A builder’s diary has two halves. One is the programme of works. The other is every quote appointment, site survey and showroom visit a customer wants to arrange, and it is the half a project planner has nothing to say about. That half is what Picktime takes off your phone. Clients pick a slot from the times your surveyors are genuinely free, pay the survey fee when they book it, and the appointment is on the calendar before the enquiry goes cold.
Blu BuildBook online
Quote appointment45m · On siteFree
Full site surveyHalf day · Surveyor$180.00
Showroom visit1h · ShowroomBook
Next free8:00 AM11:15 AM3:30 PM
Booked online
9:20 PM
While you were still on a roof
Deposit
$45.00
25% on the site survey
Confirmation
Sent
Email, with the address on it
A project planner draws the bar chart of your trades, and none of this does. All of it deals with the customer on the other end of the phone who wants somebody to come and look at their kitchen.
Put the link on your site, on the van, on the board outside the plot. A homeowner who has just decided to get three quotes picks a morning and it is yours, with no account to make and nobody to ring back.
Say who does extensions and who does roofs, and give each of them their own working hours. The page offers a loft survey only in the diary of somebody who does lofts, and it stops offering a slot the moment it is taken.
Charge the whole fee, a percentage of it, or nothing at all, set for each service separately. A measured survey that costs you half a day is paid for when it is booked rather than argued about after it.
On the paid plans you write your own questions on the booking form, including the postcode, the parking, whether there are drawings already and whether it is listed. The answers arrive attached to the appointment, not in a separate inbox.
A confirmation goes out when they book, on the free plan; a reminder before the day is on the paid plans. Each carries a link to move it, so a customer who has had a change of plan tells you the night before instead of not being in.
A homeowner ringing round for three quotes gives the job to whoever gets a date in the diary first, and that is very often not the best builder; it is the one who answered. A booking link in your enquiry reply, on your website and on the board outside the plot turns a message you have to return into an appointment that is already made. It works at nine at night, which is when somebody who has been at work all day finally sits down to sort out the extension.
Weather, deliveries and a client who has to be at work move more surveys than anything else. Every confirmation carries a link the customer can use to pick a different morning or cancel outright, so the change happens without a call to somebody who is up a ladder. The hour they give back goes straight onto the surveyor’s availability, where the next enquiry can take it, which is the difference between a rearranged visit and a lost half-day.
Twenty to five, and you are still on the roof at the second job. The phone has three missed calls on it and a voicemail from a number you do not know. You will ring them back tonight, from the van, and two of them will not pick up because they are eating.
Picktime answers instead. The link is on the website and on the board outside the plot, the caller books a quote visit for Thursday morning at the time they are actually free, and the address and the access notes come with it. Nothing needed ringing back.
A quote appointment, a measured survey, a showroom consultation, each with how long it takes and what it costs, if anything. Set your working hours and the days you are not taking visits.
Give each surveyor their own login, their own hours and the work they cover, so a loft survey is only ever offered to somebody who surveys lofts. Add a second office or showroom if you run one, each on its own hours.
Your website, your enquiry reply, your social profiles, or a QR code on the board outside the plot and on the side of the van. They book, you get the confirmation, and the appointment is in your calendar.
The free plan is a plan, not a trial. There is no date at which it stops, no card to add, and nothing that quietly turns off in a fortnight.
A booked survey lands in the calendar your surveyors already keep, and a day you block out there stops being offered here. Payments run through PayPal on the free plan and through Stripe or Square on the paid ones, straight into your own account, so the survey fee is settled before anybody gets in a van.
Picktime runs in a phone browser as well as on a laptop, and there are iOS and Android apps, so a surveyor between jobs can see the next address and the access notes without going back to the office.
It depends which half of the job you mean. If you want a programme of works with task dependencies, that is a project planning tool. If you want the quote visits, surveys and client appointments booking themselves, Picktime does that free for one person, with your own booking page and payment taken at booking.
Yes, and that is the point of the page. They see the mornings your surveyors are really free, pick one, leave their details and get a confirmation by email. No account, and no call to return.
Yes. Charge the full fee, a percentage of it or nothing, set separately for each service, and take it through PayPal on the free plan or through Stripe or Square on the paid ones, into your own account. A free quote appointment and a paid survey can sit on the same booking page.
Yes. Each one gets their own login, their own working hours and the services they cover, so the page only offers a loft survey in the diary of somebody who surveys lofts and stops offering a slot the second it is taken.
No, and it does not pretend to. Picktime books appointments: the client-facing half of the week. Plenty of firms run a planning tool for the programme and Picktime for everything a customer needs to book. Once a job is under way, the meetings the client is in have a page of their own, booking site visits on a live job, which covers the progress walk-round, the stage sign-off and the snagging visit.
Yes, on the paid plans. You write the booking form questions yourself, so the page can ask for the postcode, the parking, whether there are existing drawings and whether the building is listed. The answers come attached to the appointment.
Yes. There are iOS and Android apps and the whole thing runs in a phone browser, so the next address, the access notes and the customer’s number are there without going back to the office.
Site visits A look at the roof booked from a link, with the address and the access answered first.
See roofing scheduling
Inspections A survey booked and paid for in one go, with the write-up time already held.
See home inspection scheduling
Measures A measure-up booked in the customer’s own evening, not in a phone call.
See flooring schedulingFree forever for one builder. No card, no trial clock, and your quote visits can be bookable before you get home tonight.
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