Contractor Management Software for Construction
Managing fifteen trades across a live site is a production-control problem, not a procurement problem. VisiLean gives every subcontractor a weekly commitment on the master programme, captures field evidence from the LiveSite mobile app, and shows Percent Plan Complete per trade so a main contractor can see which crew is holding the plan up before it costs a week of float. One platform. One live schedule. Every trade accounted for.
Product names referenced on this page (CHAS, Avetta, Payapps, Procore, Autodesk Construction Cloud, Asite) are trademarks of their respective owners and appear for descriptive comparison only.
What contractor management really covers on a construction project
The term covers three distinct workflows, and most products address only one. Deciding which problem a main contractor is actually trying to solve is the first step in choosing software:
Pre-qualification and compliance
Vetting a subcontractor before they get on site. Insurance, RAMS, inductions, CDM 2015 duties, SSIP schemes. Served well by CHAS, Avetta and SMAS-style databases. This is a procurement workflow, run before the trade is on the programme.
Work allocation and commitments
What exactly each subcontractor is doing this week, how it ties into the master programme, and whether the predecessors are released. This is a Last Planner and production-control problem. Spreadsheets and WhatsApp groups still do most of the job on UK and Indian sites, and that is where programme risk silently builds.
Field performance and evidence
Did the work actually get done, to the right quality, on the day it was promised. Daily Progress Reports, snag and defect capture, signed-off tasks, photos. The evidence that drives pay application sign-off, extension-of-time submissions and the next week's lookahead.
VisiLean addresses the second and third of these: live weekly commitments and the field evidence that proves them. Pre-qualification stays in the project's existing PQ database or CDE.
What VisiLean actually does for contractor management
Trade-level commitments
Every weekly task on the Last Planner lookahead is owned by a specific subcontractor crew. The commitment is live on the master programme, not sitting in a trade meeting minute.
PPC per subcontractor
Percent Plan Complete is calculated per trade. Reason codes are captured when a commitment slips, so trade conversations are anchored in weekly evidence.
LiveSite mobile
Site engineers, foremen and subcontractor leads update task status, raise defects and attach photos from a phone. The office sees it live, not on Friday afternoon.
Programme risk by trade
Dashboards roll completion, PPC and defect density up to a trade-level view. The slippage shows up against the crew driving it, not as a generic programme variance.
Document link at activity level
RAMS, method statements and inductions attach to the activity they cover, so the site team sees compliance evidence in context when releasing work.
Pay-app ready evidence
Dated signed-off tasks, photos and defect closure feed into existing valuation workflows (Payapps, Procore Financials or in-house trackers) without re-keying.
Commitments and evidence: the two workflows that de-risk subcontractor delivery
Weekly commitments on the live programme
- Lookahead pulled from the master programme, not a parallel Excel.
- Constraints and predecessors visible to the subcontractor lead before they commit.
- PPC trend per crew week over week, with dated reason codes on every slip.
Field evidence from LiveSite
- Daily Progress Reports completed on a phone, no laptop needed on site.
- Defects and snags raised against the activity and routed to the responsible trade.
- Signed-off tasks, timestamps and photo evidence attached to the programme activity for valuation and reporting.
Where contractor management software fits beside procurement, compliance and pay
Being explicit about scope matters when a buyer is evaluating three or four products that all describe themselves as managing contractors. VisiLean handles the production-control layer. It pairs with specialised tools for the stages either side.
| Stage | Workflow | Covered by VisiLean |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-site | Pre-qualification, insurance, SSIP (CHAS, Avetta, SMAS) | No. Lives in the PQ database. |
| On site | Weekly commitments, PPC, lookahead, field capture | Yes. Core of the platform. |
| On site | Defects, snags, DPRs, signed-off task evidence | Yes. LiveSite mobile. |
| Finance | Pay applications, valuations, retention release | No. VisiLean feeds evidence to Payapps and equivalents. |
| Design | Drawing control, RFIs, submittals (CDE) | No. Lives in ACC, Asite or equivalent CDE. |
Main contractors already running VisiLean on multi-trade programmes
Deployments span data-centre, airport, tier-1 residential, fit-out and infrastructure programmes, with named main contractors who value the trade-level PPC and field-evidence angles specifically.
Full case studies: browse the case-study library.
Related reading
Last Planner System (LPS)
The weekly-commitments methodology behind trade-level PPC. Deep-dive hub explaining the five conversations.
Read morePercent Plan Complete (PPC)
The metric used across this page. What PPC actually measures, how it is captured per crew, how to read a trend.
Read moreBlog: Decoding the Lean in production management
On the shift from scheduling as paperwork to production control as a live workflow. Context for the trade-level view.
Read moreCase study: Mace / Leadenhall
UK tier-1 main contractor running VisiLean across trades on a central London programme. Trade coordination at scale.
Read moreFrequently asked questions
What is the difference between contractor management software and construction project management software?
Construction project management software covers the whole project: cost, documents, drawings, submittals, the lot. Contractor management software is the subset focused on the trades delivering the work. Who is on site this week, what did they commit to, did it get done, and what evidence proves it. VisiLean sits in that production-control slice. It links each subcontractor to concrete weekly commitments on the master programme and captures evidence from the field, so a main contractor can see trade-level performance without stitching together Excel trackers.
Does VisiLean handle subcontractor payment applications?
No. VisiLean is not a pay-app or valuations tool, and dedicated products like Payapps, Procore Financials or Pye-Smiths serve that workflow well. VisiLean provides the production evidence those pay-app workflows need: dated completion of each activity, signed-off tasks, defect status and photos. The valuation sits in the finance tool; the proof of installed work sits in VisiLean.
How does VisiLean track subcontractor compliance like RAMS, insurance and inductions?
VisiLean is a production-control platform, not a pre-qualification database, so it does not replace CHAS, Avetta or SSIP-aligned PQ tools. It integrates with the compliance evidence a project already uses by linking documents at the activity level: a RAMS, induction record or method statement can be attached to the specific programme activity it covers, so site teams see it in context when releasing work.
How does VisiLean show which subcontractor is driving programme slippage?
Each weekly commitment is attributed to a subcontractor crew in the Last Planner lookahead. Percent Plan Complete (PPC) is calculated per trade, dated reason codes are captured when a task is not released, and the dashboard rolls both up to a trade-level view. The master programme shows the delta on activities owned by that trade over time, so the conversation with the subcontractor is anchored in evidence rather than general impressions.
Can VisiLean be used alongside Procore, Autodesk Construction Cloud or Asite?
Yes. Teams typically keep their chosen Common Data Environment (ACC, Asite or equivalent) for drawings and submittals, and run VisiLean for the live schedule, trade commitments and field capture. Federated IFC and Revit models consumed from the CDE drive the 4D BIM view in VisiLean, so programme and model stay aligned without duplicating the document store.
See VisiLean on your trade mix.
Book a 45-minute working demo. Bring a live programme and a sample trade list, and we will show weekly commitments, PPC per crew and the LiveSite capture flow on your actual work.