From Paper to Profit: How Buildxact is Transforming Construction Management

Quinton Comino: Hello, everybody. Today, my guest is Jennifer with Buildxact. Really excited for this one. If you’re a contractor—whether you’re small or you’re big or you’re anywhere in between—Buildxact is able to meet needs that if you just transparently don’t have it and you’re still on pen and paper, then you’re behind. Buildxact will help you manage your leads and help you quote your jobs accurately.

Quinton Comino: In fact, so accurately that they’re integrated—their system is integrated directly with Home Depot so that you can get live pricing when you’re on the job. You know how much it’s gonna cost to buy that two-by-four that’s ten miles down the road at the Home Depot. You can quote your customer accurately for that renovation or whatever it is that you need to do. So I don’t wanna spoil it, but there’s some really great things in here that you’re gonna learn. If you’re a contractor or you’re a homeowner, you’re gonna see how this will benefit you.

Quinton Comino: And if your contractor’s not using Buildxact and you’re a homeowner, you might tell them, “Hey, give them a look and see how they can help you scale your business and manage your leads, manage your customers so that you can give them the absolute best customer service, best experience possible.” So let’s tune in.

Quinton Comino: So just to start then, Jennifer, let us know just a quick overview of what Buildxact does and then what position you fulfill there.

Jennifer: Sure. So Buildxact is a construction project management software serving custom home builders, small- and medium-sized business owners, and design-builder remodelers. It’s an online cloud-based system that goes from design all the way to final invoice and connects the suppliers, the homeowner, and the trades.

Quinton Comino: Mhmm. So there are a lot of different softwares. I think of like QuickBooks whenever I think of accounting or numbers—I think of QuickBooks. But Buildxact is not—that’s not an accurate comparison.

Jennifer: We don’t compare with QuickBooks—we integrate with QuickBooks. So we do have a cost-tracking component which is really really important to our users so they can always see what the variance is, what their profits are during any stage of the project—even when change orders start coming in. And change orders can also be handled on the platform.

Jennifer: But for us it is more about the estimating, the quotes, the takeoffs. Our takeoff tool is very sophisticated. Then also with the estimates we connect directly to the suppliers—so the dealers. So in the US we have the Home Depot’s National Pro product list connected to our estimates. So if you do an estimate then you can be connected to my Home Depot’s like four miles from my house—I’m connected to that one—it’s showing me the SKUs and that pricing on that day so that I have that accuracy and transparency that I’m giving to the homeowner as well.

Quinton Comino: Yeah. Well so you’re—to have in your software connected real-time with pricing from Home Depot—so they have accurate lumber pricing, accurate plumbing pricing, electrical pricing, whatever it is—they can on the job, “Hey this is your material cost—here’s your labor.”

Jennifer: That’s right.

Quinton Comino: Yeah—that’s fantastic. How do you keep up to date with all that? That would be—well yeah yeah—that’s a lot.

Jennifer: Yeah—it’s specific integrations. We’re in here with The Home Depot—we have ongoing meetings with them and we do that with other suppliers as well. You know their pros have a variety of suppliers that they purchase from and many of them like to purchase from local lumber yards and we do that with local lumber yards as well. So I’m integrating with their price list and that way the pro can be confident in what they’re giving too because you know a lot of times they have to put in escalation clauses to cover themselves and try to manage the risk of what they’re handing over especially in today’s market—I mean their tariffs when things are changing on such a—their things are so volatile and they’re changing on such a regular basis we have to stay on top of and help them and support them with the most on-demand and accurate information we can provide—so that’s what we’re looking to do.

Quinton Comino: Yeah—so here at Home Nation we have a bunch of different manufacturers that we represent and we have to keep up to date with the pricing—and it does not change nearly as much as material pricing does but it still does change frequently—sometimes the price usually the price goes up but sometimes it does come down—and that can be difficult to keep up with—even and we are talking fraction of the price updates you probably have and more than likely as many suppliers that we have a couple dozen that we keep up to speed with—but that’s hard—our tech has to be on it when the pricing updates come out we need to go and update those right away otherwise it just causes lots of different problems—so I would imagine that takes a trained team that’s on top of it all of the time ready to update as soon as you get information from the suppliers.

Jennifer: Well I mean that doesn’t—it’s nothing on me—it is as the suppliers update their pricing it’s an API integration that just feeds into our system—so it is on-demand—as soon as a price change is made by the Home Depot that is what our users see in their estimate—and also like if they’re part of the Home Depot Pro Extra program then they see the discount that they get from that program right there in the estimate—so they know that like if they’re receiving I think up to an 8% discount through Pro Extra—if they get that 8% discount it’s showing in those numbers on the estimate so that—and then they can bank it for margin that they wanna make—and then also just make sure they are being—they’re in control to the homeowner as well.

