Excavation software buying guide
Choose software around the part of the job that needs fixing.
Estimating a job, running a crew, locating a machine, and sending an invoice are different needs. Start with the workflow, then compare the tools that cover it.
By CutFill · Updated
Start with the decision you need to make.
Write down the problem: pricing a bid, assigning the crew, finding recorded machine hours, reviewing field work, or sending the invoice.
Published by CutFill, this guide compares software categories rather than ranking vendors. Check each product’s scope in a demonstration.
Match the problem to the software category
- Takeoff and estimating
- For quantities, bid preparation, and pricing. Demonstrate your plans and estimate handoff.
- Time tracking
- For labor hours. Check job switches, corrections, approvals, offline behavior, and payroll handoff.
- Daily operations
- For crews, equipment assignments, job updates, and closeout. Follow one changing job through the office and field.
- Equipment telematics
- For hardware-based position and machine data. Check devices, coverage, update frequency, and hardware costs.
- Accounting
- For invoices, payments, books, and payroll. Confirm which records transfer from your field tools.
- Broader platforms
- For several departments. Compare implementation, field use, total seats, and the tools you still need.
Use the same job in every demonstration
Bring a real job
Use a multi-day job with two machines, a crew change, and added scope.
Follow the change
Show a reassignment, split job time, a field note, and office review.
Try a failure
Demonstrate an offline save, a correction, and an unsuccessful sync or transfer.
Price your people
Include every role, module, hardware requirement, and setup charge.
Where CutFill belongs in that decision
CutFill covers daily excavation operations: jobs, crews, job time, equipment records, field updates, and closeout.
Estimates, invoices, payments, payroll, survey, machine control, and live equipment GPS remain separate requirements.
- Small crew: follow the job, customer, hours, and machines.
- Several crews: follow assignments and foreman closeout across jobs.
- Fleet: review issues, repair work, and service history.
- Remote sites: demonstrate loaded work, local saves, and successful sync.
The details that matter
Compare the evidence behind similar feature names.
Published by CutFill. These are evaluation criteria, not measured claims that another vendor lacks a capability.
- “Equipment tracking”
- Ask whether the product records an assignment, an entered hour meter, a hardware location, or live engine data. Check who updates it and when the information was last refreshed. CutFill covers assignment and entered records; it is not a live GPS feed.
- “Offline”
- Ask what must be loaded first, which actions save locally, how attachments behave, and what a failed sync looks like. Demonstrate the final office record; a screen that opens without signal does not prove every action works offline.
- “Job costing”
- Ask which costs are included, where the rates come from, which units are combined, and how missing values appear. CutFill’s live import/export unit cost uses Material Tracking; it is not a full job-margin report.
- “Integration”
- Name the exact records, transfer direction, matching review, and failure recovery. Demonstrate the current connection rather than assuming every record transfers.