For jobs that change mid-job
Variations start as estimates. Jobs end as invoices.
Site hours per job. Each variation priced from what the last one actually took. Receipts for timber and fixings right on the bill. One file to hand to accounts, working offline on site.
One payment. No rent. File is yours.
Construction — straight talk
The parts that usually go sideways.
Variations priced by gut
Past jobs keep their hours, tagged by variation. When VO4 looks like VO2, price it from VO2's real hours. Quotes get tighter every job without anyone becoming an estimator.
Materials on your card, off the invoice
Snap the docket at the counter, mark it billable to the job. It lands on the client's invoice as its own line. The days of absorbing $1,200 in fixings end now.
Profit? Ask in June.
Hours against budget, by job, by week, on a grid you can read Friday at 4pm. A job going sideways shows up as a bar past 90%, while you can still fix it.
Friday timesheets are fiction
Log daily from the phone-hotspot laptop or fill the weekly grid in minutes. Notes autocomplete from the job's history, so Monday's entry reminds you what Friday forgot.
What you’ll actually use
Just the bits you bill for.
Job costing, light
Hours, budget, burn-down per job. No ERP, no training day. Just enough truth to run the job.
Variation path
Quote it as an estimate, get the ok, convert to invoice. No retype, no gap between the yes and the bill.
Built for Friday at 4pm
Weekly grid fills fast, works offline on site, syncs through your own folder later. Then go home.
Materials ride along
Billable expenses with photos attach to the job. Client sees timber, fixings, and hire as clean lines next to labour.
And the rest of owntime
Timers, timesheets, invoices with tax, expenses with snaps, estimates, per-client currency, CSV you can hand to anyone — the full list.
Set it up like this
Your world, in your trade’s words.
First run: pick Construction
Jobs for projects, Trade for tasks, variation tags (VO1, VO2) suggested as you type, Materials for expenses. owntime seeds Demo, Rough-in, Fit-off, Admin and calls estimates Quotes. Accent: amber.
Client = the client
Homeowner or builder, one record with their currency. All jobs and variations roll up here.
Project = the job
Job 214 bathroom. Hours budget from the quote. Labour logged here daily.
Tasks = the trade
Demo, plumbing rough-in, fit-off, admin. Same tasks across jobs so job-to-job comparison works.
Tags = the variation
VO1, VO2, VO3. Variation hours grouped from day one, priced from history.
A week in owntime
How the work actually flows.
Quote: hours from history
Open the closest past job, read the trade-by-trade hours, bid the new job from that. Add margin deliberately instead of accidentally.
Run: daily site log
Hours per trade per day, materials snapped at the counter. The job bar fills where the foreman can see it.
Vary: tag it same day
Extra work gets tagged VO-something immediately. The variation estimate practically writes itself at smoko.
Bill: progress and final
Pull job hours plus waiting materials onto the invoice. Accepted variations convert straight through. Hand accounts a CSV too.
What the client sees
A bill that looks like you wrote it.
| Description | Qty | Rate | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| Job 214 — bathroom labour | 32h | $65 | $2,080 |
| Variation 3 — waterproofing (accepted) | — | — | $850 |
| Materials — reimbursable | — | — | $1,240 |
| Total | $1,240 | ||
Plain lines, your letterhead, your numbers. PDF, made locally. No server in the middle.
Straight talk
What it will not do.
Every tool has edges. Here are ours, plainly, so you find out now and not in month three.
- ×Hours and materials only. No plant schedules, no subcontractor payroll, no programme charts.
- ×One file per machine. The site laptop holds the truth, mirrored to your own sync folder for the office.
- ×Budgets count hours. Materials are tracked as expenses, not budgeted, so price spikes show on the invoice rather than in a warning.
Asked a lot
Questions construction people ask.
How do variations become invoices?
Write the variation as an estimate from the tagged hours. When the client accepts, convert it. Lines, tax, and notes carry over untouched.
What about materials we front?
Billable expenses with docket photos. They wait on that job's next invoice and print as separate lines, so reimbursement is itemized.
Does it work without signal on site?
Yes. Everything is local. Log all week offline, mirror through your sync folder when you are back in range.
Can the office see the job?
Through the mirrored file or a CSV export. There is no login or portal, which keeps it simple and keeps the data yours.
Test it on a real week.
14 days, full app. If it doesn’t survive your busy week, don’t pay. Simple.