Do foremen need a new app?

Not necessarily. If your field or project software allows custom forms, the ticket lives there. If not, a simple web form on the phone works without an install. What matters is that it takes about a minute.

What if the customer's representative is not on site to sign?

The ticket goes to them by email or text to approve, and it shows as waiting until they do. The office sees every ticket waiting for a signature, by customer, instead of finding out at billing time.

Does this replace our accounting system?

No. Complete tickets are handed to your accounting or project system for invoicing as they are today. Rates and invoice rules stay where they are.

From finished job to invoice without the paper chase

Crews finish extra work on site, but the tickets reach the office days later with hours, materials or a signature missing. Here is how extra work becomes invoice-ready the day it is done, without replacing the project software.

The problem

Crews finish the work, but billing waits. Extra work is written on paper tickets that ride around in a truck for a week, hours and materials are missing, and the customer's signature often is too. The office chases foremen before anything can be billed.

What was really causing it

The project software tracks the contract work, but nothing captures extra work properly at the moment it happens. The gaps are found days later, by the person writing the invoice, when nobody remembers the details.

Nothing captures extra work properly at the moment it happens.

What the research says

35% of construction professionals' time goes on non-optimal work: looking for project information, resolving conflicts, fixing mistakes (FMI and PlanGrid (now Autodesk), Construction Disconnected: The High Cost of Poor Data and Miscommunication)
$177.5B in US labour costs a year attributed to that time (FMI and PlanGrid (now Autodesk), Construction Disconnected: The High Cost of Poor Data and Miscommunication)
48% of rework on US jobsites put down to miscommunication and poor project data (FMI and PlanGrid (now Autodesk), Construction Disconnected: The High Cost of Poor Data and Miscommunication)

None of these numbers is about extra work tickets alone, but they describe the same thing: a large share of paid time goes on finding and fixing information. An extra work ticket is the smallest unit of that problem and the one closest to cash. Every ticket that is late, incomplete or unsigned is work done and not yet billable.

What we built

A short digital ticket on the foreman's phone, and a review screen for the office. Hours, materials and photos are checked before the crew leaves, rough notes are tidied into a clear description, and the customer signs on the spot.

Logged The foreman records extra work on site in a minute, on the phone they already carry.
Checked Hours, materials and photos are checked against what this kind of work needs.
Signed The customer's representative signs on site, so the work is agreed before it is billed.
Invoiced Complete tickets go straight to billing; gaps go back to the foreman the same day.

What stays as it is

Your project management and accounting systems. Contract work is billed exactly as it is today.

Where AI fits, and where it does not

AI tidies a foreman's rough notes into a description the customer will accept, and spots what is missing. Rates, quantities and invoicing stay in your systems.

What it is worth

What comes next

A view of extra work by project and by customer, and the same tickets feeding formal change order requests.

Questions people ask

Do foremen need a new app?: Not necessarily. If your field or project software allows custom forms, the ticket lives there. If not, a simple web form on the phone works without an install. What matters is that it takes about a minute.
What if the customer's representative is not on site to sign?: The ticket goes to them by email or text to approve, and it shows as waiting until they do. The office sees every ticket waiting for a signature, by customer, instead of finding out at billing time.
Does this replace our accounting system?: No. Complete tickets are handed to your accounting or project system for invoicing as they are today. Rates and invoice rules stay where they are.

Construction Disconnected: The High Cost of Poor Data and Miscommunication, FMI and PlanGrid (now Autodesk) (2018)

Canonical URL: https://ugibo.com/case-studies/finished-job-to-invoice