The CRM for groundworkers
who win the big civils contracts
Project costing, subcontractor management, plant hire tracking and commercial contract management — built for UK groundworking and civil engineering contractors.
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Built for how groundworking businesses work
Project costing, plant tracking and subcontractor management in one system.
Build detailed project quotes covering ground prep, excavation, drainage, concrete, reinstatement and labour. Split costs by phase, track actuals against budget and convert quotes to invoices in one click.
Log hired plant against each project — excavators, dumpers, compressors, fencing. Track hire periods, return dates and daily hire costs so plant spend never exceeds the project budget.
Assign specialist subcontractors — concreters, drainage gangs, steel fixers — to jobs. Track their day rates, payment terms and site attendance. Pay them from the invoice proceeds automatically.
Break large projects into phases — site clearance, groundworks, drainage, concrete, surfacing. Track each phase separately, invoice progressively and see total project profitability in real time.
Track leads from local authority tender portals, Barbour ABI, developer contacts, main contractor referrals and your own website. Know which source generates your most profitable civils contracts.
Capture daily site photos, capture site diary entries and log weather-related delays. Build a photographic record per project for contractor sign-off and dispute resolution.
Dedicated emergency job type for burst mains, blocked drainage, collapsed structures. Fast dispatch with same-day costing and invoicing for utility and local authority clients.
Describe the site — scope, ground conditions, access constraints, materials needed — and Trade2Base drafts a project quote with earthworks, materials, plant, labour, disposal and margin.
Track every plant hire cost before it eats your margin
Plant hire is one of the biggest margin risks in groundworking. Equipment left on hire a week longer than needed, spread across multiple projects with no central tracking — it adds up fast. Trade2Base logs every piece of hired plant against its project, tracks the daily cost and alerts you before the budget is blown.
- Log hired plant against each specific project
- Set hire start and return dates with cost-per-day
- Alert when hire cost exceeds the project allowance
- Track total plant spend across all active projects
- Compare actual plant spend to the quoted allowance
What groundworkers say
“The plant hire tracking saved us thousands on our last housing site. We used to just keep hiring because nobody had a clear picture of what was already out. Now every excavator and dumper is logged against the project with a return date. We handed back £4,200 worth of kit three weeks early on the Willenhall job alone.”
“We were running a 140-plot housing development and managing five phases across two years. Trade2Base let us invoice per phase, track each subcontractor against the phase they were on, and show the developer a real-time project cost summary every week. It made us look like a much larger outfit than we are.”
“I never knew where our best jobs were coming from until Trade2Base. Turns out our developer contacts are generating three times the margin of tender portals. We've redirected our business development time completely based on that data. The campaign attribution paid for the software in the first month.”
Common questions from groundworking businesses
Yes. You log each piece of hired plant — excavator, dumper, compressor, site fencing — against the specific project it's allocated to. Set the hire start date, expected return date and daily hire rate. Trade2Base tracks cumulative hire cost against the project budget and alerts you when plant spend approaches or exceeds the quoted allowance.
Yes. Break any project into phases — site clearance, groundworks, drainage, concrete works, surfacing — and invoice each phase separately as it completes. Customers see a phased payment schedule from the outset and you invoice progressively rather than waiting until project completion. Project profitability is visible across all phases in real time.
Yes. Add specialist subcontractors to your Trade2Base account with their day rates, payment terms and trade type. Assign them to specific projects or phases, log their site attendance and track their cumulative cost against the project budget. When you invoice the client, Trade2Base can calculate subcontractor payment from the proceeds automatically.
Yes. Trade2Base handles everything from a single residential drainage run or driveway excavation up to multi-phase civil engineering contracts for developers, local authorities and main contractors. The project costing, plant tracking and subcontractor management tools scale to project size, and the campaign attribution works across all lead sources.
Win the big contracts and protect your margin
Join UK groundworking and civil engineering contractors using Trade2Base to manage projects, track plant hire and grow their contract pipeline.
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