ticket already knows the answer before the tech has to ask.
Service WorkThe quirks of every machine you service live in one or two people’s heads, and they leave when those people do. Give the equipment its own record, and let the tech standing in front of it at 3 a.m. read what the last guy learned.
Service WorkThe exact same ticket your company already uses, in digital form, with pictures attached and no pile in the truck, and the repairs your tech finds turn into proposals without digging for old paper.
Running the OfficeThe follow-up you never sent. The delay you never explained. How to get the hard emails written, without one ever going out wrong under your name.
Your DocumentsMost trade software makes you throw out the proposal you’ve spent years getting right and start over. Here’s why you shouldn’t have to.
PricingWinging it on service-call pricing quietly bleeds your margin. How to set a number you can charge every time, and actually make money on it.
Getting PaidEvery job changes mid-stream. The clean way to price the change, get it signed, and get paid, without reopening the whole deal or eating the work.
Our storyA 20-year elevator contractor and his wife, who runs the books at night after a full-time job and her own online boutique, built the trade tool they wished existed.
PricingAfter 20 years pricing jobs by gut, the repeatable, teachable method that finally showed me whether I was actually making money.
Job costingA bid is a prediction. Here's how to check it against reality, and catch a job bleeding money while there's still time to fix it.
Winning workYou don't always lose the job on price. Here's what actually goes in a contractor proposal that wins: clarity, trust, real options, and getting it in first.
Running the officeMost contractors quit new software within a month. Why the right tool runs on the documents you already use.
Running the officeFive questions to ask any vendor before you sign up, from a contractor who asked them too late.