Hey Elvia,
Here's the plan we landed on over our three calls: one MC Dashboard for your team, built a piece at a time, starting with PO requests. Everything in here comes from those calls, your questionnaire and the files you sent.
The main decision is pace. I'd recommend starting at $3,200 a month, with a call every other week. As the build winds down, the rate can drop too, and you can slow down or pause after any month. If it reads right, sign at the bottom and we'll get started.
-Dylan
Where Things Stand
Your systems work. Several were built when MC was much smaller (cert tracking was set up for about 10 employees), and at 35 to 40 the gaps are starting to show. Today your people close those gaps by hand.
A spreadsheet built for a smaller crew, with reminders set by hand. Staying current depends on you double-checking, and a client can ask for every cert on a job, even after it's finished. One lapse can get you kicked off a job.
Clipboards go out every month, get counted and get compiled by hand. Tools move when crews swap trucks, missing ones only surface at the next count, and someone compares mileage by hand to see which trucks need service, when truck repairs are very costly.
Paper, scanned into Dropbox. Every morning someone checks each site and contacts foremen about what's missing. It's the same thing every day, and the check happens after the crew has left the site.
Every purchase needs a PO, so someone has to stop, issue it, pass it on and log it while a crew waits at the counter. Numbers given on the run don't always get logged, and when nobody answers, the calls sometimes come to you.
"That worked when we had 10 employees. This is not working for being between 35 to 40." Elvia Chavez, on cert tracking
What It Costs Your Team
- Your team. In your words, your people are "tied up with just managing data." By your estimate, that's 1 to 2 days of office time a week on two tasks alone.
- You. Too much still depends on you checking personally. You've said you want to see "when something is missed or getting off track without me having to personally check everything."
- Turnover. When someone leaves, the training starts over. The checking and chasing is the same every day, so if the app carries it, a new hire has less to learn.
- Growth. Every new hire, truck and job adds more of the same checking, calling and compiling, so the load grows with the company.
What Has to Be Right
This is more than putting forms on a phone. Five things decide whether it works for MC:
- It ties to your numbers. Every PO, job and vendor has to match what Accounting and QuickBooks expect. One wrong letter in a job name is enough to break your Paychex download.
- One list, set up once. Your people, jobs, vendors and trucks live in one place, so a driver on a truck is the same person safety training tracks. 21 months of PO history, with about 290 vendor spellings and 430 job entries, gets matched up first.
- Your controls stay. Anything over $2,500 still gets flagged to you for approval, and every crew member still reviews and signs the JSA for themselves.
- Easy in the field. Your foremen asked for something simpler, so it's built for a phone on a jobsite, not a desk.
- No disruption. Each piece is tested with a few of your people before everyone switches, and nothing rolls out over the holidays.
The MC Dashboard
One app for your team, built on one shared base: your people, jobs, vendors and trucks, set up once and used by every system. PO goes first because it's the easiest piece to build and prove. The other three follow on the same base.
Later, when you're ready: change orders, customer PO intake and real-time reports, a separate sales pipeline, and an AI helper to request POs by chat. None of these are scoped or priced in this proposal.
On Security
Security comes first for you, so here's exactly how this is built:
- MC owns every account. Apple, Google, hosting and the data all sit in MC's name. You hold the keys.
- Only people you approve can sign in. Each person gets their own login, and your office can switch it off the same day they leave.
- No email, no bank. This build never signs into or reads your email, and it doesn't connect to your bank. Any QuickBooks link uses Intuit's official connection, only with your written OK, and you can switch it off.
- No passwords or personal info in AI tools. That's in our NDA. I build and test with made-up data until you're ready to go live.
- Your data, any time. Everything exports whenever you want it.
What Each Month Includes
- About 15 hours a week of build time to start, set together each month after that.
- A call every other week to show progress and set what's next.
- Releases to your team. New pieces go out to the phone app and the office side, and I handle the store submissions.
- Fixes and changes to anything already built, plus an admin screen so your office can add or remove people.
- A one-page how-to for each new piece, so your team can pick it up without a training session.
Hours don't roll over. I get as much done as I can within them each month, and if I'm waiting on something from your side, I move ahead on the next piece.
Timeline
Three to four months to build all four, depending on the pace you pick. The clock starts at our kickoff call, and the timing below assumes we kick off by late October.
| Month | What gets built | What you'll see |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The base + PO requests | The Apple and Google sign-up goes in first. A few of your people start testing PO. |
| 2 | Trucks + tools | Built over the holidays. Nothing rolls out from Thanksgiving to New Year. |
| 3 | Daily reports + JSA | PO goes to everyone in January. A few drivers test trucks, and one crew tests daily reports. |
| 4 | Safety training | Trucks and daily reports go to everyone. Safety training is tested with your office. |
Buying Time Back
On our last call, you asked the right question:
"What amount of time would my staff buy back?" Elvia Chavez
Here's the honest answer, from your own rough estimate: 3 to 5 hours a week issuing and logging POs, and 5 to 10 checking daily reports and following up.
That's half your estimate, and it leaves out the truck paperwork and the PO calls that sometimes end up with you. You pay for the build while it's being built, plus the running costs below. The time keeps coming back after that.
Investment
- A rate that follows the work. Month one is $3,200 for about 15 hours a week while the base and PO get built. After that, we set the hours and the rate together each month, and both can come down as the build winds down.
- Pause or stop after any month. Tell me before the next month starts and nothing more is invoiced. What's built stays in your accounts.
- 30-day warranty. If something I built breaks within 30 days of reaching your team, I fix it free, even if we've stopped.
Card is easiest and the button below handles it. If you'd rather pay by invoice, reply and I'll send one.
Costs and Considerations
- Running costs, paid directly to the providers on MC's card, not to me: Apple's $99 a year, Google's one-time $25, and hosting. Hosting depends on the setup we pick at kickoff, and I'll confirm it before anything is bought. Budget up to about $150 a month.
- Anything beyond the four systems, like change orders, gets planned into a future month or quoted on its own.
- Apple and Google review new store accounts and apps, which can take a few days to a few weeks. If they're slow, testers start on a browser version so PO isn't held up.
- If we link QuickBooks, Intuit reviews the connection before it can go live.
Assumptions
- The person you name at kickoff answers quick questions within a couple of business days.
- I reply to your messages within one business day.
- MC decides which training and certifications each role needs. The dashboard tracks them; compliance calls stay with you.
- Scope is the four systems in this proposal.
Next Steps
If we start by late October, a few of your people could be testing PO before Thanksgiving.
Dylan Sewell - VibeHook - dylan@vibehook.ai