COMPARISON
Beamcore or Excel: what fits your timber frame business?
Almost every timber frame business starts with Excel: a schedule, a timber list, a timesheet. That works, until more projects, more people and more versions come along. Here you see side by side what changes when you move to Beamcore.
Beamcore and Excel side by side
| Beamcore | Excel | |
|---|---|---|
| Drawings and versions | Every drawing with a version number in the project, the current version is always clear | Files in folders and email; you work out yourself which version applies |
| Client and contractor | Their own client portal with comments on the drawing | Separate PDFs and long email threads |
| Planning and capacity | Schedule people and resources, with a warning when overbooked | A tab per week, kept up to date by hand |
| Timber list and stock | Import the timber list, cutting plan, reserve and order (Timber stock add-on) | Retyping and adding up yourself |
| Production | Elements per table and day, progress from the shop floor (Production add-on) | Printed lists, progress by phone or whiteboard |
| Quality and Wkb | Checks, photos and deviations per element, with a file per project | Separate checklists and photos on different phones |
| Hours | Book hours per project, submit and approve per week | Paper timesheets or a separate sheet per employee |
| Working together | Everyone works in the same data, with rights per role | One person in the file at a time, copies drift apart |
| Errors | Calculations are fixed in the system | A shifted cell or broken formula is only noticed late |
| On site | App for phone and tablet | The file is on the laptop at the office |
| Costs | Monthly subscription, add-ons only when you need them | You often have the licence already; the cost is in the time spent keeping it up to date |
When Excel is still fine
If you do a handful of projects a year and one person keeps track of everything, Excel is often enough. It is flexible, everyone knows it and you already have it.
When it starts to pinch
It usually goes wrong at the handover: a drawing that changed while the workshop is still cutting from the old list, a schedule that no longer adds up because someone else edited it, or a Wkb file that still has to be pieced together at the end of the project. Beamcore records those steps in one system, so office, workshop, site and client work with the same data.
Switching step by step
You do not have to change everything at once. Start with drawing management and the client portal, for example, and switch on planning, timber stock or production once that works.
See what your Excel lists look like in Beamcore?
Book a demo. We show you how your way of working fits into Beamcore.