You finished the job three weeks ago. The invoice still says sent.
Estimates, change orders, job costs, scheduling and invoicing in one place — so the paperwork that decides whether the job made money stops living in a truck, a text thread and three different apps.
Every job drifts. Most of them drift invisibly.
You bid the kitchen at a number. Then the customer moves a wall, the tile goes up, a sub no-shows and you cover a day yourself. Six weeks later the job is done and profitable-ish, and nobody — including you — can say which of those changes ate the margin.
- The estimate is a PDF that stopped being true in week two.
- The extras were agreed in a text message nobody can find.
- Receipts for materials are in the glovebox, not against the job.
- Chasing the final invoice is a job you do at nine at night, badly.
- The customer calls you on site because there is nowhere else to look.
One record per job, and it stays true
The same job, run through one system, with each stage leaving something behind you can point at later.
The estimate is a live document
Sent as a proposal the customer accepts online, with their name and the moment they accepted recorded against it.
Extras are records, not memories
Every scope change is a priced change order with its own approval state, sitting beside the original bid rather than buried in it.
Costs land where they happened
Materials, subs, permits and disposal are logged against the job, and marked billable when the customer is carrying them.
The chasing is automatic
A reminder before the due date and one after it go out on their own, so the awkward follow-up is not a task on your evening.
The customer has somewhere to look
A portal link shows them their invoices and proposals and lets them book a visit, instead of calling you on a ladder.
Margin is a number
Revenue collected against costs incurred, per job, so you find out in week three rather than at the end of the quarter.
From site visit to final payment
Each stage leaves a record on the job, so the story of what happened is still there when you need to defend an invoice.
Walk the site
Put the visit on the calendar against the customer. Notes from the walkthrough stay on their record instead of in a notebook.
Send the estimate
Build it from your priced items — labour, materials, service — and send it. You can see when it was opened and when it was accepted.
Deposit, then the job opens
Take the deposit, and the work becomes a job with its own number, a budget and a contract status you can point at.
Costs land on the job
Materials, subs, dump fees and permits get logged as expenses against the job — and marked billable if the customer is carrying them.
Scope changes get raised
The extra bathroom vanity becomes a change order with its own amount, approved or rejected on its own terms. The original bid stays untouched.
Draw, final, done
Invoice in stages as the job progresses. When the last payment clears, the job has a complete cost and revenue picture attached to it.
Win the quote, then bill it without retyping it
Most estimates are lost to lag rather than to price — the contractor who sends a clean number on Tuesday beats the one who sends it on Friday. Build the estimate from items you have already priced, send it as a proposal the customer accepts online, and convert the accepted version into an invoice that carries the same lines. Send your first estimate free →
Priced items, not blank pages
Your labour, materials and service lines are a catalogue, so a new estimate is assembly rather than authorship.
Accepted online, with a name on it
The customer accepts or declines in their browser and their name is recorded against the acceptance.
Straight through to an invoice
An accepted estimate converts to an invoice, and Velosiq keeps the link between the two.
Deposits, draws and part payments
A job can carry as many invoices as it needs, and each can be paid in parts without reading as unpaid.
The extras, tracked as extras
The single most expensive habit in contracting is agreeing to scope changes verbally and reconstructing them at invoice time. A change order in Velosiq is its own record against the job, with its own value and its own approval state, so the conversation at the end is about a list rather than about memory. See how change orders work →
Separate from the contract value
The original bid stays what it was. Added scope is visibly added scope.
Pending, approved, rejected
Each change order carries its own status, so nothing sits in an ambiguous middle.
Priced individually
Every change order has an amount, which rolls into what the job is now worth.
Attached to the job
They live on the job record with the estimate, the invoices, the costs and the files.
Somewhere for them to look that is not your phone
You cannot answer "can you resend that invoice?" from the top of a ladder, and you should not have to. Send the customer a portal link and they can read their invoices, open the proposal, accept or decline it, and ask for a visit — without an account, a password or a phone call to you. Try the customer view →
No login for them to forget
The portal is a link you send. There is no account for the customer to create or reset.
Invoices and proposals in one view
They can see what has been sent, what is outstanding and what they already approved.
Accept the estimate themselves
Approval happens in their browser, with their name and the time recorded on the proposal.
Book a visit
They can request an appointment from the portal, which lands on your calendar instead of your voicemail.
The follow-up you never get around to
Two emails do most of the work: one before an invoice is due, and one after it if the money has not arrived. Appointments get the same treatment, so the customer is expecting you when the van pulls up. You set the timing once, and the chasing stops being a job you have to remember. Turn the reminders on →
Before the due date
A nudge a set number of days out, while paying is still an easy thing for them to do.