Quinton Comino: So alright—so then perhaps the manufacturers you know no dig on them not dig on them but maybe they’re a little bit behind on our end because they don’t integrate directly with us—they’ll send out PDFs and say hey here’s the updated pricing for you know July 2025—I would imagine though not everybody that you work with is as sophisticated—do you still have some pricing updates like that from maybe local lumber yards?

Jennifer: So yeah—so with the local we are trying to make everything as seamless as possible—so we try to do everything as an API integration—there also can be users who upload an Excel spreadsheet—and so if anything changes on an Excel spreadsheet they need to make sure that they update you know upload a whole new spreadsheet—so there are circumstances like that—now it certainly you can make process efficiencies and things like that so you can just like change the one upload and then you’re set—but yeah it is not easy to stop things like that—that’s just—

Quinton Comino: Yeah—no but it’s great—so because you’ve got this team behind you you have these integrations and that really that’s gonna help everybody—that’s the builder because they know they’re getting the right pricing and then that’s gonna help the customer because nobody likes change orders—yeah you might have an escalation clause or you know for sure whatever right price-change clauses—but customers don’t like that at the end of the day—nobody does—we like to see what the price is and then we pay exactly the price—so it sounds like with Buildxact you’re able to get pretty well as close as you can get to updates in live time.

Jennifer: Yes—that’s right.

Quinton Comino: So tell me what like the typical customer for Buildxact—what are they coming to you with?—what situation are they in?—what problems are you finding that you’re most commonly solving?

Jennifer: Oh my gosh—so we—so like I said before customer is basically a small-business owner—so they are most typically needing or wanting to be in the field working on the project or being face-to-face with the homeowner or doing something that is valuable for their time—so what we are doing for them is taking away all of the things that are you know not efficient use of their time and then also giving them time back because of the efficiencies that we’ve created within our platform—so for instance we’ve brought in some AI tools that can—an AI tool that can take off—and instead of doing click-and-point on a takeoff and measuring all the spaces this AI tool can do it in a matter of minutes—wow—and label all the places you know can do a whole-house takeoff in just a minute with labeling and the measurements—we also have AI estimator—we have templates built in—our users can create templates—so if they do some a project over and over again it is just easy to refer to that and just do any you know make any small changes or like custom changes—so we’ve had so many builders who you know said that they were on the job site all day and then at night they were doing you know x y and z which took them hours and hours and hours—well now that we’ve reduced the amount of communication back and forth with the dealer and the suppliers we’ve facilitated all of it on one platform—then you know all of our users are saying how much time they’re saving and then the accuracy equates to so much in saved costs and saved time.

Quinton Comino: That’s great—yeah—because a lot of it’s hey this is what we do and this is the value it’s gonna bring—but it’s another thing when it actually happens and you actually have users that are saying I actually save time—I no longer have to be after the job working late at night when I’d rather be home with my wife and kids—I can actually save time by using Buildxact—I don’t have to do this with pen and paper—so it sounds like you have a lot of success stories like that where people come and it just changes how they operate.

Jennifer: Yeah—unfortunately we do—and it’s actually you know we have very sweet stories from builders where they have been able to say that they’ve gotten their life back—yeah more free time—and then also like stories of you know some of our favorite customers who had a health issue and because they were running themselves ragged—and then after starting Buildxact no longer you know that that’s what gave them yeah their health back and their free time back.

Quinton Comino: That’s amazing—so I saw on the website you also have—so you mentioned AI integration or AI tools which there’s a lot of use for AI but then there’s also there’s a lot of fluff right now because we’re as an industry you know everyone’s kinda figuring out where to use it and where it actually brings value—anyone where you type in like a description of what the project is and you say hey here’s what I need to do and then it feeds back information of this and how you need to price it out or these are the things you need to watch for—can you share a little what that is?

