5 Operations Tasks Every Contractor Should Automate

You didn't get into contracting to chase invoices and send schedule reminders. You got into it to build things. But somewhere along the way, the admin work took over — and now you're spending your evenings doing paperwork instead of being with your family.

Here's the thing: most of that admin work doesn't need a human. It needs a system. The tasks you're doing manually every day — invoicing, scheduling, tracking, briefings, follow-up — can all run on autopilot.

Let's break down the five operations tasks that eat up the most time and show you exactly how to automate each one.

1. Invoicing and Payment Reminders

How many hours do you spend each week creating invoices, sending them out, and then chasing people who haven't paid? If you're like most contractors, the answer is 3-5 hours per week — and that's being conservative.

Worse, the chasing part is uncomfortable. Nobody likes being the bill collector. So what happens? You "forget" to follow up, the customer "forgets" to pay, and 60 days later you're writing off $5,000 because it's too awkward to bring up now.

What Automation Looks Like

• Job completion triggers an invoice — when you mark a job done, the system generates and sends the invoice automatically
• Payment reminders on a schedule — 3 days, 7 days, 14 days after the invoice. Professional, friendly, consistent. No awkward phone calls
• Multiple payment options — credit card, ACH, even text-to-pay links. The easier you make it, the faster you get paid
• Late payment escalation — if they're 30+ days overdue, the tone changes automatically. Still professional, but more direct

Contractors using automated invoicing through TradeWire's operations tiers typically see their average payment time drop from 32 days to 11 days. That's not a small thing — that's cash flow that keeps your business running.

The average contractor loses $10,000-$20,000 per year in payments they simply forgot to follow up on. Automation doesn't forget.

2. Crew Scheduling and Dispatch

If you're running more than one crew, you know the pain. You're up at 5am texting job addresses. Guys are calling you asking "where am I going today?" Someone calls in sick and you're scrambling to reshuffle everything while driving to a site.

Manual scheduling doesn't scale. It worked when it was just you and one helper. With 3-4 crews, it's a full-time job — and you're doing it on top of everything else.

What Automation Looks Like

• Weekly schedule built from your job board — assign crews to jobs, set times, and the system distributes everything
• Automatic morning notifications — each crew lead gets a text at 6am with their job address, scope, and any special notes
• Real-time changes — job cancelled or moved? Update once, everyone gets notified instantly
• Customer notifications — "Your crew is on the way" texts sent automatically when crew checks in near the job site
• Drive time optimization — schedule jobs geographically so crews aren't driving 45 minutes between each one

One HVAC contractor we work with was spending 45 minutes every morning coordinating his 4 crews. After setting up automated dispatch through TradeWire's Pro operations tier, it takes him zero minutes. The system handles it all.

3. Job Status Tracking

Where does each job stand? Is the permit pulled? Are materials ordered? Did the inspection pass? When you're running 15-20 jobs at a time, keeping track of everything in your head — or worse, in a spreadsheet — is a recipe for dropped balls.

And it's not just about you. Your customers want to know what's happening with their project. When they have to call you to get an update, that's a bad experience — and it eats into your day.

What Automation Looks Like

• Job pipeline with stages — Estimate → Sold → Scheduled → In Progress → Complete → Invoiced → Paid. Every job moves through the pipeline automatically
• Automatic customer updates — when a job moves to a new stage, the customer gets a text or email: "Great news — your project is scheduled for next Tuesday"
• Daily dashboard — see all active jobs, their status, and what needs attention today
• Bottleneck alerts — if a job has been in "waiting for materials" for 5 days, you get flagged. Nothing falls through the cracks
• Photo documentation — crew takes photos at each stage. Customer gets them automatically. No more "can you send me pictures?"

This one thing — automated job tracking — probably saves more headaches than any other automation. When you and your customer can both see where the job stands, 90% of "status check" calls disappear.

4. Daily Briefings

Every morning, you need to know: What's happening today? What needs attention? What fell through the cracks yesterday? Most contractors piece this together from memory, texts, and email. It's messy and things get missed.

What Automation Looks Like

• Morning summary at 6am — a text or email with: today's jobs by crew, any overdue invoices, follow-ups needed, and new leads from overnight
• End-of-day recap — jobs completed, revenue closed, tomorrow's schedule at a glance
• Weekly business snapshot — leads generated, estimates sent, jobs won, revenue collected, cash flow status
• Exception alerts — instead of monitoring everything, the system only pings you when something needs your attention

Think of it like having a virtual office manager who's already organized everything before you wake up. The TradeWire operations system compiles all of this from your actual job data — no manual input required.

The best contractors don't work harder. They have better systems. Automated briefings mean you start every day knowing exactly where things stand.

5. Post-Job Follow-Up

The job is done. Invoice is paid. Time to move on to the next one, right? Wrong. Post-job follow-up is where repeat business, referrals, and reviews come from — and almost nobody does it consistently.

Here's what should happen after every job but doesn't because you're already focused on the next one:

• Thank the customer
• Ask for a Google review
• Request a referral
• Schedule any warranty or follow-up work
• Add them to a list for seasonal check-ins

What Automation Looks Like

• Day 1 after job completion: "Thanks for choosing [Your Company]! How did everything go?" — personal, genuine, automated
• Day 3: "If you're happy with the work, we'd love a quick Google review. Here's a direct link:" — one tap to leave a review
• Day 7: "Know anyone who needs [your service]? We offer $100 off their first job as a thank-you" — referral program on autopilot
• Month 6: Seasonal check-in — "Hey, it's been 6 months since we did your [project]. Want us to swing by and check on things?" — brings in warranty work and upsells
• Year 1: Anniversary touchpoint — keeps you top of mind for their next project

This sequence runs for every single customer, forever, without you lifting a finger. The TradeWire operations automation handles the timing, the messaging, and the follow-up. You just do great work — the system handles the relationship after.

The Math: How Much Time You Get Back

Let's add it up. Here's what these five automations save for a typical contractor running 2-4 crews:

• Invoicing/payments: 3-5 hours/week
• Scheduling/dispatch: 3-4 hours/week
• Job status tracking: 2-3 hours/week
• Daily briefings: 1-2 hours/week (gathering info, organizing)
• Post-job follow-up: 2-3 hours/week (if you were doing it at all)

That's 11-17 hours per week. At a $150/hour loaded rate for an owner-operator, that's $1,650-$2,550 per week in your time. Over $85,000 per year in time value — plus the actual revenue recovered from faster payments, more reviews, and referrals that didn't happen before.

The TradeWire operations tiers start at a fraction of that. Even the basic tier automates invoicing, scheduling, and follow-up. The Pro tier adds everything on this list plus custom workflows.

Getting Started

You don't have to automate everything at once. Here's the order we recommend:

1. Start with invoicing — fastest ROI. You'll see the impact in your cash flow within the first month
2. Add scheduling — biggest quality-of-life improvement. Your mornings will feel different
3. Set up follow-up — the reviews and referrals start coming in within weeks
4. Build out job tracking — reduces customer calls and gives you visibility you never had
5. Activate briefings — the cherry on top. Start each day with clarity instead of chaos

Most of our contractors get all five running within 2-3 weeks. It's not a massive IT project — it's connecting the tools you already use and adding automated workflows on top.

Ready to stop spending your evenings on paperwork? Book a free setup call and we'll map out which automations make sense for your business. Or check out the operations tiers to see what's included at each level.