Questions cladding subbies ask before they switch

Subcontractors, specifically. You can run a subbie business on Procore or Buildertrend — you get your own jobs and your own cost codes, and that part works. The catch is the subbie's half — pricing off your own rates, committed cost by code, progress claims and forecast margin — which most subbies still run in an Excel template beside the software and reconcile by hand. Subino was built for subcontractors from the start, so the half you were doing in Excel is the product.

No. It was built in a facade and cladding business, and two parts of it are cladding-specific: panel drawings and factory stock. Both can be kept out of the way — stock is off until you switch it on, and panel drawings only show for the roles you give them to. The rest is built around how any subbie works: priced by scope against your own cost codes, quoted to a head contractor and claimed progressively — not around how a builder runs a project. If you invoice on completion for small domestic jobs, it is more machinery than you need.

One person quoting and running their own jobs is a real use of it — that works on any plan, and it is how the product started. Where it earns its keep fastest is the moment you are carrying more than about five live quotes at once, because that is the point where remembering which one needs a phone call stops working.

You price each scope once, on the estimate. When you win the job, that revision is the budget, the claim line and the labour target — per cost code, with nothing re-typed. What changes after that goes through variations, so the contract you won stays the contract you won. Zero double entry.

Two things: your cost codes, and enough of your rates to price a job. Everything else fills itself in as you work — the rate library builds from the lines you price, and templates come from the jobs you have already done. You do not have to load your history to start; the sensible first move is to price your next real job in it alongside your spreadsheet and compare the two.

Yes — you don't start from zero. The import template takes your jobs, budgets, contacts, purchase orders and bills from a spreadsheet, and coming off Buildertrend you export those and paste them into it, mapped onto your own cost codes. It doesn't bring estimates or rates across: you set up your cost codes and rates first, and they are the part worth getting right.

No, and we'd talk you out of it. Jobs already half-run in a spreadsheet are usually better finished there. Start with the next job you price, so the first thing you see is the estimate feeding the budget rather than a migration.

Keep Bluebeam. For measuring a cladding job off the drawings it is the best tool there is, and it is what we use ourselves. Subino picks up where the takeoff ends: the quantities are held against the scope they belong to, inside the revision you priced, so a quote from last year still shows exactly what it was priced on.

Not well enough yet, in our experience. The AI takeoff tools we have tried struggle with elevations, and a cladding takeoff needs the elevations and the sections read together — which is exactly where they go wrong. We are developing an AI takeoff that reads elevations properly. Until it is right, Subino doesn't pretend to do it, and Bluebeam does the measuring.

Yes. Paste the EstimateOne listing, the builder's invitation or the email, and the new job comes back filled in — project, site address, closing date and the brief — with every tendering builder offered as a tick-box. Nothing is saved until you press Create.

Yes. The crew photograph the hand sketch, AI reads the dimensions written on it — it never measures the photo — and once the panel is checked and confirmed, the office downloads a DXF in millimetres with the cut blank, the fold grooves and the label on their own layers. Rectangles, L-shapes and notched panels today. The whole flow is on the panel drawings page.

Yes, if you switch it on. Receive a delivery with the freight spread across the lines by value, issue material to a job from a phone, and the cost lands on that job's budget under the item's cost code at the price you actually paid. It is off by default, for subbies who don't hold stock.

The Xero connection is built and in testing: connect Xero once per company, push a supplier bill to it against the right account, and the paid status and payment dates come back. We'll show it working on a live job before you rely on it — ask on the demo. MYOB is not supported today; if that is a blocker, say so on the demo rather than after.

Yes, properly. Retention percentage and a cap, taken on each progress claim, with the amount already held carried forward from the previous claim rather than recomputed — so a variation later in the job cannot silently restate retention you took six months ago.

Claimed by percentage complete against the same scopes and cost codes you priced, with the split a head contractor expects: original contract sum, approved variations, contract sum to date, less retention, less previously claimed. The schedule of values is frozen when you claim, so last month's claim stays exactly what it was. One thing it can't do yet: claim one elevation separately from another — today one claim line is one whole scope. Splitting a scope by elevation or level is the next thing being built.

Prices are held ex GST and GST is shown where it belongs — on the proposal, the claim and the bill. Where a supplier's quote is read in from a PDF, the GST is read off the document and shown to you rather than assumed.

That is the point of it. Budget, committed, actual and forecast on every cost code, so you see a code sliding in the week it happens. Across the book there is a work-in-progress view — what you have earned against what you have actually billed — which is the number that tells you whether you are funding the builder.

One monthly price for the whole company, set by how many people log in — office and site crew all count. Up to 5 users: Essentials $350, Pro $450 (adds panel drawings, factory stock, the roster and programme, and AI reading of supplier quotes and tender emails) and Premium $600 (adds the AI chat, voice follow-ups and AI job summaries). 6–10 users: $450 · $600 · $800; 11–20 users: $600 · $800 · $1,050. Over 20 users, talk to us. All in Australian dollars, no GST added, billed monthly — or pay yearly and save 10%.

No. Every login counts towards your user band — office and site crew alike — and there is no separate crew price. A leading hand who only clocks on and fills in the site diary is one of your users, the same as the estimator.

Nothing stops working. When adding someone would take you into the next band, we warn you first; the person is still added, and the next band's price applies from next month. Past 20 users, talk to us.

Bill reading by AI is on every plan with no limit. The rest of the AI — reading supplier quotes, tender emails and panel sketches on Pro, plus the AI chat, voice follow-ups and job summaries on Premium — comes with a monthly allowance that grows with your user band. You are told at 80%; at 100% the AI pauses until next month unless you ask us to lift it, and everything else in Subino keeps working.

Yes — clocking on against a job and a scope, the site diary with photos, tasks and drawings are all built for a phone first. They are the screens most likely to be opened in a car park with one hand. Get the Subino app free on the App Store and Google Play, or use it in the phone's browser.

Permissions are enforced in the database, not hidden in the interface. The crew, the office and management each see what their role allows and nothing else — so margin stays with the people who are supposed to see margin, even if somebody goes looking.

No. You share a variation, an order or a claim as a secure link. They open it, see only what you shared, and approve or decline it there. Their answer lands back on the job with a timestamp, and the link can be revoked.

Yes, and it is enforced at the database rather than by the application asking nicely — each company's rows are fenced by row-level security, and the isolation is tested by an automated probe rather than assumed. Your competitors cannot be shown your rates by a bug in a screen.

It is yours. Cost sheets, budgets and timesheets export to CSV from the screens you use them on, and if you leave we will get you a copy of the rest rather than making you scrape it out. Nothing about your rates or your history is held hostage.

Book a demo. We'll walk through your own estimating and job-costing workflow, ideally on a live job of yours, so you see how your numbers behave in Subino before you commit to anything. Then you get a 14-day free trial, no card needed: we set up your workspace with you, and the trial never turns into a paid plan unless you choose one. There is no sign-up-yourself button today, so the first conversation is with the person who built it.