Jennifer: Yeah—that’s Blue—we’ve named it Blue—so he’s our AI assistant tool—so Blue can do there’s an estimate generator—so you can go in and actually there is a template where it even feeds you the prompts to ask for a kitchen remodel or a bathroom remodel—so you can use descriptors to say I wanna do a high-end kitchen remodel and including granite countertops and whatever else—and this is the space it’s 250 square feet including demolition of the current the existing kitchen—and this project you have to tell it geographically where it is so that they know how to price in the labor and then also pulling in from where the prices would be from—yeah—then you I think it takes probably a minute which seems like an eternity in our world of yeah—but it takes like about two minutes and it comes back—now I’ve used this tool I would say I’ve made things up and played around with it—I’ve used it a number of times and there and the accuracy is improving—and it’s yeah respond—but then we also have the Blue estimate review tool—so then you can just say you can ask the estimate reviewer to look at what you’ve come up with—and that estimate reviewer will then look at every single category the ten categories that are part of this remodeling project and say oh by the way you forgot this permit—and so you can look through—you can say do I need to add that?—and you can go add it in and then you can click that off your to-do list—and you know when I do the estimate review or I might get anywhere from like 15 different things to review—but if one of those 15 things equals $10,000 or you know all of the 15 things equate to $10,000 that’s $10,000 on a $200,000 project that I’m you know saving.

Quinton Comino: Yeah—that’s fantastic—so it’s not Buildxact is you essentially you’re taking the pen and paper and saying we have it all right here—from your lead management to your quoting to I’m sure a number of different things and it seems like that’s primarily the those are some really Buildxact is you’re gonna be able to track all of your customers potential customers and provide accurate real quotes—so then you don’t have to have pen and paper—you know where you left off with that person—you know you need to follow up with them in two days when they said they’re gonna go home and check it with their spouse—it sounds like that’s some of the strongest things from Buildxact is you’re taking everything off of the pen and paper that’s everywhere and consolidating it into the application that you have.

Jennifer: Right—and giving everybody visibility to what’s happening and when it’s happening—so the homeowner then has visibility—they can also sign documents that you send to them right there in the platform—and then you can save them all and then you have a track of what’s happening what’s happened between you guys—also if there are selections or if you give them allowances you can they can make selections on the platform and send them to you—so then you have all of that right there at your fingertips at any time right within Buildxact.

Quinton Comino: That’s fantastic—if I were—if I were my own and I actually have some friends that I can think of now that are doing stuff pen and paper and trying to keep up with it and I hear and they’re always like man I’ll text them and they’re like oh man I saw so sorry—they’ll text me back like three days later—so I’ve been so busy and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah—and I hear that like man this that you just gotta get you stop with the pen and paper—like you gotta get stuff sorted because it’s where do I leave that note?—where do I leave that person’s number?—what do we talk about?—I don’t remember—how much of the job did they want?—so yeah I can see—if I were them I’d be looking to Buildxact and I’m gonna pass it to some of them actually because they are yeah they just can’t keep up with it—and there are a lot out there—and if you wanna provide service to them just being able to manage that is such a huge part of it.

Jennifer: It is—you’re right.

Quinton Comino: So you mentioned before that some important things to you are affordability, sustainability, and resilience—can you talk a little why what that means for you and what’s important?

Jennifer: Yeah—so all of it that we can you know as a country and we’re looking at you know what are the various things we’re doing for housing as a nation on a federal level—the right housing is critical crucial to our economic stability—so that is what is near and dear to me—and then if you look at various ways of like the way that sustainability plays a role—we have an aging grid—and with an aging grid you have to have dependence from that—so how do we do that?—and then also if you tie that into affordability—if we have all of these climate disasters and people need to be able to be independent from the grid—and then also even without climate disasters if we need to have more affordable solutions—we have currently people can get approved for a mortgage without looking at the ongoing cost of a home—and with property-tax rates going up and with insurance rates home-insurance rates going up really putting a lot of pressure on somebody to stay up on their mortgage payments—but if we include those things or if we make home designs that are grid-independent or net-zero energy then we can help people stabilize and stay in their homes longer at lower cost—and so one of the things that we did at Buildxact actually was to partner with the United States Department of Energy and their Advanced Building Construction team to create assemblies that would help people get to zero-carbon alignment—so things that are for the building envelope and you know net-zero appliance packages and things like that—you can use Buildxact and get directly to those packages those assemblies without knowing what those formulas are and what you need to do to get to net-zero carbon line.

Quinton Comino: I see—are there any incentives from the government to provide some of that like from builders?—do they get any tax breaks any credits any kickbacks in any way for those levels of efficiency?

Jennifer: Yeah—there currently there are—and as far as no the ones that are in place have to be acted on now and before January 1—so I would say some of them are state-based but even the federal funding for some of those state-based incentives is probably going to go away—so I’d say that if a contractor is listening they should look specific what is available in their municipality and their state and then at a federal level as well.

