Most people who've built a custom home will tell you the same thing: it wasn't the construction that stressed them out. It was not knowing what was happening.
We use a platform called Buildertrend to keep clients plugged into their project throughout the build: schedule, budget, photos, change orders. It all lives in one place and you can pull it up on your phone whenever you want. We got tired of playing phone tag and figured there had to be a better way.
Your client portal
When your project starts, you get access to a private client portal. Everything about your build is in there and it stays current as the job moves forward. You're not waiting on us to send you an update. You just log in.
The schedule
Before we break ground, we build out a full project timeline in Buildertrend — every phase from foundation through final walkthrough, with dates and trade assignments visible to you the whole time.
Wait, catching that one too. Corrected:
Before we break ground, we build out a full project timeline in Buildertrend. Every phase from foundation through final walkthrough, with dates and trade assignments, is visible to you the whole time.
When the framer is scheduled, you see it. When the tile sub is coming the following week, you see that too. In Baton Rouge, rain delays and late deliveries happen. When the schedule shifts, it updates in your portal and you know about it the same time we do.
What we've found is that clients who know what's coming can actually make decisions proactively: show up on site for something that matters to them, lock in a finish selection before it becomes urgent, or just stop running through worst-case scenarios at 11pm.
What everything costs
A lot of builders lose people's trust right here.
Every cost in your build is documented and visible to you as it comes in. Change orders go through the portal before anything happens. You see the scope, the price, and why it came up, and you approve it before we move. No end-of-phase invoices with line items you've never heard of.
Your running budget is always open to you too. You can check how actuals compare to your original estimate at any point during the build. We think that's just table stakes when someone is spending the money you've spent on this.
Daily logs and site photos
Every day on your job site, our team posts progress notes and photos to your portal. Framing going up, tile going down, cabinets getting set, it's all in there as it happens.
Most of our clients have jobs and kids and can't drive by the site three times a week. The daily log is the next best thing. It also just creates a paper trail. If a delivery got pushed or we lost a day to weather, it's in the log. No one's relying on memory six months later.
The honest version of why this matters
The clients who feel best during a build aren't the ones who check in with us constantly. They're the ones who already know what's going on.
When you can see your schedule and your budget without calling anyone, the build starts to feel like something that's happening with you instead of to you. That's the goal.
If you're considering building a custom home in Baton Rouge, reach out and we can walk you through what the process actually looks like start to finish.