Contractor Foreman vs. LiquidPlanner

Contractor Foreman works well for subcontractors and GC’s who don’t have the budget for higher-priced platforms (like Procore) but still need estimating, scheduling, daily logs, change orders, and job costing in one system.
For example, a 10–25 person construction company can replace separate tools (Excel, QuickBooks, text messaging, and whiteboard schedules) with Contractor Foreman and immediately improve organization and accountability.

LiquidPlanner is amazing for any time of project management scenario where you have to manage several teams and details. Running a project through LiquidPlanner is so easy because it lets you break down the project into sections and folders and small tasks that you can assign to specific people. With a small to medium size team-- LiquidPlanner is amazing for organizing and tracking details. If you have a huge team or not a ton of details to track LiquidPlanner might not be right for you because it is a software that requires some good training to learn and has tons of functions that can be utilized so it seems better suited to be used by a smaller group looking to coordinate or for people who have lots of details that can be difficult to track.

Incentivized

• The service is top notch. You would be hard pressed to find other options with this kind of service.
• The ability to have your project flow through the modules makes it a breeze to use.
• Being able to track time as well is a key feature.

Incentivized

• Priority based planning. Every other planning software we've used relies on dates and therefore needs constant attention. Priority based planning means that the plan is always up to date.
• Ease of use. LiquidPlanner has a very short learning curve. This is critical to getting team members to use it.
• Forecasting. LiquidPlanner makes it very easy to run scenarios by simply dragging and dropping projects and reassigning resources.
• Awesome Support. I get personal responses very fast. Usually within a couple hours. And, they listen and ask for more information.

Incentivized

• We already heard from CF that they might implement this, but a Gantt chart available while in the estimating tab, before you submit the project
• If you don't do things juuuusssst so, sometimes the system doesn't update or rejects what you're doing. It can be picky.
• You have to constantly refresh using their provided button. Fixes a lot of issues and becomes second nature, but a little annoying at first.

Incentivized

• LiquidPlanner's mobile app definitely needs some work. It doesn't display properly, having many things on the right hand side cut off. It doesn't update/refresh well. I can't imagine the mobile app will ever have the functionality of the Web version, but it needs to come a lot closer.
• LiquidPlanner requires that everyone actively participate in order to maximize its benefit. However, it can be difficult for everyone to be on top of all of their responsibilities all of the time. Not sure on a solution, but it can be a lot to manage.

Incentivized

Eliminated the need for our team to log into multiple systems to do their jobs which aligns to our Lean approach

Incentivized

We may not renew LiquidPlanner's contract, but only because my company has recently been acquired and we'll be adopting some of the software that they're using to standardize process. LiquidPlanner's development team releases new features pretty often, so it seems like the gaps and inefficiencies are slowly getting smaller/less frequent

Incentivized

Mostly great, especially for the price. The features appear to have definitely been designed by a team with a depth of construction specific experience. I also highly rate the usability because of the vast vast amount of customizability inherent in the system. It appears that almost all forms and features are customabizable on the company level and even specific to different individual users.

Incentivized

Easy to learn and utilize. Can export charts and reports for sharing with colleagues.

Incentivized

Availability was good, FUNCTIONAL availability was more spotty

Incentivized

Many times we had issues that turned out to be errors and bugs. At first, we would be told forcefully that there were no bugs, then we would document them, and we would get an acknowledgement but no apology for essentially either gaslighting us or being ignorant of their system

Incentivized

Absolutely top notch! They were always there to help and immediately. Very happy with the communication they provided and the knowledge they had of their product. I would venture to say that they are one of the best in terms of support in their space.

Incentivized

They have been great in trying to come up with creative solutions to help us do what we want to do with the platform. I would say their support has been exceptional because we have hit them with some complex requests.

Incentivized

Implementation was moderately difficult, it's the functionality and execution that are seriously lacking

Incentivized

I used Projul and Buildium when I was primarily managing rental properties rather than full home builds. Projul was great for estimating and invoicing, while Buildium served its purpose well at the time. Now, as a small construction company, Contractor Foreman provides everything we need in one platform, making project management much more efficient.

Incentivized

We had a "homebrew" time track program previously. It did one thing and it did it well--track time spent on an individual tactic or project, and it was deployed across all departments. It did not, however, capture the conversations or the work that could shed light on where problems occurred or issues were encountered.

Incentivized

We had just 2 users

Incentivized

• Cost Savings. Integration with QuickBooks and Bills improved financial control. 0-15% cost savings per project.
• Time Savings: Streamlined project management led to a 20-30% reduction in administrative time, boosting on-site productivity, and with project tracking a 15-20% reduction in project delays.
• Enhanced Collaboration: Centralized documentation and real-time updates improved team communication, increasing collaboration by 5-10%.
• Overall, CF has provided a 10-15% return on investment annually through increased efficiency and cost control.

Incentivized

• LiquidPlanner has improved everybody's visibility into tasks, decreasing the communication load required and increasing client communication and status updates, effectively increasing client satisfaction and likely helping to generate more business.
• LiquidPlanner has improved our estimation and communication about changing estimates. Allowing us to keep a running estimate of the remaining work lets our account managers bill appropriately for overages ahead of time, preventing issues with customers who may not want to pay for work that was done.
• LiquidPlanner sometimes takes time to navigate, find the right tasks, etc. and in this way, it may have added time to our day that we are not getting paid for. However, this is fairly negligible.

Incentivized