Quinton Comino: And so with Buildxact there are some ways to see hey here are a couple things that here’s how you can comply with these—and then whether or not there’s any sort of incentive is gonna be largely up to the individual the business to seek that out.

Jennifer: That’s right—yep.

Quinton Comino: Yeah—even knowing that it exists is first step—because I found in a lot of cases people just don’t know what’s happening.

Jennifer: Happening—yeah—that’s super smart—that’s right.

Quinton Comino: Yeah—that’s fantastic—well I love that—thank you so much Jennifer—so Buildxact—buildxact.com—so if you’re a builder if anyone from a small builder to a big builder it sounds like it doesn’t really matter what capacity—Buildxact is gonna cover pretty well everything from lead management to quoting to even with the AI assistance to energy efficiencies and searching that out to find what sort of might be out there—that’s fantastic—so your position Jennifer just tell us a little bit what you’re doing on the day-to-day—are you onboarding new customers?—are you support after someone’s onboarded?—are you technical?—what role do you fulfill there at Buildxact?

Jennifer: Yeah—I’m in the community aspect—so I’m building community with partnerships and then also through some of our content and storytelling.

Quinton Comino: Okay—that’s fantastic—so very much the social side of it—yeah it’s just put it succinctly this—I don’t do social well I mean I’m not—absolutely yeah—so we have a social-media person but I actually am very much about the presentations the writing the content the press releases and then also working kinda like business development a little bit to find the right partners that build out our ecosystem so that nothing is left—you mentioned QuickBooks before—we don’t do what QuickBooks does—and they’ve got that process nailed—so we are integrated with them and I’m looking for other partners that help us build out the ecosystem—so nothing there are no gaps for the process and it’s all completely covered for the builder and they have everything they need.

Quinton Comino: So alright—so you see a lot of then—you see a lot of things from the builders to the customers to the government to just kinda everything in between—so then let me ask you if you could change one thing whether that’s at Buildxact whether that’s how we build whether that’s the government’s involvement with building and energy efficiency and what have you—if you could change one thing what would you change?

Jennifer: Oh wow—so we actually just did this National Housing Summit in DC at NAHB’s headquarters and I think this question was asked—and a lot of people answered that we would have the universal building code—now that doesn’t speak to your local climate which has to be a consideration—but if we did have low if we had universal building code man would it just I mean specs would be different—supply chain would be different—we’d be able to save so much time and cost and energy in so many different ways—so if we could maybe I would just answer with could take a step toward that—but then part of me just wants to say that maybe we all just need to have a bonfire and just like forget everything that we’re all of our current processes and start from scratch—and so maybe that’s the change that I would make is that we can maybe just if we did that maybe we wouldn’t be sticking anymore—

Quinton Comino: Maybe—yeah yeah.

Jennifer: Doing a different process.

Quinton Comino: That’s a good point—so the idea is restarting in some form or fashion—yeah—because we and whether it’s we went the wrong way from the start or started on a path and it led us here and we didn’t really intend to end up here but because of all the different codes and the laws and the whatever now we’re here—if we could restart in some form or fashion then we could do things in a way that is likely a lot better than what we’re doing now—and that that’s better for everybody—that’s not meaning just more money for builders—that’s gonna be less cost for the consumer because we’ll have efficiency in how we operate—that’s really good—that’s probably the most all-encompassing answer that question because there’s so many things that change and someone might be like well we need to stop doing roofing this way or man we need to stop doing you know two-by-fours 16 inches on center we need to change it this way da da da—but yeah universal building code or some sort of reset I see that how that could really change things moving in that direction—and I think it’s I think that’s achievable in some form or fashion I do think.

Jennifer: Would be fun.

Quinton Comino: Yeah—it would be—let’s start just in Florida and do it there.

Jennifer: Yeah that’d be great—I would love that—absolutely would.

Quinton Comino: Well thank you so much Jennifer—I appreciate having you on here—I appreciate your time today—so if someone’s interested they can just head to buildxact.com—there’s everything there from a demo to a fourteen-day trial—you can see features pricing really fantastic website presents very very well and really clearly shows what you guys offer—so that’s the best place for them to go to see in more detail what it is that you offer.

Jennifer: Buildxact.com—B-U-I-L-D-X-A-C-T.

Quinton Comino: Yep—fantastic—thank you so much Jennifer—well I appreciate again I appreciate your time today—thank you.

Jennifer: Thank you so much—thanks for having me.

Quinton Comino: Yes—see you.