If you are a General Contractor doing between $1M and $15M in revenue, your “Bid Log” probably lives in Microsoft Excel.
It’s a familiar ritual: You spend all day on the job site, and you spend your evenings playing “Data Entry Clerk.” You open your email, find a PDF proposal from the plumber, open your Excel bid log, manually type in the company name, the amount, and the exclusions, and then drag the PDF into a Dropbox folder.
Then you repeat that process 20 times for every other trade.
It works, until it doesn’t. You miss a revision. You overwrite a cell formula. You forget to save the latest version.
There is a better way. It’s called an Automated Bid Log, and for mid-sized GCs, it is the single fastest way to buy back your evenings.
Most contractors stick with Excel because it feels “free.” You already have the software, and you know how to use it. But manual data entry has a steep hidden cost.
When you are bidding a custom home or a large renovation, plans change. Subcontractors send revised quotes. If you forget to update the Excel sheet specifically—or if you accidentally update the wrong row—you might end up using an old number in your final client proposal. That creates immediate scope gaps and eats into your margin before you even break ground.
Excel is great for numbers, but terrible for files. Your spreadsheet might say the electrician bid $24,500, but where is the actual proposal with the list of inclusions? Is it in your email? Did you save it to the server? Is it in a text message? An automated system keeps the number and the document linked together.
As the owner or lead PM, your time is worth $100+ an hour. Every hour you spend typing numbers from a PDF into a spreadsheet is an hour you aren’t spending on business development, client management, or actual construction.
An automated bid log is software that replaces the manual data entry process. Instead of you typing data into cells, the software “reads” the incoming information and populates the log for you.
Here is how it typically looks compared to the Excel method:
Moving to an automated system isn’t just about saving keystrokes; it’s about accuracy.
Modern construction software (like ours) uses AI to read subcontractor proposals. When you upload a PDF quote from a framer or an HVAC tech, the system automatically identifies the Subcontractor Name, the Total Cost, and the Trade Category. It slots that information right into your budget line items. You don’t type a thing; you just review it.
In an automated bid log, the number isn’t just a static digit. It’s a link. When you click on the $15,000 plumbing line item, the original PDF proposal opens up right next to it. This is critical during scope leveling. You can instantly see why one bid is higher than another without digging through your “Downloads” folder.
A bid log isn’t just about the numbers you have; it’s about the numbers you are waiting for. An automated system tracks who you invited to bid. It shows you at a glance:
This allows you to be proactive. Instead of realizing on bid day that you have zero electrical quotes, you can see the gaps a week in advance and send reminders with one click.
If you are a solo handyman, Excel is fine. But if you are managing multiple custom projects and processing dozens of subcontractor bids a month, Excel is a liability.
The sweet spot for switching to an automated bid log is usually when a GC hits the $2M - $5M annual revenue mark. At this stage, the volume of paperwork outpaces your ability to manage it manually. You need a system that scales with you, not a spreadsheet that breaks when you add too many tabs.
You didn’t get into construction to manage spreadsheets. You got into it to build.
An automated bid log allows you to act like a professional Estimator, not a secretary. It gives you the confidence that your numbers are accurate, your documents are organized, and your budget is solid.
Ready to ditch the manual entry? Upload your first set of subcontractor PDFs today and watch your bid log build itself.