Use cases · Plumbing

Underground, rough, set.

Three phases, three trips, three chances for the money to walk. BLT keeps the pipe, the fixtures, the allowance the builder wrote, and the hours your crew actually burned on the same four-column line — so you know where the job stands before the tile guy shows up.

Start for free See the ledger

Full AI on the free plan · no card

Framed interior with mechanical rough-in running through the joists

The ledger

One house, three phases, four numbers.

A 3,200 square foot custom with three and a half baths. The bid was written in January, the underground went in during February, and the fixtures were selected in June by a homeowner who had never heard the word allowance.

Plumbing · full house Dunbar residence $33,310 / 51,450

Line	Baseline	Current	Committed	Actual
Underground & DWV below slab	6,200	6,200	—	6,040
Pipe & fittings	7,800	7,800	—	8,930 ↑
Water heater & recirc	3,400	4,150	4,150	—
Fixtures & trim (allowance)	11,000	13,600	5,200	6,180
Rough-in labor	12,500	12,500	—	11,320
Set & trim labor	7,200	7,200	—	840
Contract total	48,100	51,450	9,350	33,310

Pipe went over by $1,130 and it wasn’t the PEX. The plan showed a manifold in a conditioned mechanical room; the inspector read the local amendment differently and the hot and cold trunks came back as type L copper. Eleven sticks and forty-one fittings at June pricing, bought against a January number. The change log has the date, the photo, and the name of the person who made the call.

In the truck

Ferguson at 7:15, slab at 8.

Your lead is at the supply house before the gate opens and under a house by mid-morning. What he records has to survive a wet phone, no signal, and a crawlspace.

Shoot the supply house ticket at the counter — every line lands on pipe, fixtures, or the water heater by itself
Photograph the underground before the dirt goes back: cleanouts, sleeves, tie-in depth, the tape on the test
Clock the crew to underground, rough, or set so a three-phase job doesn’t bill as one bucket of hours
Log the gauge reading with the photo — 15 psi at 6:40 a.m., same gauge at 3:10 p.m., both timestamped
Crawlspaces and mechanical rooms have no signal. Capture works anyway and uploads on the road

In the office

Bill the phase, not the guess.

Underground is complete, rough is at 88%, set hasn’t started. That’s a progress billing you can defend with hours, receipts, and a signed inspection instead of a phone call with the builder’s super.

Percent complete per phase, backed by the hours logged and the inspection that closed it
Allowance versus selected cost held side by side on every fixture, so overages get priced the day they happen
Change orders written off the difference and sent for signature before the trim goes in the truck
Committed money on the tankless order shows up in month two, not when the invoice arrives in month four
Lien waivers, insurance expiry, and retainage tracked next to what the builder actually paid

Allowances

The builder set it. The homeowner spent it.

An allowance is a number written by somebody who has never stood in a showroom. By the time the selections come back, the spread between what was budgeted and what was picked is your problem to price — usually on a Friday, usually from memory.

Allowance overrun 8 min ago

Dunbar fixtures are $2,600 over allowance and only $1,400 of it is signed. The builder set $11,000. Selections came back at $13,600 at your cost — Purist trim in four locations and a 72-inch freestanding tub. Change order 3 covered the tub at $1,400 and was signed May 9. The remaining $1,200 has been in your current column for six weeks with no signature on it, and $5,200 of it is already on order.

Draft change order 4

Every selection against the number it was supposed to hit.

Freestanding tubAllow 1,800 · picked 3,240 Primary shower valvesAllow 1,200 · picked 1,910 Kitchen faucetAllow 420 · picked 865 Lav faucets ×4Allow 1,000 · picked 1,105 Toilets ×4Allow 1,600 · picked 1,600 Tankless heaterAllow 3,400 · picked 4,150

Priced at your cost, marked up on the change order, and posted to committed the day the order goes in.

Tests & inspections

The gauge held for nine hours. Prove it.

Underground gets covered by a foot of gravel and a slab. Rough gets covered by drywall. The only thing left after that is the record you kept the morning it passed.

inspection · dunbar · rough water test

Record 31-2208 Passed Thu 3:24 PM

Air test set, 6:38 a.m.15 psi

Gauge photographed, 6:40 a.m.photo

Inspector on site, R. Aguilar2:55 p.m.

Gauge at inspection15 psi

DWV, 10 ft head, still standingpass

Correction notesnone

Phase closedRough · 88%

14 photos268 hrs loggedRead by Vision AI

A pass is a document, not a memory.

Every test carries the time it was set, the pressure it held, who signed it, and the photographs from that morning. When a leak turns up in November, the file says whether it was yours.

Underground, rough water, DWV, gas, and final each held as their own record
Vision AI reads the photos and flags an unsupported run, a missing strap, or a fitting left dry
A failed test shows its cost — the hours to chase it and the day it moved on the schedule
Send the whole album to the builder in one link instead of nine texts. See inspections

Scope

Four buckets, priced the way you bid.

Name the phases in your own words. Hours, receipts, inspections, and the pay application all follow the same split.

Underground

Sleeves, DWV below slab, and the water service. Two days of work you can never look at again.

Rough

Supply, waste, vent, and gas, plus the hours behind them. Closed by a test with a gauge photo on it.

Set & trim

Fixtures, valves, and the water heater — bought at selection pricing, months after the allowance was written.

Service & warranty

The callback, the adjustment, the eleven-month walk. Billable when it should be, tracked when it isn’t.

Closing the week For HVAC