After the due date
One firm reminder once an invoice is overdue. Deliberately one, not a drip campaign that costs you the customer.
Partly paid still gets chased
An invoice paid in part is chased for the balance rather than quietly treated as done.
Appointment reminders too
Customers get a reminder ahead of the visit, which is the cheapest no-show prevention there is.
What the job actually cost you
Margin is only real if the costs are attached to the job that incurred them. Log materials and subs as expenses against the job, track hours with a rate, set a budget, and put it against cash that actually landed — Velosiq counts revenue when the payment clears, not when the invoice was raised. See your first job costed →
Costs tagged to the job
Materials, subcontractors, permits and disposal, each against the job that incurred them.
Billable and rebilled
Flag a cost as billable and put it on an invoice. Velosiq remembers which invoice, so it goes out once.
Labour with a rate
Time entries carry an hourly rate and a billable flag, so crew hours reach the margin calculation.
Who owes you, and how long
An ageing view shows outstanding invoices by how overdue they are, so the worst one is obvious.
What the equipment earns
Trucks, excavators and tools carry purchase cost, service history and the revenue of the jobs they worked.
Access to the job, not to the books
A lead carpenter needs the schedule, the job and the file with the drawings in it. They do not need your revenue report. Velosiq keeps that split simple — owner, admin and member — rather than making you administer a permissions matrix you will never revisit.
Three roles, not thirty
Owner, admin and member. Easy to reason about, which means it stays correct.
Added to the jobs they work
Crew are attached to specific jobs, with the files and comments that belong to them.
One calendar
Visits and jobs sit on a shared calendar, which can sync two-way with Google Calendar.
What Velosiq is not
It runs the commercial side of the job. It is not a takeoff tool and does not pretend to be a full construction management suite.
- — It does not do material takeoffs or generate bids from drawings.
- — It has no CAD, no BIM and no drawing markup.
- — It does not run payroll, and it does not file your taxes.
- — It does not schedule crews across jobs on a Gantt chart.
- — It does not do recurring or autopay invoicing — every invoice is raised deliberately.
- — The job hub — change orders, job costing, time entries and crew access — is part of the Business plan. Every plan, including Free, covers clients, estimates, invoicing and card payments.
Questions, answered
What contractors ask before they put a live job through it.
Can I turn a contractor estimate into an invoice without retyping it?
Yes. You build the estimate from your priced items — labour, materials, service — and send it as a proposal the customer can accept online. When they accept, it converts into an invoice carrying the same line items, and Velosiq keeps the link between the two so you can see which estimate became which job.
Do change orders stay separate from the original bid?
They do. A change order is its own record on the job with its own amount and a status of pending, approved or rejected. The original contract value stays what it was, and you can see at a glance how much of the current job total is scope that was added after the bid.
Can my customers pay a contractor invoice online by card?
Yes. You connect your own Stripe account and send a card payment link for the invoice. The money settles into your Stripe account on your own payout schedule — Velosiq never holds your funds and is not a payment processor. When the payment clears, the invoice updates itself.
Will Velosiq chase late invoices for me?
It sends two reminders you configure once: one a set number of days before the due date, and one a set number of days after it if the invoice is still outstanding. It is deliberately two emails rather than an endless sequence, and partly paid invoices are chased for the balance rather than being treated as settled.
Can I bill a job in draws rather than all at the end?
Yes. A job can carry as many invoices as it needs — deposit, progress draws, final — and each one can be part-paid. Velosiq tracks what has actually cleared against the job rather than treating anything short of the full amount as unpaid, so a job that is 60% collected reads as 60% collected.
Can I see whether a job actually made money?
Yes. Log materials, subs and other costs as expenses against the job, track labour as time entries with an hourly rate, and put that against what you invoiced. Costs tagged to a job roll up against the budget you set, so margin is a number you can look at rather than a feeling at the end of the month.
How hard is it to switch from spreadsheets or a pile of separate tools?
You can import your customer list from a CSV, so the slowest part of a move is usually already done. Velosiq replaces the CRM, estimating, scheduling and invoicing layer rather than your accounting software, so a common setup is Velosiq for running the work and your existing accountant or bookkeeping tool for the books.
Can my crew use it without seeing what the job is worth?
You invite people as owner, admin or member. A member can be added to the jobs they are working without the run of your revenue reports and billing. It is a straightforward split rather than a permissions matrix, which for most crews is what you want.
Put one job through it
Start free with estimates, invoicing and card payments, and when you want the full job picture — change orders, costs, margin — the Business plan is waiting.
Free plan available · No credit card required · Cancel anytime