8 Best Apps for Construction Businesses in 2021

It doesn’t matter if you’re an independent contractor, general contractor, or anything in between, odds are you rely on a construction app for the field to keep yourself and your team organized and connected.

With the construction app for the field, you are saving time and money while also engaging your workforce who isn’t sitting behind a desk or working from an office.

You need a construction employee management app to raise the bar on safety, receive daily reports from the field, manage projects, create estimates, to smooth out calculating, spot defects or unsafe situations, efficient project management, real-time communication, mobile time tracking, task management, BIM access, and more. 

We have compiled a list of the best construction employee management apps in the market to help you achieve all your business needs and goals. Check it out below.

8 Best Apps for Construction Businesses in 2021

1. Connecteam

Connecteam is the best construction employee management app considering that it’s the only solution to offer an all-in-one solution for deskless employees and for you to effectively manage your company from anywhere. Connecteam offers all the features needed to communicate with your team, schedule shifts, track time, and organize your business. 

Construction companies using Connecteam’s construction app for the field told us about the main benefits they see on a daily business: 

• Safety is a priority: ensure employees have instant access to critical safety information and resources, safety protocols, ongoing safety training, and real-time safety reporting.
• Send and receive reports in real-time from the field: streamline reporting from field to office with real-time reports submitted while on the go, such as safety hazard observation, daily crane inspection, repair order ticket, COVID-19 daily health declaration report, and more.
• Streamlined communication on the go: logistical and operational communication, engaging updates, key announcements, and more are easy with advanced communication features like chat groups and channels, real-time push notifications, private chat, updates directly to your employee’s mobile phone, employee directory, and more.
• Compliance through ‘read and sign’ forms: ensure all employees are compliant through digital ‘read-and-sign’ forms, for example, employee handbook, uniform agreement, sexual harassment policy, and more. 
• SOPs and company protocols available: whenever needed, employees can access the employee handbook, code of ethics, important company protocols, and more, right from their mobile phone. 
• Mobile-first & GPS empowered: time tracking allows your employees to clock in and out directly from their mobile phones. Whenever employee clocks in and out, a real-time timestamp and GPS location is tagged.
• Foreman Kiosk clock in: Connecteam’s kiosk app allows teams to clock in from a centralized kiosk station on their foreman’s mobile to ensure no one clocks in before the foreman is on site.
• Onboarding new hires and training: quickly and efficiently onboard your crew and get them up to speed. With read and sign forms, quizzes, videos, PDFs, and training, your team has a structured onboarding experience. 

Price: Connecteam’s construction app for the field offers a very affordable solution. Instead of paying for each user, it offers a fixed monthly fee that starts at $39/month for up to 50 users. Or you can commit to the free plan after the free 14-day trial finishes.

2. LetsBuild

LetsBuild is designed to support you and your teams throughout every construction phase. For example, your site teams are able to collaborate efficiently, have access to clear processes, and real-time information is shared between site and office.

There are four “products” that LetsBuild offers: Documents, Progress & planning, QHSE, and Control and insights. 

With LetsBuild, you also have access to the following:

• Track and update the project plan
• Process overviews and insights
• Access to latest documents, latest drawings, on-site
• Compliance with standards and regulations 
• Digitize key processes in a central system
• Seamless communication and collaboration

Price: There is a free plan otherwise the Pro plan starts at $288/month for up to 10 teams and there is a $50 fee per license a month. 

3. Procore

From owners to general contractors to specialty contractors, Procore is there to help you manage projects, resources, and financials on one solution. 

Connect the entire process in four software solutions: Preconstruction, Project Management, Resource Management, and Financial Management.

The following are some of Procore’s top features:

• Streamlined communication
• Every app, document, and person is housed on Procore
• Customize fields, workflows, and tools to fit your processes
• BIM
• Real-time labor costing
• Analytics
• Quick search

Price: Their recommended plan includes Project Management and Financial Management which will cost $549/month and an annual contract is required. 

4. Raken

If you’re just looking to digitally track hours and streamline payroll for your construction business then Raken is a good choice. Raken Time Cards make it easy to bulk upload your crews and allocate hours to all your teams in one go. In addition, you can easily and quickly add members from the app or edit hours for a single team member.

These are the time tracking features Raken offers:

• Time cards for teams or individuals
• Overtime management
• Assign a time to cost codes
• Real-time project progress
• Rollover hours for duplicate work every day
• Daily reports
• Production tracking
• Integrates with Procore, Aconex, Google Drive, QuickBooks, and more

Price: Raken’s pricing plans start at $15/month/user, however, its most popular plan will cost you $37/month/user. There is also a free 15-day trial.

5. Wrike

Wrike is a robust work management solution that offers remote team management, custom dashboards, workflows, team-specific automation, real-time communication, full visibility into projects, and more.

You can benefit more from the following features: 

• Automated reporting
• Be proactive with project management
• Drag and drop interface
• Gantt charts
• Integrates with Stripe, Adobe, GitHub, Google, Box, and more. 

Price: The most popular plan will cost $24.80/month/user for 5-200 users. A free trial is included. 

6. Smartsheet

Smartsheet makes it easy to connect and have a holistic view of your projects, from all stages such as pre-construction and closeout. Additionally, you can connect and collaborate with your office and field teams, sub-contractors, consultants, inspectors, and other stakeholders. You have total project visibility so you can reduce safety hazards, create ownership, have fewer redundancies, and create accurate schedules.

Smartsheet also offers the following to help manage your crew:

• Real-time data, even on the go
• Resource management
• Quality control
• Safety management
• QR codes at job sites
• Real-time notifications for scheduling
• Budget management
• Integrates with G Suite, Box, Dropbox, DocuSign, Salesforce, and more

Price: A standard pricing plan starts at $25/month/user. If you’re looking for Enterprise pricing, you’ll need to contact a sales representative. 

7. Fieldwire

Fieldwire brings together the entire project team, from the foreman to the project manager, so that it’s easy to collaborate and share information in real-time. You can benefit from coordinating effectively, tracking performance, and reducing risks. Fieldwire is great for general contractors, specialty contractors, owners, architects, and designers. 

The following features help manage your construction company and employees:

• Assign tasks and work from up-to-date drawings
• Align field and office with real-time messaging 
• Record your markups and as-builts
• Create schedules for upcoming work
• Repeat best practices across projects
• Digitized forms

Price: There is a free plan for 5 users, while the Pro plan costs $44/month/user and is best for growing teams. 

8. PlanGrid

PlanGrid is an Autodesk Construction cloud that targets four core product areas: documents, progress, reporting, and Enterprise. Additionally, PlanGrid is easy to use, built for the field and is super fast. You can access project information anywhere, whether its plans and specifications or punch lists, documents, and photos. You can also distribute plans and documents that are already automatically hyperlinked, versioned in order, and searchable.

PlanGrid offers the following features to streamline your business:

• Smart drawings
• BIM
• Documents and workflows
• Markups
• Punch lists
• Project hub
• Field reports
• Admin console

Price: Depending on how many sheets you need, pricing will vary. For example, 550 sheets cost $49/month, 5,000 sheets cost $69/month, and unlimited sheets cost $139/month. There is also a free 21-day trial.

Summarizing the Best Apps for Small Construction Business

If you are in the market for some help with your next construction project, there is quite literally an app for that. As you saw from our list of the best apps for construction business.

From field to office and while on the go, you can stay connected with your team so they have direct access to helpful resources, can collaborate easily, view the schedule, clock in and out, remain compliant, stay up to date with safety protocols, and so much more right in the palm of their hand. Carefully review our list of best apps for small construction business to get ahead and streamline projects.