Home Renovations & General Contractor Project Tracker

Published by Paul Matsushima on December 15, 2022
Category: Operations Projects | Tags: Productivity (5)

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Manage all your projects and individual tasks related to home renovations or general contracting. Perfect for the DIYer and home renovation enthusiast, but complex enough for the small business owner and general contractor.

View Home Renovation Tracker on Airtable

tl;dr

• Comprehensive home renovation tracking system to manage all the projects 🚀 and tasks ☑️ you’re working on (or thinking about), plus payments 💳 to track how much everything costs. (Check out this example gallery view of tasks.)
• Built in tool and supplies inventory 🧰 🪚 that connect to tasks and payments
• Functional interfaces to allow for quick searches 🔍 and a space to update and work on your tasks 📝
• Invoice system 🧾 built in if you take on paid jobs for clients (based on supplies purchased and labor worked)

About

Since COVID-19 slowed down the world and (at least my own) pace of life, I started learning the basics of home repair and renovation. This included everything from residential electricity and plumbing, wood working and structural framing, and interior/exterior trades (hanging doors, baseboards, laying stucco, etc.). As I embarked on increasingly complex projects, I needed a system to not only track each project and the individual tasks that went into them, I also needed an inventory to track my growing tool collection and what supplies I was using (including how much everything cost). The data nerd in me also began tracking the hours I was putting into each project.

With Airtable, I’ve solved this problem by creating a single source of truth to manage these projects and tasks, maintain my inventory of supplies, and track the resources used (including hours worked, money spent, and supplies used). This journey has led to me taking on small handyman jobs with my friends and family, so I added an additional invoicing system to bill clients (using Airtable’s extension page-designer) and beautifully designed (and easy to read!) workspaces to plan my projects (using Airtable’s interfaces).

Getting the Most out of this Template

Projects & Tasks

Most home renovation projects can be quite complex, which is why the two core tables in this Airtable base are Projects and Tasks. Projects can be thought of as one large bucket, such as “renovate bathroom” or “redo kitchen”. Tasks are individual pieces of work to be done connected to that project, such as (for renovate bathroom) “install toilet” and “reglaze bathtub” or (for redo kitchen) “tear down kitchen cabinets” and “install new stove range and hood”.

Supplies Inventory & Supplies by Tasks (Junction Table)

Once you have your projects and tasks listed, start inputting your supplies in the Supplies Inventory. This is just a long list of all the supplies you either have or intend to buy. Then input records in the junction table called Supplies by Task, which connects Tasks with “Supplies Inventory”. Supplies by Task allows you to know how many of each supply you purchased for a task, how much it costs, and the current location of those supplies. (There’s a handy automation built into “Supplies Inventory” called “Use?” where you check the box and it will create a new “Supplies by Task” record, which you can easily connect to any task.)

Labor

Also, once you start working on your projects and tasks, enter your hours into the Labor table to track how much you’re working. If you’re doing a job for someone else, you can charge them based on the hours you worked and enter those prices onto your Labor records. If you have outside vendors help with your projects, such as a plumber installing new pipes, you can add the price they charge onto those hours.

Payments & Invoices

Once all Labor and Supplies by Task expenses are recorded and associated with their respective Tasks, you can generate an Invoice (aka Payment) using Airtable’s page-designer Extension. See an example down below.

What’s Included

Tables

• Customers – individuals who require projects or tasks done for them.
• Projects – a series of tasks that need to be completed in order to achieve a particular goal for the customer.
• Tasks – pieces of work to be done or undertaken.
• Supplies by Task – the particular supplies required for the completion of a task (junction table that connects Tasks + Supplies Inventory).
• Supplies Inventory – the inventory for articles, materials, or tools used for construction purposes.
• Labor – the physical or mental effort or services required to complete a task or project.
• Payments – amounts of money that a Customer pays to me (the contractor), or (me, the Contractor) pays money to a Vendor.
• Vendor – a person or company offering something for sale, usually a service or labor.

Interfaces

• Search – easily search the entire workspace for any record, by data (table) type.

• All Tasks – shows high-level summaries of all tasks, plus a gallery view of all tasks (regardless of their status) with searchable filters.

• Incomplete Tasks – shows tasks that are in-progress or upcoming and are incomplete.

• Update Payments/Invoices – Workspace to update and reconcile incomplete and upcoming payments so you can track how much you’re spending (or being paid) for particular tasks and projects.

Automations

There’s a handy automation built into “Supplies Inventory”. In the field called “Use?”, check the box and it will create a new “Supplies by Task” record, which you can easily connect to any task.

Extensions (Page Designer) – Auto-Generated Invoice

Once all Labor and Supplies by Task expenses are recorded and associated with their respective Tasks, you can generate an Invoice (aka Payment) using Airtable’s page-designer Extension. See the image here.

I hope this template works for you. Feel free to reach out and leave a comment down below if you have any questions. 🙌🏼

View Home Renovation Tracker on Airtable