At Planyard, our mission is simple: help construction companies deliver the profit they expected when they priced the job.
We work mainly with small and mid-sized contractors who have reached the point where spreadsheets are no longer enough to reliably manage project financials. Planyard brings budgets, commitments, purchase and subcontract orders, invoices and forecasts together, so teams can see where their projects stand financially without the complexity of a traditional construction ERP.
To build that well, you have to understand how construction companies actually operate. We talk with customers every day, but whenever we visit them, sit down with their teams and see their businesses firsthand, we come away thinking the same thing: we should do this more often.
So Ekke and I recently headed to the UK for a few days with Planyard customers in Milton Keynes, Portsmouth and London, a catch-up with our friends at Xero, and enough time left over to enjoy London along the way.
When the customer greets you with a smile
One of the highlights was visiting a customer in Bletchley, Milton Keynes. The owner greeted us with a huge smile and shared something that was particularly rewarding to hear.
After previously making a loss, the company had gone on to make around £1 million in profit the following year after implementing Planyard.
Of course, software doesn’t make a construction company profitable by itself. Good projects, good people and good management do that. But reliable financial information matters enormously: knowing where a project actually stands, understanding committed costs, spotting problems before they become expensive, and seeing where the final margin is heading while there’s still time to do something about it.
That’s the problem Planyard was built to help solve. We spent around three and a half hours together, talking through how the company works, how they’re using Planyard today and where we can keep improving.
You simply don’t get the same understanding from a 30-minute Teams call.
Meeting the people behind the projects
We also spent time with the team at Vale Southern in Portsmouth. Again, being there in person meant we could see how the team actually works, answer questions and agree concrete next steps for getting more value from Planyard.
And no customer visit would be complete without meeting one of the most important members of the office: Charlie.
We also caught up with Skyler Contracting, a waterproofing and roofing contractor that uses Planyard to manage budgets and purchase orders without entering the same data twice.
These visits are useful for our customers, but they matter just as much to us. Ekke, our co-founder and marketing lead, doesn’t spend every day in customer conversations, so hearing those discussions firsthand and seeing how Planyard fits into the day-to-day reality of a construction company was valuable for him.
From customers to a Guinness with the people at Xero
Another highlight was finally getting some proper face-to-face time with our friends at Xero. We’ve worked with the Xero team remotely for quite some time. This time we caught up over a Guinness and were invited to visit their central London office.
Technology partnerships can happen over APIs, Slack, email and video calls. Relationships still happen between people.
Planyard’s Xero integration is an important part of what we offer contractors, particularly in the UK, so it was great to spend time together without an agenda made up entirely of integrations and product roadmaps. Apparently a pint of Guinness is still a pretty good collaboration tool.
Sightseeing in between the meetings
Fortunately, we didn’t spend the entire trip talking about budgets, invoices and construction margins. London is a good place to have a few hours between meetings.
We walked along the Thames, took in the views and made a serious attempt at London’s food scene: Pakistani, Indian, Chinese and whatever else we could fit into the schedule.
With the variety on offer, and reviews pointing us to some of the best places, we finished the trip without a single disappointing meal. Not bad project management.
Why we’ll be back in the UK
Trips like this remind us of something that’s easy to forget when you’re building a software company: the product is only one part of the relationship.
Planyard exists to help construction businesses keep control of their project financials and deliver the margins they expected. The best way for us to know whether we’re succeeding is to spend time with the people actually using it.
So we’ll be doing more of this.
We’re already thinking about our next UK trip. If you’re an existing Planyard customer and would like us to stop by, give us a shout.
And if you’re running a UK construction company in roughly the £3m–£35m turnover range, have outgrown spreadsheets and want better visibility over project costs, commitments and profitability, we’d be just as happy to meet.
Perhaps we’ll see you on the next trip.
Andres Kuuse
Co-founder & CEO, Planyard