An excavation CRM that holds the dig date against equipment, crew, locate marks and the forecast.
An excavation job has more dependencies than almost any residential trade. The bid comes from drawings, the dig waits on locate marks and a permit, the machine has to be hauled in, and the bill mixes hourly tickets, loads and unit prices. Field service software built for one-truck service calls cannot hold that together.
The dig is the last step of a long chain, and every link can slip
Before an excavator starts a basement, a lot of things have to line up. The builder needs the lot staked, the permit issued and the locate request made with enough lead time for the utilities to mark. The machine needs to finish the previous job and be floated over. The operator needs to be free. Trucks for spoils or stone need to be booked. And the forecast has to cooperate, because a graded pad in a downpour becomes a mess. A CRM that only shows appointments on a calendar cannot see any of those dependencies.
Billing is just as tangled. A builder may pay a per-lot price with retainage held until the final grade. A plumber pays hourly with a minimum. A homeowner signed a lump sum for a septic system, but the bucket found ledge and the change order needs approval before the machine sits. Field tickets with machine hours and loads have to get from the cab to the invoice without a lost clipboard.
And the costs live in iron. Fuel, operator wages, trucking, dump fees, repairs and the payment on each machine decide whether a job made money. An excavation CRM should tie those to each job so you can see which builders, which job types and which machines earn their keep.
What an excavation CRM needs to keep straight
When any of these lives in a pocket notebook or the dispatcher's memory, a dig date eventually gets missed.
Bids with units, exclusions and alternates
Line items for cubic yards of cut and fill, feet of trench, tons of stone, loads hauled and machine hours, plus written exclusions for rock, groundwater, unsuitable soil and compaction testing, so later change orders rest on agreed terms.
Locate tickets with their legal dates
The ticket number, request date, earliest legal dig date and expiration stored on each job, with an alert when a delayed job's marks are about to lapse and a reminder to request a new ticket.
Machines, operators and floats on one board
Every excavator, skid steer, dozer and dump truck alongside the operators and the lowboy moves, so a promised start date is checked against equipment that is truly available.
Field tickets signed at the end of each day
Operators record hours per machine, loads in and out and materials used on a phone, the superintendent or homeowner signs on screen, and the ticket flows straight into billing.
Permits, inspections and backfill holds
Septic permits, soil evaluations, right-of-way permits and erosion control approvals tracked with the inspection date, and a hold that blocks backfill until the inspector's sign-off photo is on the job.
Builder accounts with lots and retainage
Each builder sees lots as separate jobs under one account, with plan sets, per-lot pricing, draws and retainage, and statements that match the format of their pay applications.
How we build a CRM for an excavating company
We wrote a CRM for the service companies we operate before offering one to anyone, and yours follows the way your iron and crews move.
Stages that follow site work
Inquiry, site visit or takeoff, bid out, awarded, locate requested, permit issued, mobilized, dug, inspected, backfilled, restored and billed, with job counts and dollars visible at every stage.
A dispatch view by machine
A board laid out by equipment instead of by technician, showing where each machine sits today, where it moves next and the float needed to get it there.
Change orders approved from the trench
The operator photographs the rock, old tank or water, the office prices the extra from your standard rates, and the customer signs off through a phone link before the machine waits any longer.
Job costing by machine hour
Fuel, wages, trucking, dump fees and material set against each job's billing, with machine hours tied to each piece of equipment, so the owner sees margin by job type and by builder.
Invoices that read the way each customer expects
A per-lot statement for builders, hours and loads for subcontract digging, and a simple lump-sum invoice with any approved changes for homeowners, all from the same job record.
What you own on day one.
Every account is opened in your company's name with you as the owner. If you ever leave, you change a password, not your business.
- Domain, hosting and the site files
- Phone numbers and call recordings
- The CRM and its database
- Email and text lists, with consent records
- Google Business Profile and every listing
- Analytics and Search Console
Custom CRM for excavation, answered.
Can it track our state's one-call tickets automatically?
Filing a ticket remains a job for your state's one-call center. The CRM stores the ticket details on the job and warns you before the marks expire. Where a center offers a data feed, we can look at connecting it.
Will operators actually use a phone app in the cab?
They will if it takes a minute: tap the job, enter hours and loads, get a signature. We design the field screens around gloves and glare, with large buttons and no typing beyond a short note.
Can it replace the spreadsheet we use for equipment costs?
Yes. Machines become records with hours, service intervals and costs, and each job pulls hours from its field tickets. Our job costing guide covers the basics.
Who owns the data?
Your company does. The system runs in accounts registered to your business, and there is no per-seat fee to add operators or office staff.
Custom CRM for excavation. Owned by you.
Start with the instant website checkup of your current site: your grade and top 3 fixes, no sign-up. Or get a free system quote for the whole excavation setup.
Instant website checkup